I Have Seen The Devil and He is Us!!

Ok, I really didn’t want to write about this topic for awhile because I am having fun writing about other, less serious things. However, the commentator who posted the two Bible verses with regards to the last post presses this topic. Obviously, they focused on the one sentence in the intro where I said that I do not believe in a literal being called the Devil and totally missed the point of the entire post. (If you don’t know what I am talking about, go and read “Sometimes I Love Kids, Sometimes I Hate Kids” and all the comments.) While I have a good idea of the identity of the commentator, I will operate as if they are anonymous.

A bit of warning. If you are put off by theological and ethical discussions, then you might as well just skip this post and read the next. If, however, you are intrigued to read an essay on the virtue of personal responsibility, the read on.

So, the Devil, a.k.a. Lucifer, Scrotch, Ol’ Nick, Satan, The Evil One. . . yeah, yeah, yeah whatever you call him, in a nutshell, doesn’t exist. As least not in any supernatural being in living in a fiery, hellish dimension sending his minions and influence into the world. Also, a Devil as the incarnation of Evil and in a spiritual war with God, the incarnation of Good, is equally hogwash. This perception of good and evil is theologically immature, based upon centuries of myth, and actually a tool of religion to control the masses.

In the book A History of the Devil, Gerard Messadie traces the anthropological development of the Modern Devil. He finds that in cultures that do not have dualistic view of the universe they have no personification of evil such as our Devil. Even in places of many gods, like India, gods like Shiva the Destroyer and Kali are not analogous to the Western Devil. They are part of the pantheon of gods and the circle of life. Similarly, Hades, the god of the underworld in the Greek myths, isn’t necessarily the incarnation of evil. He is just the god of the dead.

In the Western Judeo-Christian tradition, the devil has gone through major changes from his earliest appearances; something which most Christians won’t acknowledge. And why should they? The don’t acknowledge the development and growth of the portrayal of God from the tribal deity, Yahweh, of the ancient Israelites among a wealth other deities worshiped by other people to the monotheistic being that exists in their dogma today. (A great book on this topic I highly recommend is A History of God by Karen Armstrong.) The Devil they claim is the serpent in the Garden of Eden is not the Satan in the Book of Job. Nor are both of these the same Satan that tempts Jesus or that exists in the Book of Revelation. Just as perceptions of God changed, so did the perception of the Devil. To deny this is to deny history as well as Jewish tradition. (Read Jewish Literacy and Biblical Literacy by Rabbi Telushkin.) Remember the Jews had the Old Testament first.

For example, the Satan in the Book of Job is not the Satan, Ruler of Hell. He is just an angel challenging God for the sake of the argument. Heck, it’s as if he is a trial lawyer on God’s payroll. (This is quite the opposite of the rhetoric that Christian Republicans were spouting this election season regarding trial lawyers. From their propaganda you’d think that lawyers were on Satan’s payroll.) He is a literary device as is the entire book to prove a challenge to the Deuteronomical Theory of Retribution. (Go read When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Kushner for an excellent treatise on Job.) It is a work of fiction and not a literal account between God and Satan. Go ask any Jew.

Somewhere along the way, Judaism, and therefore Christianity, became influenced by Zoroastrianism, a religion perhaps older than both. (For an excellent essay on the origins and beliefs of Zoroastrianism, goto http://www.religioustolerance.org/ and find their essay on the topic.) It is within Zoroastrianism were are introduced to a dualistic theology of a God that is the incarnation of good, Ahura Mazda, who is in a cosmological war with a being who is the incarnation of Evil, Angra Mainyu or Ahriman, who are coexistent and coeval with each other. The duality of "absolute light" (Ahura Mazda) and "absolute darkness" (Ahriman) appears as the first roots of our mythical devil. Judaism did not have a personification/deification of Evil, nor the duality of God and Devil, before Zoroastrianism influence. (Of course, this duality is a theological fallacy because God, like Love, being whole, has no opposites.)

Religions based on power, as institutionalized Judaism and Christianity are, need this dualism to be able dictate how people should behave. The Devil, and hell, are used as psychological sticks to push the people to subservience and obedience. (I say stick, because the two driving forces of human behavior are the desire to gain pleasure and the need to avoid pain (the carrot and the stick). And we will do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure. Read Unleash the Giant Within, by Anthony Robbins.) Also, the Devil has been used by church and state authorities to demonize their religious and political enemies. For example, church and state conspired in the Middle Ages to imprison and murder various such "Devil inspired" heretics as the Cathars in order to maintain religious and political control while also profiting from the property they confiscated from the victims. And who can forget The Inquistion and those demonic Jews who had to be killed to save their souls.

Christianity has taken belief in the Devil to amazing, and painful, heights. The Devil is seen as a master player in world influence. His demons taunt us and he seeks to thwart God’s will in every way. Christian mythology paints the Devil and God in a war (there was a war in heaven and Lucifer, along with a host of angels were thrown out) with the outcome still undecided. (The fact that many fundamentalist Christians make it sound that God may lose this war is beyond me. Doesn’t sound like a God worth believing in if he can’t kick the crap of a pesky Devil, especially one He created. Furthermore, they fact that God let’s this “war” go on in the first place with humans as the collateral damage is an ethical/moral atrocity. And the fact that fundamentalists can’t see is proof of their damaged psychological state.) Supposedly, the Devil will have his servant, the Anti-Christ, arise among men signaling the Armageddon and there will be the Rapture and the long wars. And then Satan will rule for a period time here on Earth and then Jesus will return and smite him and God will create a new heaven on Earth. . . . blah, blah, blah. It’s all bullshit! And here is why.

