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[from http://www.impulsedata.net/~leved/hole/moham1.htm ]

Subject: A Short History of the Devil
                                   
                          by Priest Mohammed
                                   
   Horned gods were worshipped in Europe and the rest of the world
   from the dawn of humanity. They were always part of a pagan
   belief system, a polytheistic belief system, which accepted many
   gods. Tribal pagan belief systems still in existence share this
   characteristic: the tribes worship their tribal gods, and other
   gods mentioned by strangers are not evil, or non-existant, they
   are simply not their gods.
   
   There were many ancient monotheistic religions such as Judaism,
   but again these were tribal religions, which had no urge to
   prosyletise, to "spread the word". Jehova was the god of the
   Jews, and they felt no need to persuade other tribes to worship
   him as well.
   
   Christianity changed all that. It felt an overpowering need to
   make their one god the god of everybody else within range, and so
   they invented the missionary. But to do this it was necessary to
   discredit the old pagan gods, and in particular the goddess and
   the horned god.
   
   Pagan pantheons never include gods of evil. Pagan gods are
   aspects of Nature, and in Nature there can be no evil; it exists
   only in the human imagination. They frequently include trickster
   gods, such as Loki, and gods can have a reputation for being
   unwise to be involved with, but not actual evil. Monotheistic
   religions, on the other hand, require a god of evil as an
   adversary of their god of good. Otherwise, why would you need
   Him? An obvious way to discredit the horned god and justify
   punishment of his worshippers is to say that he is, in fact, the
   god of evil in the new religion. And has been all along.
   
   This did not happen all at once. For centuries Christianity
   existed alongside much older pagan beliefs all across Europe, and
   adapted to the people there and accomodated their beliefs as far
   as possible. The Celtic Christian Church in Dark Age Ireland is a
   typical example.
   
   Then in AD 1248 Pope Innocent IV decided that it was time to
   suppress all heresy and for that purpose he founded The Holy
   Office, or as it later became better known, The Inquisition. It
   really took off in the fifteenth century (especially in Spain),
   and began rooting out all and any lingering traces of pagan
   belief.
   
   Being an organization run entirely by men it took an instant
   dislike to the old wise women living around every country
   village, passing on ancient pagan folk-lore to the new generation
   and selling folk medicine and magic charms. The priests declared
   that these women were worshippers of the devil, and must be
   burned. During the process of extracting imaginative confessions
   from their bewildered captives a brand new folk myth was
   gradually born, as the inquisitors continually outdid one another
   in imagining new horrors of depravity in the worship of Lucifer,
   and under torture their prisoners confessed to it all.
   Christianity created its own reflection, and called it Satanism.
   
   In order to improve the consistency of the confessions, and
   thereby create the evidence for this imaginary foul creed, a
   special manual was required, detailing the exact acts of which
   the "witches" stood accused, and would therefore confess to. It
   also described in excruciating detail exactly how to extract such
   confessions. This "Witch Hunting: How To Do It" guide was
   published in 1486, written by two monks, Heinrich Kramer and
   James Sprenger. It was called The Malleus Maleficarum, or "Hammer
   of the Witches".
   
   This was the origin of Satanism, as most people understand it.
   Before this there had been only the Luciferians (a real heresy),
   who practised Christianity in most important respects but with
   one exception: having read the fine print in the early Coptic
   texts from which the common Christian bible is derived. They had
   noticed that the actual creation of this world was credited to
   Lucifer, an angel working for Jehova. So they offered up their
   prayers to Lucifer as "the real master of this world". They did
   not sacrifice babies, call up demons or do anything else
   distasteful. They just saw a different name on the title deeds.
   
   Satanism had never existed before The Malleus Maleficarum, but
   now anyone with an urge to kick against the heels of the ultimate
   father figure had the definitive guide to work from. Two devout
   Christian monks created Satanism.
   

Demons
                                   
   It is apparent that horny forest spirits were a part of
   countryside folklore as late as the 18th century and only a
   hundred years after the heyday of The Inquisition Shakespeare was
   writing about them in his plays. These Pan-like creatures, known
   as Pucks or Robin Goodfellow, had the appearance of satyrs and
   the habit of copulating with human women. In an early confession
   these harmless creatures must have been mentioned and the
   inquisitors seized upon it, and then used it again and again.
   Until now the villagers worshipping in church on Sunday and
   practising simple folk magic the rest of the week had thought
   nothing of it, but now Robin Goodfellow was given a new name: The
   Devil, and became irredeemably evil.
   
   Before this the devil had no clear shape: after the fifteenth
   century he had cloven hooves, goat legs, a tail, horns and a
   sex-drive. Wings were added because he was supposed to be a
   fallen angel. None of this is to be found anywhere in the
   scriptures.
   
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EOF