Pope Francis defends atheists

[Ryantology]

...but your buddy satan has never done this?

I don't know. Has he? At best, it's one word against another, and for someone who doesn't take sides in this cosmic bitchfit, there's really no compelling reason to accept the Bible's version of Satan's character as accurate. Why would God give a fair and impartial account?

Even if an impartial observer takes the Bible at face value, there's still the problem that you can only believe, as it believes, if you also believe that disobedience to authority is a more profound crime than mass murder and rape and slavery and all of God's other favorite OT activities... because the Bible only ever depicts Satan as doing nothing more than undermining God's will. To a mindless slave of authority, this certainly warrants Satan being the Bible's supervillain. To the rest of us, it is, at worst, two bad guys fighting for the right to be the biggest bad. It is exactly the same situation in Animal Farm, when two pigs compete for supremacy, the more violent and malicious Napoleon exiles the more progressive Snowball, accusing him of every crime he can think of and making him the official Satan analogue of Animal Farm... and all he was truly guilty of was thinking independently. Of course, in the end, some of animals realize that Napoleon is no different from the evils he preached against.

The rest just keep on believing Comrade Napoleon is always right.