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"And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked…" - Genesis 4:4-7 "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil…" - Genesis 4:22

Hell yeah! This one's about Satan! "Six, six, six - is the numba - of the BEAST!" Wave that evil horned sign in the air! What would rock be without the Devil? Boy do I love Satan.

Well, throughout time, Satan (a word meaning "adversary") has appeared in countless myths as a fallen archangel, antagonist, and/or crafty soul purchaser. The creation myth from Genesis quoted above mentions nothing about a demon but only a serpent, however, the serpent has been likened to the archangel Satan more than once. In strict Christian doctrines and Slayer songs, Satan appears as a torturous ruler of hell or purveyor of all that is Evil. But in the best stories, Satan is a multidimensional character (not all evil) who questions the order of things, making the story interesting.

My personal relationship with Satan began as a young youth. They told me Satan was the bad guy, which I believed until I first heard AC/DC sing "Highway to Hell," and suddenly I became a questioner. How could Satan be so bad if this great music is made in his name, while all Jesus gets is Stryper and the high-school hoppin' Voyagers? As I grew from a young youth to an old youth, I saw shit-head Televangelical Christians, like Jimmy Swaggert, retardedly and with apelike brains condemn Ozzy and play Led Zeppelin's records backward, searching for Satanic references that might corrupt young minds. I always wanted to give them a Slayer record so they could play it forward. Save 'em some time and wouldn't fuck up the record.

The constant attacking of my religion, Rock 'n' Roll, by evangelicals used to piss me off, but now I think it's hilarious. Publicly attacking music for Satanic references is like dressing in full military regalia in the middle of town to attack a slice of pizza, or an ice cream cone. You'll draw a lot of attention to yourself, but it's pointless. Music doesn't make kids do bad things. I've listened to Ozzy and AC/DC as far back as I can remember, and now look at me? Okay, bad example.

But who gives a shit about these money-hungry, sex-addicted morons who thump the Bible more than they read it. I want to talk about the highly intelligent Satan.

In the Genesis creation myth, the serpent, often likened to Satan, wants people to become free thinkers, while the Lord, who created the people and the snake, just wants people to run around naked and fuck all the time ("be fruitful and multiply"), without any brains at all, simply adhering to Natural Law like every other animal (I tend to root for the Lord on this one). The serpent knew a way that people could develop intelligence, like the gods, so he played a little joke on the Lord and gets the chick and her dude to eat the fruit from this weird Tree of Knowledge, that the Lord created for God knows what reason. Now the people are able to "know good and evil" and evolve from ape to human. They are no longer under the Authority of the Lord. Thus, the serpent has paved the way for the development of the frontal lobes, and essentially is responsible for the advent of human freedom of choice and the godlike element of creativity.

But, now that the people are thinkers, they develop in their brains ideas of superiority, (i.e. Good is better than Evil) and become embarrased that they might not be as Good as they should be. Adam, seeing his wiener and thinking it might be a bit too small, covers it up. Eve looks at her boobies and covers them up. They have kids. Their one son kills the other one. Why? He thinks God likes the other one better. The Curse of the Frontal Lobes Striketh.

So, is what the serpent did good or evil? Neither, really. He just did it because he thought it'd be nice for the humans. There's a story from Greek myth that is like this one: the story of Prometheus. Instead of giving fruit to make humans smart, Prometheus gives them fire, which gives them logical thought. This pisses Zeus off so much that he chains Prometheus to a rock and has a bird come and peck out his liver, and his liver regenerates every day and the bird comes back and does it again. Talk about Hell! But in both stories, the Satanic figure clearly wants to give humans freedom from the authority of a supreme ruler.

But with this freedom, and the knowledge of good and evil (which is the old way to say a superiority complex), humans decided running around naked and fucking all the time, like God intended, wasn't very good. They created societies based on superiority and caste, and invented evils like religion from warped interpretations of ancient texts. They also invented the Work which the lower castes, of course, did all of. They divided up the land, fought and killed in the name of the Lord, and eventually invented enough nuclear bombs to blow up Lord's creation 10 times over.

Satan had seen the harm he'd caused by giving apes intelligence, and devised a plan. He wanted to create a medium whereby people, frontal lobes and all, could get the same enjoyment from life as they did before they evolved from apes, when they were running around naked and fucking all the time, like God intended. Maybe then, by engaging in something where good and evil would collide, destroying the superiority complex, people would cease to make life so miserable for each other. So around 1931, Satan dressed himself in a nice black suit and some loafers, quite in style for the period, and went to a crossroads somewhere between Robinsonville and Hazelhurst, Mississippi. There he met a young blues guitarist and singer by the name of Robert Johnson…

Johnson agreed to sell his soul to Satan for fame, women, free booze and the skills to play a mean guitar and write some of America's best ever lyrics. Robert Johnson did record, become famous, got some nice suits, got a lot of women, got into trouble and was finally poisoned by a jealous husband, most likely. All of it is the stuff of myth, and there are no facts, just speculation. What we do know is he died on August 13, 1938 at the cryptic age of 27.

The most important thing to Satan's divine plan was Johnson's fame. Hid popularity had opened the floodgates for blues music so that it reached the ears of young southern white kids, like Elvis Presley. And so, Rock 'n' Roll was created.

I used to hate it when idiots said Rock n Roll is the devil's music, but now I don't mind it. If those idiots are right, then the devil just wanted to give us humans a means to fully enjoy ourselves, to provide a platform whereby we can be released from the chains of our intellectualizin' frontal lobes before we blow ourselves to smithereens, just like he wanted to give us free will and the ability to think.

But, every time Satan gives us something, we greedy evil humans screw it up. I mean, look at rapcore metal. Look at the music business. It's full of more greedy spineless soulless sons a bitches than you can shake a stick at, so they tell me. People have managed to apply the superiority complex to the divine sound. The knowledge of Good and Evil has evolved into the knowledge of Cool and Sucks. Thus the Plague of the Rock Critic Elitist striketh.

But there are still those of us who appreciate Satan's final contribution. There are those of us who use rock n roll for what Satan intended: to overturn the apple cart, and have some FUN.

And there are those people who are trying to convict kids for murder based on the fact that they listen to music that mentions the devil in it, like the orangutans that run the show down in West Memphis, Arkansas. They are from the same ilk of people who in the old old days turned the mythological figure, Satan, something that never actually existed, into a scapegoat for all evil done in the world. This time the scapegoat was a few teenage kids who listened to Metallica.

The movie that documented the West Memphis fiasco, Paradise Lost, was named after the classic poem about Satan's fall from archangeldom, by John Milton.

Another good one to read, a bit more modern and funny, is Mark Twain's Letters From the Earth. It is a series of letters Satan wrote back to his buddies in heaven while visiting the earth. Dude, he completely rips on people, dude. Check it out. It cracks my shit up.

Mark Twain and John Milton were two people, who, like me, don't really buy into the whole bullshit about a guy that lives in the clouds who'll send you to hell to be tortured forever and ever amen by an evil half man half beast if you don't follow these 10 rules, and give one per cent of your income for each rule to the church.

But please don't think I'm here to knock all Christianity. That's a very hip thing to do these days, when you're not painting your nails black, or listening to Marilyn Manson, or driving your dad's Lexus to school. There are some people who are Christians that don't buy into the bullshit. I was raised by a couple of 'em