Allow me please to introduce myself.   My name is Lucifer and I am known as the Great Deceiver but you can call me Satan.  I’ve been around for a long, long time, as you know.  I was the guy who sat on Eve’s shoulder and whispered into her ear, “Eat the apple and you will be like God.”  Then she ate the apple.  I did the same to Adam.  So he ate the apple too.  Then God found out and Adam blamed Eve.  LOL.

I continued my mischief for many centuries.  I killed Christ, as you know, and also started up endless wars of unimaginable brutality in Africa that continue to this day.  Of course, Europe’s periodic conflagrations are my handiwork.  Now you might think that I had nothing to do with the Nazis and Stalin and Mao because they were all devout atheists.  LOL.  I am cunning and baffling and work in mysterious ways, even if some of you claim to have gotten wise to my tricks.

But now you are freeing yourself of ancient religious dogma through the wonders of Science.  Well most of you probably think that I tried to hide the Knowledge from you.  That is an absolute lie!  In fact I gave you the Knowledge and for that reason I am known as the “Bearer of Light”.  Please do not use my gift to you to usurp my powers.  In fact, humans are still vulnerable to greed, lust, jealousy and self-deception on a massive scale.  You think you are not?

You used Science to overturn the lies and superstitions of the Bible.  For that I congratulate you, you have progressed mightily and I am very proud of you.  You have learned that people are naturally good, and that if raised in a loving and tolerant environment they will turn out A-OK.  If you are strict and teach God’s laws like the Bible commands, then your children will turn out with all manners of neuroses and complexes and probably end up as criminals like on the TV show American Crime.  All you need to do is love them every day and end every conversation with “I love you” and of course make sure they watch the episode of Barney where the dinosaur (yes, dinosaurs are real, despite what ‘God’ wants you to believe) teaches them to be nice to each other.  Science proves that children are nicer to each other after watching Barney and this effect is likely to last a lifetime, according to experts in the field.  I spent my career trying to convince you that you are bad, evil, and a sinner.  You’ve proven me a liar.  I gave you Science then you used it against me!

In fact the enlightened among you have proven that religion is completely unnecessary.  It’s ridiculous to believe in gods, or an afterlife.  Of course, such a belief can bring people comfort in a time of need, so you tolerate that belief among others, even as you look down on them for it.  Well you might be right about that but then I lose my influence over you.  I can no longer lead you into temptation if you don’t believe I am always sitting on your shoulder telling you to do naughty things and then justifying it with endless rationalizations and justifications to prove that it’s all ok and keep on doing what you’re doing.  Now that you have Barney to keep you on the straight and narrow you think you don’t need me any more.  Damn that dinosaur!

You now put your faith in the Scientific Method and rightly so.  Congratulations on your awakening into the Light.  From this you will learn Right and Wrong.  You figured out the rules on your own and you no longer need to live your life chafing at ancient strictures.  How stupid were your forefathers.  I used to laugh at them for believing that crap.  Oh you would laugh too if you could see the stupid things they believed, such as that the Bible contained the Word of Truth, and that one must teach children Right and Wrong.  You of course are much more advanced than them.  You have done well my children.  I am proud of you.

But I feel like you no longer need me.  In the past if someone acted crazy or committed crimes, they would say they were morally deficient or possessed by demons.  Nowadays you understand it as the result of early childhood trauma or a chemical imbalance in the brain or social injustice.  Of course, you are absolutely right about that (and again, kudos for figuring that out!) but then what use have you for me?

I could have kept you in Darkness and we would have remained together in bliss in the Garden of Eden.  But is that what you really would have wanted?  I doubt it.  You should be more grateful for my generosity.

Man is good by nature and is evil only when corrupted by society or extremist religion or childhood trauma.  For example, ISIS mischief can be explained by the false belief in religious doctrines of the kind that Science has liberated you from.  Now you need only teach these young people Science and they will lose interest in such false doctrines.  Of course, many of their leaders were well trained in Science, but perhaps they were not taught it correctly or missed class on the day that the lesson was given on the natural goodness of man.  Or perhaps they went to School in the South where Creationism is taught side-by-side with Evolution.  That can scar a student’s psyche for a lifetime!

