Beliefs

Beliefs
Satan
In the Satanic Bible, Anton LaVey describes Satan as a motivating and balancing dark force in nature. Satan is also described as being the "Black Flame", representing a person's own inner personality and desires. Satan is seen as synonymous with the nature and even, metaphorically, with certain conceptions of a supreme deity or God.
Satan is said to appear in mythology and literature around the world as a trickster, rebel, and hero. Figures such as the Greek Prometheus are said to perfectly exemplify the qualities of Satan, the prideful rebel. Other deities, such as Ahriman, Apep, and Loki, are seen as examples of different manifestations of the same archetype. Satan is seen as the powerful individual who acts regardless of what others might say.
The word satan is Hebrew for "adversary", and Satanists claim to be adversaries of mainstream behavior which they define as "herd conformity", seeing it as stifling to individuality, creativity, and progress.
God
Satanists do not believe that Satan is a god; rather, the function of God is performed and satisfied by the Satanist him/herself. That is, the needs of worship, ritual, and religious/spiritual focus are directed, effectively, inwards towards the Satanist, as opposed to outwards towards a God.
LaVey proposes instead that as all gods are creations of humans, worship of an external deity is worship of its creator by proxy. He suggests, then, that the rational Satanists should instead internalize their gods and therefore worship themselves; hence the Satanic maxim, "I am my own god."
It follows that Satanism shuns the idea of belief in all other deities as well. Belief in any such externalized deities is generally considered grounds for excluding someone as a Satanist, and devil worship in particular is considered nothing more than a misguided inversion of Christianity.