If the Devil is the incarnation of Evil, and he is supposed to be conniving and smart enough to trick us, tempt us, pervert us, then he must be the biggest moron since President Bush, a man who has an MBA from Harvard, but has failed at every business he has ever had including currently running the U.S. into its largest deficit ever. Why the hell would the Devil fight a war with God, a war that is knows he is going to lose?!!! It’s prophesized right there in the Bible that he is going to lose. You mean to tell me that in the 1700+ years of its existence the Devil hasn’t read the Bible?! Hell, Tim Lahaye has made millions of dollars off the paranoid minds of fundamentalist Christians with his Left Behind series where it fictionalizes the prophesies of the Last Days predicted in the Bible. He has written 11 books in the series so far! You think the Prince of Darkness would read one them to see how all this plays out! Ain’t much a warlord of hell if he can’t figure out a different battle plan especially if “God’s Team” is going to write 11 damn books about!!! (Said in the voice of Goofy, “Man, I can’t understand why God’s army keeps kicking my butt on the battlefield! I wish I could get a look into his playbook.” Heck Satan, hire your servant Marilyn Manson to go read them to you if you don’t have physical hands to hold a book. Or be even lazier and read the books on tape, like I do!) It’s like the U.S. telling terrorists that “Hey, we’re ready for you we’re going to Code Orange alert level!” You morons!! You think the terrorists aren’t watching t.v., like the rest of us, and aren’t going to just wait until things calm down and then attack! Why not just call them and say, “Don’t attack us now, attack us in six months.”!?! That is about as stupid as attacking a country that didn’t have any ties with the terrorists that attacked us in the first place.

So if the Devil is one, mythical in origin, and two, apparently really fucking stupid, then why does the Church and society continue to promote his existence? Simple, it gives us someone to blame for our unethical and inhumane actions. It makes it easier to escape the guilt that would plague us if we actually stepped up and took personal responsibility for our actions. It makes it easier to give up that personal responsibility over to a church and its teachings when we accept whatever it is that they are teaching. The funny thing is that our personal lives, communities, nations and world would be in much better shape if we did take that responsibility into our own hands.

We are not the weak creatures that many religions make us out to be. All of us have the capabilities of being a Mother Theresa, or a Martin Luther King, Jr, or a Dalai Lama, or dare I say, a Jesus. (Hey, he said it himself in the Gospels.) We have the capacity for greatness and goodness as we do the capacity for inhumanity and evil. I believe that if we took responsibility for our actions, and were taught that and not that “the Devil made me do it,” we would see great change in our world. Because in acknowledging that it is ourselves who make the wrong action, the wrong decision, we are also acknowledging that it is ourselves who hold the key for changing that and doing good.

So when you are addicted to alcohol and are an asshole to all around you. Do not blame the Devil for your addiction and misfortune. Do not say that God has dealt you a bad hand. Do not blame your father, and his father, and his father, ad infinitum for being a long line of Irish drunks. Say, “I am an alcoholic.” I choose this path. And then say, “I am capable of change” and go seek help.

When you and your buddy try shooting each other in a botched suicide attempt, do not blame the Devil for your actions. Do not blame Judas Priest and sue them in court for their crappy music. Blame yourself. Say “I am the person who was feeling worthless. I am the one who fucked up my life.”

When you are protesting the Gay Pride parade waving a sign that that says “GOD HATES FAGS!” don’t blame the Devil for it and do not blame the Devil for the existence of gays. Furthermore, how dare you even use the words God and hate in the same sentence! If God is Love, it is theological, and grammatically, impossible to Him/Her to hate. (“Love (God) Hates Fags” doesn’t work!) Be a man and hold a sign that says “I HATE FAGS!” or “I am a homophobe!” At least then you will be honest.

Notice how when you take responsibility of your actions you say the two most powerful words in any language, “I AM.” That gives you the power to make the change in your life. When you say, “I am a loving person,” even when you are not at that point, eventually you will become loving if you keep with that new self-definition. But you can’t do that until you take responsibility for your actions and stop blaming the Devil, or God for that matter.

So where does that leave us with the origin of evil if there is no Devil? Well folks, I am sorry to say that is us. The capacity for evil is in us. We humans, not the Devil, are the ones who created the guns, swords, drugs, atomic weapons, wars, concentration camps, genocide, religious fundamentalism, germ warfare, boy bands, the Spice Girls, reality t.v. shows and Taco Bell. And the list goes on.

However, I will say it again. We can be the agent of change for good in this world if just take the responsibility.

A word of warning to those who are going to respond and challenge the ideas I put forth in this post. If you are going to quote from whatever religious scripture you read, please make sure you one, cite the source and two, you actually use logic and reason to show how said passage relates to this topic. Beware if you hold to the myth of scriptural inerrancy, more than likely I will shatter that myth as well as I just did with the Devil. Also, I will say though that unless you have read the books listed below, I will probably be able to tear your argument to shreds. Sorry, you face that when you are talking with someone who Majored in Mathematics (hence, the use of logic and reason) and Minored in Ethics (the knowledge of how to argue properly). Then again, you may not want to accept personal responsiblity or force humankind to do likewise. If so, keep believing in your Devil. I have no need for such myths.

Suggested Reading:

A History of the Devil by Gerard Messadie
A History of God by Karen Armstrong
The Skeptics Annotated Bible www.skepticsannotatedbible.com
Liberating the Gospels, Why Christianity Must Change or Die, and A New Christianity for a New World by John Shelby Spong
Original Blessing and The Coming of the Cosmic Christ by Matthew Fox
Biblical Literacy and Jewish Literacy by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin
When Bad Things Happen To Good People by Rabbi Harold Kushner
Biblical Prophecy: Failure or Fulfillment? by Tim Callahan