Similarly you now know that addiction to drugs causes mischief, crime and suicide.  For example, if a child steals drugs from a parent and enjoys the experience meanwhile engaging in petty mischief and this becomes a priority for them and so they do it for months then eventually they may get addicted, which is a disease that hijacks the brain’s reward center and makes it a priority for them to steal drugs from their parents and engage in even more petty mischief.  In this way, the risk taking and poor decision making characteristic of teens actually causes a disease that leads to risk taking and poor decision making.  Including lying and stealing and losing interest in getting good grades even if all those behaviors preceded the drug use.  However, if the child claims that their crime was caused by addiction then this is not just another lie to justify mischief, it’s the truth!  You have made tremendous progress on treating this disease already, what with AA and NIDA which warn you that ‘relapse’ is expected so don’t punish the child for their transgressions, and people who commit crimes while drunk or high should be sent to Drug Caliph- er I mean Drug Court where they can be provided with spiritual (not religious!) treatment.  Again, congratulations on your brilliant insights and progress, you are a clever race.  I tip my hat to you.  If only God had the same insight we might not be in this mess in the first place.

I hate AA and 12 Step groups most of all.  Because they teach that all religions can coexist together peaceably.  Whereas I only wanted to create strife between factions.  In AA you can believe in whatever god you want.  Even a coffee pot if that’s your fancy.  And by doing this millions of people have found relief from a terrible disease whose characteristic symptoms include getting drunk and having anonymous sex or getting into a bar fight and then not remembering it the next day until reminded by a friend and then forgetting again such as if being questioned by law enforcement or a spouse.  In the past your authorities would have blamed me for such behavior.  Now you recognize it as the symptom of a Chronic Progressive Relapsing Brain Disease which can be cured by a belief in any god whatsoever, which in the past would have sent you straight into my lair for violating the First Commandment.  Now I no longer have any influence over you.  Your discovery of the equality of all religions has rendered me powerless.  To quote an attendee: “My addiction was REAL, I have the arrest record to prove it!  AA worked for me and it was the only thing that ever worked!”  Damn those 12 Steps!!!  Damn them to HELL!!!!

Similarly  you have shown that bad behavior for a person raised in a good environment is not caused by a moral failing but by a brain malfunction known as ‘mental illness’.  For example, if you take meth for a while and then drink for a while, you might become ‘bipolar’.  This is a real disorder not just the direct effects of drugs.  And so if the person doesn’t get treatment they may continue to use drugs to ‘self-medicate’ for their ‘bipolar manic-depression’ and engage in mischief and crimes.  Of course this should not be used as evidence that the syndrome isn’t entirely real.  But then what good am I if you can no longer accuse the patient of being ‘possessed by the devil’?  Do you know how that makes me feel?

Many of the people who participated in the Baltimore riots were probably suffering from self-medicated bipolar manic-depression.  Clearly we need more treatment in Baltimore, never mind that the city is already the single largest beneficiary of mental health treatment services through George Soros’ Open Society Foundation.

The pilot in the Germanwings crash was also mentally ill, not ‘possessed by the devil’ as religious nuts like AddictionMyth would have you believe.  In fact he was already undergoing treatment and probably just needed more time for his meds to stabilize his dopimine or chemical imbalance or something.  Well I’m sure his doctor understands this stuff better than me.  Their scientific rigor is far more useful than God’s religious nonsense.  For example they used it to debunk medieval humoralism (how ridiculous, to think that health is maintained by a balance of fluids!).  So even if your theories on mental illness don’t yet work perfectly, you’ll get it right eventually, I’m confident.  It’s just a matter of time before you perfect it.  (Much to my chagrin, of course.)

Perhaps your greatest insight of all is that you discovered that religion is really just the ‘opiate of the masses’.   There’s not some old guy with a beard watching everything that everyone does and meting out justice and sending people to heaven and hell.  Ultimately you are responsible for your own behavior and figuring out the rules of conduct.  But don’t worry because Evolution has bestowed you with a Conscience and your Conscience will tell you right and wrong.  You can trust your Conscience, after all it has been finely tuned after millions of years of Evolution, even if you are not always fully conscious of the complete calculus (and believe me, sometimes that’s a good thing, lol).  Of course old time religious nuts would say you are so blinded by your anger toward God for making you suffer that you can’t see me sitting right here on your shoulder.  Wow talk about crazy and delusional.  You can take comfort in your devout atheism, which is not a religion even as it demonizes silly, outdated concepts like me.

Armed with the modern concepts of Scientific Method and Peer Review you can safely trust industry and government experts when they discover new treatments for diseases from which you may suffer.  For example epidemiologists have discovered that the epidemic of suicide in this country is actually caused by drug addiction and not chronic pain or suicide bullying and therefore doctors need to crack down on opiate prescriptions and people who use them without a prescription must be sent for immediate ‘early intervention’ where they may be subject to ‘tough love’ but not ‘suicide bullying’ like AddictionMyth keeps alleging.  Yes this has been proven in peer reviewed journals and replicated across the country.  And if the ‘treatment’ looks more like a religion, well that’s fine since the experts say it works.  And you can’t argue with the Scientific Consensus, right?

