God, in His infinite glory and splendor, filled His Heaven with angels. They sing, trumpet, deliver news to God’s Creation, and serve as His messengers. But one of these heavenly beings was rebellious, always questioning the Lord his Creator. Eventually, God, whose temper is well known, grew tired of this rambunctious and inquisitive angel and dispatched him from His heavenly home. Lucifer was sent into the pit that was the Earth.

Here, Lucifer planned his revenge. He would rise up and challenge the Big Guy for the top spot among deities. The first order of business was to ditch the name. He toyed around with many: devil, adversary, enemy, accuser, old serpent and great dragon. But these felt small: more descriptive of his underdog status, and not a proper brand. While Beelzebub was appealing, it didn’t roll off the tongue as smoothly as he would have liked. Then, like a bolt of heavenly lightning, it hit him: Satan!

New name in hand, Satan set out to make his mark and he saw an easy target in God’s first female. Eve, naked and ignorant, would be no match for Satan’s wisdom and charm. He approached her, but not as the enormous and dazzling fallen angel that he was, for surely he’d be spotted that way as one of only a handful of bipedal creatures on the planet, but as a snake. With a few slithering suggestions, he had Eve eating out of the palm of his hand, er, well, it’s a figure of speech. When Satan saw the Big Guy approaching (who looked much less luminous and mighty in his Earthly clothing), he knew it was Game On.

God’s wrath was a sight to behold that day. All snakes, innocent of any offense, would nonetheless suffer for Satan’s ruse and choice of disguise as one of them, and be forced to slither around without legs. More importantly though, God let his anger extend not only to the poor woman who had fallen for Satan’s deception, but to all of her progeny.

Score: Satan 1, God 0.

Satan set up shop in Hades, and busied himself making some imps. After his rather simple victory over God in the Garden of Eden, and with mankind wretchedly cursed by the short-tempered Lord of Heaven, he had time to come up with his next masterstroke. He sent his imps to Earth to convince mankind to rape, loot, pillage and generally make mayhem.  Finally, the wickedness on the Earth was too much for the Lord to bear and He committed mass murder, sparing only a handful of people and a few million animals that He put on a boat.

Score: Satan 2, God 0.

After a few thousand years, God, seeing his Human creations in need of some guidance, dispatched His Spirit to a remote desert region to impregnate a woman for Him. He had decided to come to Earth again, but this time through more traditional channels. Satan chuckled at this, but started planning his temptation of the Child. The Child God was tougher than the Father and despite all his efforts to tempt Him; the Son of God resisted him.

Score: Satan 2, God 1.

Satan began working his magic on the Jewish priests and their Roman keepers. Soon he implanted in their minds that the man known as The Christ must die. Satan smiled, and soon the Son of God was dead.

Score: Satan 3, God 1.

God however, had this all planned out and His Son rose again and declared the human race cleansed of the sin God had put upon them when Eve fell for the slithering soft spoken serpent that was Satan all along.

Score: Satan 3, God 2.

And now the balance of powers wait for the Final Battle that will decide once and for all whether Good or Evil will triumph. As Satan sits with a comfortable lead, he reflects on how well he has done for himself. A Fallen Angel, cast out on his own, he has risen to a Power that rivals that of his Maker. Establishing his own dominion, he has had several major victories over The Omnipotent One. By his simple ploy against the childlike first woman, he had set in motion thousands of years of sin, culminating in God having to father a son on Earth, and then sacrifice him to appease Himself. “Kick me out of heaven will you?” thinks Satan. “I may fly over to Vegas and see what the odds are against me in the coming Battle Royale. I bet I can make some coin. After all, who doesn’t love an Underdog?”