The Three Pillars of Monotheism - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are not monotheistic. They are offshoots of Zoroastrianism in which the universe is ruled by two opposite forces. One representing the good "Ahura Mazda" and one evil "Angra Mainu". Like Yahweh, Jehovah, and Allah Ahura Mazda is given a slight upper hand over Satan or Aingra Mainu. There is in all four of these religions an end time in which the good will triumph over the evil.
What purpose does this very successful meme serve ? This fairy tale view of morality allows humans to split the concept of evil into two factions. Evil deeds perpetrated by God such as genocide by flood, evil plagues, and fireballs from heaven are seen as justice and twisted mercy. The same holds for evil deeds performed by followers of said God.
Of course common murders, pagan human sacrifices, racial genocide can then be chalked up to Old Lucifer {Mephistopheles is such a mouthful these days}.
How philosophically convenient to have this moral flexibility. How many evil deeds have been justified with this tricksters tool?
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Oh, where to begin? Shall we start at the crusades? Perhaps the witch hunts of dark age Europe? The Catholic churches smuggling of Jews into Germany in WW2? The list goes on and on...... and dosent stop.
All those religions are all the same.
They all say:
Killing is bad, m'kay, but killing nonbelievers is not so bad, m'kay, well frankly speaking it's good and you'll be rewarded in heaven for killing non-believers, m'kay.
Raping is bad, like really bad, m'kay, but raping nonbelievers or making them sex slaves is ok, like having god's approval, m'kay.
We are religion of peace, m'kay, but we're at war and will kill every faking last one of you, especially the one who doesn't agree with us and the claim that we're religion of peace, m'kay.
So there really is no big difference in methods. Just the name of particular god, and some fancy looks - beards, burkas etc. to distinguish righteous from wrong-believers.
It's like politics, only everyone's pretending without realising it, and no one acknowledges the other side for anything more than fools. Actually, they have that in common too.
Actually there's a Christian sect (the Christadelphians) that doesn't believe in a personal devil. For them, Satan, the adversary, is the human heart that tends to disobey God's commandments; but ultimately God is responsible for everything, which is no less convenient than an exterior devil. It just makes their god more ferocious.
I try to explain to most Christians that, according to their Bible, since their "devil" is a fallen angel created by "God", then " God" created the "devil" (and, being omnipotent, should have known this would happen) Kind seems like a "Fault in Forsight"
Strictly speaking, the devil as a fallen angel is not even a biblical doctrine (in that the Christadelphians are right). The idea of a fallen angel comes, as Chimp has pointed out, from a Zoroastrian influence on Jewish culture. The fact that almost all religionists believe in this dogma shows how much truth, even that of their own so-called holy texts, is of little importance to them, and how religion is a question of intellectual comfort.
A very valid and interesting point, as well as some very good anti-theistic ammunition.
proverbs 16:4 "The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil."
sidenote: I know this verse because a local stripmall church here back in the 90's was teaching the doctrine that god created the people who go to hell, specifically to go to hell. While I had to admire them for following their creed to its logical conclusion, they seemed to use it as a justification to mistreat non-believers (including other sects of Christianity). They referred to people specifically created by god to go to hell as "vessels of destruction" (see Romans 9:22).
Sounds like the crap you might purchase in a strip mall.