There is no devil.
Satan is an illusion.
Some say that without pure evil (aka "Satan") that pure love (aka "God") would have no meaning.
Maybe primitive people needed such extreme personifications of an anti-deity to fully give God reverence.
To me (and I am Roman Catholic, although I went through a 18+ year remission) "evil" is simply the totality of the bad, selfish, and hurtful things that the totality of mankind is capable of wielding upon himself, his own kind, and his society.
The God of my understanding is a being of pure love. He does not need evil to definitively illustrate his goodness.
The teachings of the church itself make "hell" a silly concept.
At one point, in the early teachings of Catechism, one is told that a single mortal sin is enough to cast your soul into eternal darkness.
Then, right before your Confirmation, you are told that if a serial killer accepted Chirst as his Savior and renounced his sins and asked for forgiveness with genuine regret that all his sins would be forgiven and he would be allowed to enter heaven right along with people who hardly did anything wrong their whole lives.
I call BULLSHIT on that.
Both cannot be true.
If the first statement is true then everyone is fucked and there is no point in worshipping in the first place.
If the second statement is true then the rules are so damn lax that you might as well do whatever the hell you like and just plan to apologize at the end for all to be forgiven.
The two concepts are at odds with one and other to such an extent that the only way the whole situation can be resolved in my mind and heart is to consider "Satan" a learning tool for the young and simple minded alike to grasp the core concepts of faith so that they do not wander too far astray.
If I want to be a smart ass about it, I'll point out that EVIL spelled backwards is LIVE.
There is one true God, and he is not impressed when men trifle with His unity, His love, and His truth.
He gave us free will, for better or worse.
He sent us out as sheep amongst the wolves.
And He is relying on us to love each other as He loves us, and to use the gifts He gave us all to do His bidding here on Earth, for the sake of making this world a better place, and so that all of us can live better with the love and support of our fellow men and women, than we ever could on our own.
Christianity boils down to a very simple concept referred to as "Kerygma" in some readings.
It simply states to (1) Believe in Christ as the one true God, and (2) To live your fellow man as God loves you.
Rabbi Hillel preached gospel very similar to that of Christ himself, and remained a member of the Jewish faith, because he was no The Christ. He got the point but he did not claim to be God walking among men because he was not. Sounds like a great man to me.
With "Kerygma" and the 10 commandments, that's the core of what really matters.
The rest of the material in the Holy Bible is great, but remember, the first Bible was not written down until at least 67 years after Christ's crucifixion, and up until that point, the New Testament was passed on from one person to the next by mouth. Later on with Canonization, the writings that did survive through the ages were evaluated and scrutinized by the Roman Catholic Church and THEY decided what the official teachings of the church, and hence GOD would be. That's something to ponder on.
Finally, recognize the the story of Noah's Ark is almost exactly the same, verbatim, as the story of the Great Flood in "The Epic of Gilgamesh." Many of the world's ancient religions have common stories, due to common experiences that were lived through by the inhabitants of the regions of the old world. When the Isle of Delos exploded via a massive volcanic eruption, it sent a tidal wave that radiated circularly outward and flooded ALL the coastal regions of the old world. Look it up. Ancient maps of Delos show it as a circle. Recent maps show it as a crescent shaped island. The German archaelogist Herman Schliemann was looking for the ancient city of Knossus, on the Isle of Crete. His site digs were exactly where his ancient maps said the city should be. He then considered the information about Delos, and asked a geologist what the effect of such a tidal wave would be if it did hit Knossus. The hypothesis was that the entire city would be knocked backward along with the land under it as the impact of the wave shattered the land of the relatively small island. Schliemann adjusted the site of his dig to be a hundred or more feet back from where they were, in the direction the wave was hypothesized to have had impact. Lo and behold Knossus was found.
Our origins are more common than we care to admit. The Torah, The Holy Bible, and The Koran all have the Old Testament in common. These faiths have been tailored as mankind in different regions evolved and determined the need to standardize belief amongst all people. The Holy Spirit is just that, the manifestation of God amongst a congregation of believers. Without a unified faith mankind would not be able to experience one third of the Trinity, of God's pure essence in whatever form He determines best to reveal Himself, and His ways to us, amongst us. Christ showed us how to live and believe when God walked among us here on Earth. And we will once again meet Him when our time here is done, and He welcomes us home to where our real lives began, before He sent our spirits here in the vessels of men and women. Our bodies are vehicles, nothing more. And when they are broken, no longer fucntion, and die, our soul leaves them to return to heaven. Believe it.
-Alex