Is the Devil really evil?

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*The following Thread is meant purely for speculative purposes. It is not meant to condone or condemn Devil worshiping nor encourage any related practices. If the image of Satan/the Devil Disturbs you please turn away right now. You have been warned*

Isn't it funny how many Christian claim without a doubt that Satan is evil yet he seems more of an executioner? 'Why an executioner' you may ask? Well aren't the people who go to Hell evil to begin with? Isn't the devil bringing justice to the souls who have forsaken humanity and God? I mean really, something's just fishy here.

Then there's also the fact that not all Devil worshipers are like most Christians describe them to be. Some of them see the Devil as a symbol of defiance, independence and self control. I think these videos can help explain this point very well:





Honestly I think we are all kind of like the Devil every once and a while, Especially if you live in the United States and/or are influenced by its culture.

Bonus:

Here's an extra video that, while It's not related to the devil himself, It does show that we all have a dark side. And that maybe Christianity isn't the only way to live life to the maximum.

I will have to use the other browser to see the videos.

When I was a child I used to wonder that too. The Devil is just a prison warden for the bad folks so how is he himself evil? He just a punisher. But later I realized that prison wardens dont go out to recruit inmates! And thats what the Devil does. So the 'great deciever' would indeed be evil.

In the US there is a trend toward privatizing the prison system. And the prison industry has been lobbying state legislators to increase the number of infractions that are punishable by prison time so the industry can get more business. So..who knows? There may come a time when American prison wardens will have to double as salesmen -going out into the world to drum up business - and may get commissions for luring folks into committing felonies. So our prison system may soon imitate Hades as a business model!

Kinda like the salesclerks at K Mart these days. They cant just ring up your sale-they have to hustle you to join their rewards program..get their credit card, and all of that!

Why does that second video have a picture of Fnord as the freeze frame?

I have absolitely no idea to be honest. Maybe the guys who made that video thought it would make for a good freeze frame? and what's Fnord by the way?

Take a look at these to get you thinking:
http://www.quickmeme.com/Good-Guy-Lucifer/page/2/

That was meant as a bit of a joke; Fnord is a person here on WP whose current avatar resembles the video frame. It was also not meant in any way to imply there is any connection between the Christian Devil and Fnord.

http://wrongplanet.net/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=19153


The Christian Devil (and demons) actually have a fascinating history, both within the theology and outside as a sociological/political element.

I don't believe in the concept of a devil, but I also don't believe evil exists in general. I feel that mentally competent people always have a reason for what they are doing, and many people who have done things like commit murder have done it because they had mental problems or legitimately thought what they were doing was the right thing, such as ISIS believing the world needs to convert to Islam or Hitler believing the world needed to get rid of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, etc. in order to make it a better place. I think we can all agree these were misguided ideas, but when I think of "evil," I think of perfectly healthy people doing awful things just for the hell of it, and I don't think those people exist.

OMG! That is too funny!

If the Christian religion was true, then God would be a genocidal psycho and Satan would be the good guy.

Neither of them is real though.

Christianity would make a successful fantasy saga, like Lord of the Rings.

But fantasy is fantasy and people should know this.

Yes but...we are all mortal. So therefore if there is a creator then obviously that creator created us all to be mortal. Therefore we are all "God's murder victims" anyway. So why would the fact that God kills a few thousand people before their time in the Old Testament make God any more evil than he would be anyway?

Actually, Japanese video game delevopers are already treating it like that. Have you ever seen how many Christian references are throughourt all Final Fantasy games?



^This right here is Square Enix's depiction of God himself... And you're killing him...!



And if that wasn't enough, check out MatPat's old video regarding this:

The problem is, 'evil' actually has a definition. In ethics it is choosing to cause harm to others. And the Christian religion - in almost all of its thousands of subflavors - has done much harm to others. Even the primary text contains an astounding number of instances where their god causes harm to others, sometimes out of spite and sometimes simply because those weren't 'his' people. It really messes with the purity of the God = good, Devil = bad dichotomy. Meanwhile, the Devil in their mythology *only* punishes people who (in their morality system) have been deemed to deserve it by a consistently applied (if a bit internally inconsistent) set of rules.

Darn it! I how could I be so blind He even posted on a few of my threads. Don't worry I'm not that kind of person that would assume stuff immediately.

It is interesting to see the vastly different interpretations of demons from many different countries (Greace, Japan, Persia, China, ect.) And usually these depictions of demons are often used in a variety of different ways, not just an example of what the religious authorities/empires don't want you to do.

So very true. I'm trying to find the reference, but there a mythology that has what many would consider demons (lives underground, fire, iron weapons, horns, tail) yet they are the dispensers of justice and not at all unfair or "evil". The similarity is close enough that I've wondered if Larry Niven borrowed from it to make his Minos character in the Inferno novels. Or the Church for the later additions to their mythology, for that matter...

Religion is merely mythology!

Mythology has been used for all of recorded history as a way to store knowledge and provide a form of law, and order to people's understanding of the world around them. It's only fairly recently that we developed written language complex enough to store & pass on knowledge over time (incl math), coded law, and science to provide an understanding of our universe. And as a species, we're still largely dependent upon mythology/religion to provide those social structures. There's just too much power tied up in their ownership and control. Problem is, they are based on tradition and resistance to change and that puts them directly at odds with scientific knowledge and forms of government based on individual equality.