Since I ended
up in a church yesterday and the topic of sin was brought up, I realised that it
might be an idea to see if we could get any clarity on the “devil” or the
character that defines and brings evil to the human world. Ever since the human
race have tried to understand the world through the divine, they’ve always done
it through the prism of good versus evil. Just about every religion has a
divine being who defines “good” and an evil one. Think of God versus Satan in
the Abrahamic faiths or Ahura Mazda versus Angra Mainyu in the Parse
faith. So, given the prominence of the “evil” being in our
understanding of the world, isn’t it time we tried to understand the nature of
evil.
Well, let’s
start with the obvious – what does evil look like? Well, the most common
depiction of the “evil” one is that he looks evil and nasty. This character we
call the “Devil” who lives in a place called Hell, is portrayed as something
that is meant to scare us:
We like to
think that “evil” is easy to recognize. If the devil really looked like what we
like to portray him to be, we’d all very well behaved as the idea of spending eternity
with him would simply be scary.
The sad truth
is that the Devil is not ugly and frightening at all. He usually takes “human
form,” and we’re bound to think of that human form as being the guy who looks
the most menacing:
While the
menacing people are menacing for a good reason, the truth is not only does the
devil look human, he’s usually very appealing to us. Somehow, when the Devil
speaks, we’re bound to listen because there’s just something within us that
says “Ya, that’s telling it as it is,” or “he’s, our guy.” Devils look good and
we want to be like them. There is, as they say, a very good reason why the
phrase “lead us not into temptation,’ is written into the Lord’s Prayer.
Think of
America’s favourite Presidential candidate who decided to label an ethnic group
known for producing good lovers to be “rapist.” Instead of getting upset, a
good number of people, specifically the type with an IQ higher than their body
temperature, started defending him. As one Chinese girl in Singapore said, “I
mean, he didn’t express it very well but….”
This guy
need to rape women (Copyright Disolve)
Here was a
classic case of Satan at his best, getting a good number of otherwise decent people
to believe the worst in their neighbours because it made them feel less
adequate. What’s probably the most interesting phenomena, is that a good number
of Men of God, decided that the devil was doing a good job and proceeded to
throw their political muscle. Apparently, Angels were summoned from Africa and
Latin America to help him win the last election, which thankfully didn’t
happen.
Now, the problem
here is that the devil doesn’t work on his own. When you had the guy in America
picking on people who got laid more often than they did, you had a bunch of little
devils sprouting all over the European continent promising to save nations from
hoards of poor people who wanted to work and set up small shops:
By blaming him (Copyright Liverpool Echo).
The Devil, as
they say, is good at his job in getting you to bring out your worst instincts.
Your fears and greed are part of someone else’s fault. You start to think that you
need to do bad things to other people before they do bad things to you. When he
gets to work, things like logic and common sense go out the window. You think
of irrational fears and if you’re really good, you start to get other people to
believe you.
Think of the
devil sitting in the land that many people call Holy. Someone hurt him and
instead of hunting them down, he managed to slaughter a group of people and
convinced the world that he was defending himself when he ended up killing far
more than were killed on his side. What’s more interesting is he managed to get
an otherwise “nice” guy to encourage him in his slaughter:
The devil may
speak well. The devil may look really good. What they’re saying may appeal to
you in a strange way. However, let’s remember that just because something sounds
good, it doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing or the good thing. Being good does
require work but let’s remember that all good things need to be worked for. There
is a reason why heaven is considered a reward.
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