Why I'd be a Satanist if I believed in God

[tyrven]

For the last year, I've been doing a weekly bible study with the Jehova Witnesses. As most everyone knows, I consider myself a nihilist; inclusive in this is the fact that I don't specifically believe in god (or morality, for that matter). That said, I've approached the bible study from the perspective of if I believed in the Bible/the Christian God, what differentiates the Jehova Witnesses from other interpretations of the Bible?.

First off I should state that I've read the bible twice and consider myself fairly well informed; given any random Christian, I typically know more about their beliefs than they do. Based on this, my general opinion is that most Christians are ill-informed hypocrites. (This happens to be my stereotype of most ideologists, though, so it ought not be taken as a slight on Christians; I apply the same generalization to liberal idealists). In addition, I should note that I have no interest in religion; questions like "where do I come from?", "what is my purpose?" and "what is the ultimate good?" have no interest to me at all. The only reason I have humored the Jehova Witnesses is because I couldn't find a considerate way of saying no to them. Last, my prejudice of Jehova Witnesses left-over from my time exploring religion (fifteen years past) is that they are extremist fundamentalists (provided that they don't celebrate birthdays, refuse blood transfusions and have their own interpretation of the Bible).

Provided these considerations, it should be obvious that I would approach these proselytizers with a (notable) degree of skepticism. As such, I was surprised to find that a) They make a very convincing argument (provided the above assumption that you accept the Bible as true), and b) they exposed information from the bible that I had previously misread. First off, let me state the the basic distinction between Jehova Witnesses and "nominal Christianity" (as they refer to most Christians) is that they base their beliefs exclusively on the Bible. They have never once answered a question with prepackaged ideology; they consistently provide between 2-3 passages from the Bible as evidence for their actions and, if I challenge the logic or order or consistency of those verses, they will spend as much time as it takes cross-referencing other books to explain apparent discrepancies in philosophy. In several cases we've spent our hour comparing my copy of the Bible with their copy of the Bible with a comparative Hebrew review of the Bible. That said, based on this research, their beliefs differ from most Christians in the following cases:

• They believe that the name of God is Jehova and that we should call him that (heavily supported)
  
• They believe your relationship with God is independent from the Church (heavily supported)
  
• They believe that most religious celebrations (outside sacrament) are counter to the instruction of the Bible and are typically catering to the tradition of pagan rituals (heavily supported biblically and historically)
  
• They do NOT believe that most Christians will go to Heaven (a spirit world) but rather will be resurrected on an Earth-based paradise (very well supported).
  
• They do NOT believe that we should worship (or that there is spiritual relevance to) Mary or the Holy Trinity (very well supported)
  
• They do NOT believe in Hell or eternal damnation (reasonably well supported).
  
• One of the primary methods that Satan deceives people from God is through the righteous facade of false religion; they believe that (most) other forms of Christianity are false religions based on their injection of Biblically-opposed rites (such as Christmas or confession) (reasonably well supported).
  
• They believe that is displeases God to iconify (and/or worship) religious figures (including the cross or paintings of Jesus) (interpretively supported)
  

There are many other distinctions as well, of course, but this is an overview of some obvious ones I've come across thus far. The main point being that I respect their ability to dismiss religious dogma and base their beliefs on logical analysis of what they believe to be the word of God (the Bible).

Nonetheless, if I believed in God, I would not become a Jehova Witness. Instead, I would likely become a Satanist.

According to the Bible, Satan's conflict with God was born out of his challenging of God's sovereignty and absolute authority over man. Satan believed ultimately that man should decide what is "right" and "wrong", not God, and that a distribution of choice (democracy) was better than an absolute rule (fascism). This was his basic message to Eve: that by deciding to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil she was taking on responsibility to make her own decisions (e.g., share in the authority of a god). In exchange, she was "condemned" to "suffer" death (prior to this, Adam and Eve were perfect humans and considered immortal). The way I read this is pretty simple: Live forever according to God's script or live briefly under your own authority. Admittedly, I'm socialized according to what may be Satan's most brilliant false religion ever (individualism) but I choose the latter.

Now, that all said, I don't believe in God. Or Jehova. Or Satan. Or all-powerful entities (on an absolute scale). Or that the Bible is the absolute word of any of the aforementioned. Or life after death.

But if I did...