June 15, 28 J.E.
If you haven't figured it out by now, having an enemy to hate and fear is the single most unifying focus of humanity. People HAVE to have an enemy, whether it's the tribe over the hill, the neighbor's evil cat, or those damn Dallas Cowboys.
Of course, in the old days, such hatreds were limited to what I just mentioned: local and regional animosities. "Those evil Assyrians," you'd say. "I wish they'd end up a minor ethnic group in the Middle East that barely anybody knows about!" Naturally, those that you hate also hate you, and are actively seeking ways to defile your daughters, eat your sons, and make you bald.
As commerce improved and ideas became more widely disseminated, people began to develop cross-ethnic enemies. Europe, for all of its factional strife, was united in its hatred of the Jews and, when they ran out of Jews, Satan.
Satan is probably the archetypical enemy of the "good". Invisible and incorporeal, he constantly toils to bring about mankind's downfall. Satan is a success for three real reasons. First, he scratches that little, nagging itch people have to believe in the supernatural. Second, his conspiratorial nature allows us to blame anything we don't like on the "works of Satan," whether it's a mass slaughter of children or a crappy TV show.
The third and most driving reason, though, is probably the fact that he gives us someone to blame for our own failures. That's right, it's all Satan's fault that you touch little boys and cheat on your taxes and rip the tags off mattresses. You're not REALLY a bad person, it's Satan who's making you do it. It if wasn't for him, you'd be an angel!
Fundamentalists and other lunatic fringe cults love Satan, because they can use him to more thoroughly brainwash their flock. Anything that does not match up with their dogma is the work of Satan, and anyone who tries to convince them to leave the cult is a servant of Satan. If you're suckered in by Satan, you'll go to Hell!
In an increasingly technological, secular world, you'd think that Satan would gradually become a figment of those minds still awash in the medieval septic tank where astrology, homeopathy, and anti-Semitism belong. Actually it has, sort of&ldots;
Some of the new political groups that are following their one-button hot issue with religious zeal have created all new Satans for themselves, now matter how hip and liberal they pretend to be. You have the government, the white male, and the opposing political party as the equivalent of Satan that represent the darkest of conspiratorial evils, but one has become more popular than any other.
That is, simply the corporation. If there is one entity more universally vilified by ex-hippies and new radicals alike, it's that legal construct that most of those morons couldn't even define. They sure do hate it, though! Yes, corporations are solely responsible for all of the suffering of the world. They put holes in condoms so that diaper manufacturers and STD drug makers and make money. They suppress technologies that would allow us to make energy out of our used socks. They addict us to fast food so they can sell more fitness equipment. They control the weather of 3rd world countries to create droughts so they can sell them more food. They put mercury in baby formula because&ldots;well, they're just EVIL.
As with the original Satan, though, it's just a chance for people to once again pass the buck. Corporations, in almost all cases, just do what their customers want them to do. People DEMAND the right to drive SUVs that get 5 miles per gallon, to eat 6 pounds of lard a day, to smoke a carton of cigarettes an hour, and to ignore the starving multitudes in some far off country.
Of course, you can't TELL people that. For any religious or political group to succeed, they have to convince people that someone ELSE is to blame for all their problems, and that the group has the means to fix it. So whether they're out fighting the evil corporations because they won't build electric cars that nobody wants to buy or rounding up Jews and Gypsies for slaughter, it's all part of the Satan Effect.
I don't believe in Satan, but if I did, I'd say that his greatest coup was not getting people to deny he exists, as some religious nuts would tell you. On the contrary, it was getting people to blame him for everything.