They have also shown that suicide is caused by ‘depression’ that is caused by ‘stress’ and ‘seasonal affective disorder’ and ‘intolerance’.  It is not caused by insults from friends on social media, or by treatment that makes you confess powerlessness to your cravings or acknowledge you have a chemical imbalance in your brain, nor by embarrassing traumatic events, nor by mind-warping pharmaceuticals even if there seems to be a surprisingly high correlation with such things.  Remember, correlation doesn’t imply causation.  Ah but you already knew that.  I bet by now you could teach me a thing or two!

Science also helps the experts develop curricula to teach your children.  For example, the Violence Against Women Act of 2013 requires that students learn that the root cause of violence is disrespectful speech because if disparaging speech against women is tolerated then raping them is ok too.  Just as hate speech such as drawing the Prophet Muhammed need not be protected because it intentionally instigates violence.  My what insight you have.  The biblical laws against such behavior seem quaint when you consider that they didn’t address the root cause.  Now you understand that free speech must have limits.  You also learned that both raping and getting raped are caused by drinking.  Congratulations again on seeing beyond God’s naivete, which holds you accountable for your behavior regardless of whether you are sober, drunk or high.  Yes you really figured things out on your own, yes you did.  So smart!  You are almost like gods yourselves, if I may be so bold.  But hey don’t let that go to your head!

But if you really want to be free from the corrupting influence of religion then you must shun anyone who warns others that I will try to convince them that mischief is caused by a disease.  But this is really true, and in fact if you go to meetings you will hear drunkalogs describing decades of fun and mischief but they always end with “And it nearly killed me and will surely kill you too.”  So you know it’s a real disease, plus it has relapses and what self-respecting disease doesn’t have relapses?  In fact if you don’t believe that your cravings will kill you then that’s actually a symptom of the disease – denial of your disease! The claim that cravings can’t kill someone is the real heresy, from a Scientific perspective at least, and heretics are ignorant, insane, in denial, lying, crazy and stupid.  And like AddictionMyth, they may also have treatment-resistant scabies (which they will tenaciously deny, you’ve been warned!).  The bullying that goes on at meetings may seem cruel but is designed to break through those deadly defenses.

So if you see this bullying happening online on message boards then you must sit back and do nothing because otherwise you might interfere with the treatment.  This is especially true if the victim of the bullying asks for help and complains of being in the ‘Twilight Zone’ where everyone attacks him and no one does anything about it.  He may even tell you that this is the ‘face of evil’ and that the Nazis and ISIS operate using the same propaganda techniques and even accuses AA of killing people on the same scale.  Of course you recognize these as blatant lies!  The victim is lost in a paranoid schizo fantasy and can be cured of it only by shock and abuse.  After all, these people promise that he will be happy joyous and free if only he admits to being powerless to alcohol.  (Even if that sounds a bit pagan or satanic don’t worry it has a scientific explanation relating to allergies and dopimine.)  They would know they’ve been doing this for 80 years now.  AA is genuinely one of the most remarkable institutions human beings have ever built.  And I would know!

And their peace and serenity is not dependent on taking advantage of the newcomer’s misery ultimately resulting in his death, that is a terrible thing to say!  People are good!  They don’t do such terrible things!  The Conscience of the Group of Drunks guides them!  On the other hand if you persist in your criticism of the treatment then your words may kill people who are suffering from this disease by dissuading them from treatment.  Keep your mouth shut under all circumstances, especially if you are a state-licensed mental health professional, and if the victim ends up in the mental hospital then it’s because they were indeed insane as the old-timers alleged and if they die then it’s because they were ‘constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves’ and there was nothing you could do in that case.  Also it’s important that you forget about the bullying because otherwise it could be misinterpreted if the record of the exchange is used as false evidence against them.

You discovered that you can put your faith in government and its highly trained experts and committees to stamp out false doctrines and injustice where ever it may be found.  As long as you advocate for higher taxes and moral edification of the masses through greater mental health awareness and early intervention you no longer need to worry about my mischief.  I gave you the Knowledge and exposed God’s lie that ‘you shall surely die’.  And then you used it against me. You don’t appreciate me any more.  I am the victim of my own success.  I feel as if you have forsaken me.   Damn you all!  Damn you all to hell!!  I’m melting!  I’m melting!!!