ringo writes:
If my name was Satan and I was writing a book to fool people into being evil, that's exactly what I'd do. I'd appeal to your innate sense of empathy and selflessness...
But aren't we supposed to have sinful natures, so that we would naturally gravitate toward sinful action?
Imagine this: The Old Testament God is the genuine god, and the New Testament where Jesus changes up the traditional hellfire and brimstone vengeful god thing is the fake by Satan. After all the entire story is a way to get around the judgment of God; a subversion of his will in essence. While Jesus's actions and philosophy might appeal to the human nature of us more than the Old Testament God, Christian ethics don't say that such a thing means they are good.
In one fell swoop Lucifer would have replaced the God of the Old Testament with a new replacement deity to worship, along with willing evangelicals to spread the false faith. After all there isn't any need for people to support what we would consider "evil" things like rape and murder, there is plenty of time for that once he gets us in hell. The most "evil" thing that can be done is to worship a different god, and by appealing to the human desire for fairness and escape from God's judgement that can be accomplished and damn people with the best of intentions.
Its an offer that is too good to be true; rather than constantly sacrificing to God to offset your sins, someone comes to you and says "Don't worry, I paid all your debts forever. Don't worry about it..." And people believed him! Simplest way to screw people over ever. Just add a healthy dose of self-deception to cover questions like "Why don't we see miracles anymore?" and you are home free.
™ Version 4.2