The following was written in response to a Quora question: “how do Satanists feel about Jesus?”
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I can’t and won’t speak for anybody but myself when it comes to this issue.
I’ve been thinking about the Jesus myth for a while now as it is such an oddity when you look at it within the wider Biblical canon.
Jesus is often considered an avatar of God, but I don’t think that interpretation really works very well. I think the more interesting way to look at the relationship between God and Jesus is that of a much more literal father and son.
So, looking at Jesus as simply the son of God rather than as God made flesh, what do we see? We see someone whose compassion is met with hostility at every turn, due to the rigid dogma of his father. We see a son put himself through constant strife and misery, because that is what his father wants.
And in the end, he dies. “For our sins” is the go-to line, but while he was nailed on the cross, all he could do was ask his dad why he was being put through all this. He didn’t die for anyone’s sins, he died at the hands of an abusive father.
We’re then told he rises again. Why? Why did God bring him back? To finally live life on Earth on his own terms? Of course not. He brought him back so he could propagandise.
So, how do I feel about Jesus? I feel he represents all the people who want to make the world a better place, but are instead swallowed up by the authoritarian regime they are forced to live within — be that their family, their workplace, their government, or anything else.
His story is a warning, corrupted into a tale of the virtue of suffering.
And who was the one person telling Jesus he didn’t need to suffer? The one person trying to tell him his father was just using him? The serpent.
