Expert: Jeffrey Eldred - 3/9/2010

Question
Do atheists Beleive in Satan?

Answer
This is an easy question: No. Atheists do not believe in Satan.

As far as we are concerned worshiping Satan is a prospect similar to us as worshiping any other god - it does not appear to have any justification for why this Being exists and if It does exist why we should keep Its commandments. In fact, Satanism seems objectively less reasonable than Christianity if for no other reason than Satanism would require some of Christian theology to be true, but not all of it - which is a very bizarre situation to be in.

To believers, God, universe, love, and morality are all the same thing. To atheists, however, they are different. Although we think the notion of God is rather useless, we believe in value in the universe, value in human emotions, and value in moral principles. The main difference is we feel like the religion is not enough focused on the reality of the universe, not enough in touch with principles of human empathy, not enough in line with the moral sense we all have inside of us. If God says "Thou shalt not kill" we don't disagree with the idea that murder is wrong, we disagree with the idea that we would be waiting on his opinion to decide what to think about murder. On other issues like gay rights, freedom of speech, use of contraceptives, premarital sex, feminism, and stem-cell research we feel there are moral reasons to disagree openly with the position that God takes (or rather, the position that some humans claim to know God takes). The important thing is we don't look to God or Satan for cues, we just wish the whole obsession with the supernatural could be made irrelevant.

Occasionally you will hear religious people claim that atheists work for Satan. What they mean to say is that atheists are either being unwittingly influenced by Satan or are inadvertently advancing society in the direction he would like. Obviously either suggestion is insulting to atheists and is said without any justification whatsoever. Whatever is said about us, we would just like people to answer our arguments on their merits. Is there or isn't there sufficient reason to believe in God? How do we know a certain proposition is just? What are the proper boundaries for human liberties?

I'm glad you had the courage to ask us directly what it is we think.