Evil's War against Religions

[Belindi]

So the humanist Satan is quite a positive character? A representation of free-thinking?

Yes that is what i mean.

-- Updated April 2nd, 2017, 4:54 pm to add the following --

Actually , what i am calling "The Humanist Satan" is a symbol of the knowledge that the religious need, in order to give up their docile hope that any happiness is not for this world but for the next. Did you ever see another such blatant capitalistic control of the workforce!

Meanwhile the religious version of Satan has him kitted out with instruments of torture for use on people who in this life have contravened the laws.

Did you ever see another such blatant capitalistic control of the workforce!

[Lark_Truth]

I would think that the humanist Satan would be a representation of free-thinking in a way that is very negative, as he leads people down to slavery, death, and eternal damnation, which is very, very bad.

Here's another question: How would the devil use religion to fight against true religion?
If you don't believe that there is a true religion, then pretend that there is one and try and think of ways in which the Devil's influence would manifest itself against that religion.

[Steve3007]

Same question. Same answer: ask the author. The devil isn't a realistic enough character to be able to assume that it's based on real-life devils. So I can't use my life experience of what real-life devils do to guess what the author might have intended.

-- Updated Mon Apr 03, 2017 2:32 pm to add the following --

Belindi:

Actually , what i am calling "The Humanist Satan" is a symbol of the knowledge that the religious need, in order to give up their docile hope that any happiness is not for this world but for the next. Did you ever see another such blatant capitalistic control of the workforce!

Sounds like you're applying your tendency towards socialism to see this from a bit of a Marxist perspective? Opiate of the masses? A gram is better than a damn? Bread and circuses? (I'm trying to think of as many quotations as I can that are all basically about using soporifics to control the masses.)

[Belindi]

Steve wrote:

Sounds like you're applying your tendency towards socialism to see this from a bit of a Marxist perspective? Opiate of the masses? A gram is better than a damn? Bread and circuses? (I'm trying to think of as many quotations as I can that are all basically about using soporifics to control the masses.)

Yes, true. I am a socialist. It's not just soporifics though.

The promise of jam tomorrow in the afterlife specifically relates to capitalism and the exploitation of the workers. You sweat in a sweat shop and what do you get especially when you have no choice but to buy from the company store, but deeper in debt older and more frail however the reward and the justice is with the afterlife.

There is ample evidence that churchianity leads to docility. Church Christians tend to be political Conservatives. The ethics of Jesus are socialist ethics.It's not a coincidence that the 'red' States are the churchy States.

[Steve3007]

Belindi:

Yes, I take your point that the concept of an afterlife is "jam tomorrow" to make the difficulties of the present life more bearable. But I don't think we can specifically blame this on capitalism. I think it's deeper and older than that. It's a function of the human condition in general.

In the absence of the accumulated knowledge and technology that we enjoy, the default state for life is hunger, fear, disease and hardship. This is true for almost all life, but humans, perhaps uniquely, are keenly aware of our own plight. I think that the combination of that hardship and that awareness probably inevitably leads to the need for escapist fantasies. And, me being lucky enough to not have to endure many of those hardships myself, I wouldn't begrudge anybody those fantasies, and if they genuinely believe them to be true and it makes life more bearable, in the absence of any practicable way to change life for the better, maybe they're not always a bad thing? I guess they're only bad if they stop people's here-and-now lives from being improved when they otherwise could be.

Also, I think Christians at both ends of the political spectrum see their religion as supporting their political views. On the left, people see the wealth redistribution of socialism as being aligned with the message of Jesus. On the right, people see the emphasis on voluntary charity as serving the same purpose.

[Lark_Truth]

Good points, Steve, Belindi; would the Devil try to twist this somehow, make people's individual views against all of this though? Would Satan try and divide people against each other?

[Belindi]

Good points, Steve, Belindi; would the Devil try to twist this somehow, make people's individual views against all of this though? Would Satan try and divide people against each other?

Lark_Truth, obviously your take on the Devil is not the Humanist devil, but a quite different character. I believe that if one loves benevolent God then it makes sense also to despise a malign Devil.

In view of the malign Devil I think that he tries to divide people by fear and misunderstanding. If the benevolent God is love, then the malign Devil is fear. I think that fear is at the bottom of greed, jealousy, envy, hate, anger, cruelty, and mistrust

[Lark_Truth]

Oh, that is some very good points, Belindi. How about Despair though, would a malign Devil try to divide people through despair as well as fear, or at least divide people with despair from their happiness. I would think that the devil, Humanist or malign, would do his best to make people miserable.

Just a thought: Could the work of the devil be an attention act? Like someone who is pulling crazy stunts just to get attention from others. From what I believe, most Christian dogma teaches that the devil "warred" with God and was cast out of heaven with his angels. Even in the Mormon Church, we believe that Lucifer wanted all of the glory to himself instead of God, and for that he was cast out of God's presence. Could it all be an attention act?

[Belindi]

Oh, that is some very good points, Belindi. How about Despair though, would a malign Devil try to divide people through despair as well as fear, or at least divide people with despair from their happiness. I would think that the devil, Humanist or malign, would do his best to make people miserable.

Just a thought: Could the work of the devil be an attention act? Like someone who is pulling crazy stunts just to get attention from others. From what I believe, most Christian dogma teaches that the devil "warred" with God and was cast out of heaven with his angels. Even in the Mormon Church, we believe that Lucifer wanted all of the glory to himself instead of God, and for that he was cast out of God's presence. Could it all be an attention act?

Despair can be the result of unbalanced production of brain chemicals. Despair can be, not insurmountable ,but instead can be incentive to make a radical change.

Obviously you have not understood what I mean by "Humanist Devil", or my interpretation if the Genesis story of The Expulsion from Eden.So I think we cannot have any more conversation about the Humanist Devil.

I understand that there are several Christian doctrines regarding the Devil . You wrote: "in the Mormon Church, we believe that Lucifer wanted all of the glory to himself instead of God, and for that he was cast out of God's presence. " I dislike this doctrine a lot whichever church holds it. It is clearly intended to make the congregation docile followers instead of critical thinkers. There is proper pride, Lark_Truth, which is the proper pride of the human to do his best as a rational human being. Doing your best as an intelligent and informed human being is assuredly not "wanting all the glory" or "attention seeking". Whether or not you believe in God, doing your best critical thinking and getting yourself informed is ultimately good .

[Lark_Truth]

I do not understand what you mean by a "Humanist Devil." Please elaborate if you can.

You wrote: "in the Mormon Church, we believe that Lucifer wanted all of the glory to himself instead of God, and for that he was cast out of God's presence. " I dislike this doctrine a lot whichever church holds it. It is clearly intended to make the congregation docile followers instead of critical thinkers.

How is that supposed to make a congregation docile? I suppose one answer to that is to make them believe that God is in the right and the Devil in the wrong, but beyond that I am unsure by what you mean.

There is proper pride, Lark_Truth, which is the proper pride of the human to do his best as a rational human being. Doing your best as an intelligent and informed human being is assuredly not "wanting all the glory" or "attention seeking". Whether or not you believe in God, doing your best critical thinking and getting yourself informed is ultimately good .

I can very much agree with that. I do also believe that a human being should temper their pride (aka self-esteem) with humility (not putting one's self above others). Besides that I totally agree with you that even without the religious viewpoint, it is any man or woman's solemn responsibility to gain the highest level of knowledge and sharpen it to the best of their ability!

I still don't think that you have answered my question: Could everything that the Devil does be an attention act, like someone pulling a stunt for publicity?

[Felix]

Belindi wrote: You wrote: "in the Mormon Church, we believe that Lucifer wanted all of the glory to himself instead of God, and for that he was cast out of God's presence. " I dislike this doctrine a lot whichever church holds it. It is clearly intended to make the congregation docile followers instead of critical thinkers.

Larktruth replied: How is that supposed to make a congregation docile?

By blind acceptance of what is an irrational belief, i.e., that: (1) absolute evil is personified as Satan and (2) this being, Satan, after having had full knowledge of God (he was the most radiant of angels, hence his name Lucifer, which means "bright light") could prefer love of self to God's love.

"One is asked, then, to believe that under such conditions a created being (i.e., Lucifer) conjured up out of nothing a malice so incredible as to doom himself and countless others to everlasting damnation. We say "out of nothing" because there was nothing in his nature as God created it to make such an act necessary. The origin of the act lies solely in the freedom of the will to move in a direction to which absolutely nothing compels or moves it save, as St. Thomas always insists, what it conceives as it's own good. But in this case there was no defect in Lucifer's knowledge of his own good; he was not labouring under misapprehension or doubt. He conceived self-love as his own good despite the certain and inescapable knowledge that it was not, and this may not be ascribed to any defect of rationality (otherwise the choice of self-love could be ascribed to ignorance).

Granting that such an act was possible, however incredible it may seem, one cannot escape the impression that it is suspiciously like a First Cause, that in willing love to himself intead of to God, the choice of direction was an unmoved act." - Alan Watts from The Supreme Identity.

[-1-]

Lark, you can answer your own question. Just ask before any decision you're about to make, "What would the Devil do?"

[Lark_Truth]

Easy, he would want me to do that which was bad for me, something that would attach one of the devil's chains to me so that he can lead me along the primrose path and away from any hope of salvation that I could ever have.

Nobody has as of yet answered my question: Could all that the Devil is doing be an attention act?

[Steve3007]

Lark_Truth:

Nobody has as of yet answered my question: Could all that the Devil is doing be an attention act?

When you asked a similar questions to this previously and I pointed out that the only way to know the devil's undocumented motives and behaviour is to ask the author, did you understand what I meant by that? Fooloso4 made a similar point in the very first reply to the very first time you asked this question.

If you're not going to consult the author, then the only other thing you can do to work out his motives is to assume that he is supposed to be a person and that he therefore acts somewhat like other people. Your talk of "attention acts" suggests that is what you're doing. Is that what you are doing? Are you looking at the kinds of things that motivate other people, such as the desire for attention, and speculating that the devil is similarly motivated?

[Fooloso4]

Steve3007:

When you asked a similar questions to this previously and I pointed out that the only way to know the devil's undocumented motives and behaviour is to ask the author, did you understand what I meant by that? Fooloso4 made a similar point in the very first reply to the very first time you asked this question.

If you're not going to consult the author, then the only other thing you can do to work out his motives is to assume that he is supposed to be a person and that he therefore acts somewhat like other people. Your talk of "attention acts" suggests that is what you're doing. Is that what you are doing? Are you looking at the kinds of things that motivate other people, such as the desire for attention, and speculating that the devil is similarly motivated?

There is a literary trope that speaks to this - the creation of something that for the author at least becomes real. It is the story of Pinocchio.