If the Devil was a part of our reality, would the fallen angel enjoy it’s job? Would s/he like harming all those lost soul for the remainder of time, untill time stoped by God’s hand? Would the Devil love God if it were allowed back into God’s Knigdom?
Did you see the South Park movie?
I’m not sure if you want a serious answer or not, but if you would like to have a discussion about this you might try going to http://www.leftbehind.com
God bless,
jenkinsfan
What I was taught in the religious school I attended was that the devil can’t enjoy his job. This is why:
- He’s the devil-- pure evil.
- Pure evil means the absence of anything good-- and you can’t have pleasure in the absence of good.
- Pure evil also means the absence of reason-- the devil can’t say to himself “Hey, this torture and tempation thing isn’t going so well . . . maybe I’ll get back in touch with God and see if we can’t work this out.”
- Pure evil is the absence of regret-- the devil can’t second guess, or wish he had done things differently because he has no conscience to bother him. The devil is a maleovent force without logic.
- Hell is total seperation from anything good-- so the devil doesn’t want to be there any more than your average sinner does. He probably doesn’t have an air-conditioned office.
- Hell was designed and created by God as a place for the wicked, so the devil didn’t really have much input into how the place was decorated, and probably doesn’t have his own special no-torment zone.
So what you’re saying is that the Devil is a total sociopath? Does anybody know whether Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy enjoyed their jobs?
I understand that you’re saying, “This is just what I was taught”, but I’m having trouble with the logic behind some of them, mainly the assumptions.
Assumption 1: Absence of reason=evil. Therefore, presence of reason=good. Are the severely mentally retarded “evil”? Conversely, there are probably plenty of Mensa members and people with PhDs out there who are “evil”.
Assumption 2: Absence of good=evil. Therefore, presence of good=good. This seems a little circular.
Assumption 3: Absence of regret=evil. Therefore, presence of regret=good. People who say, “I have no regrets” and mean it, are “evil”? People who spend all their time rehashing old mistakes are “good”?
Assumption 4: Hell is the absence of anything good. Define “good”. Good=presence of reason, presence of good, presence of regret. Heaven is good. Heaven=presence of reason, presence of good, presence of regret. Regret in Heaven? What about “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes”?
It just seems overly simplistic, is all.
I like the ancient Greek/Roman (and probably several other rarely heard-of religions) view of the “devil”… that is, Hades. He’s not really evil, he’s not really good (as were most of the gods), but he has a job to do.
Another contradiction with the general Christian view of Satan is that humanity NEEDS him in order to reach salvation. If there were no evil, we wouldn’t know good, since there’d be no basis for comparison (I’m being very general with this). So, in my mind, it’s probably not a matter of “Does the Devil enjoy this” but “The Devil has an unpleasant job to do”. Much like God has an (arguably) unpleasant job to do.
I hear he and the demons went on strike a few years back. They were asking for longer hours, less pay, and worse working conditions. After negotiations between G.O.D. (Generous Omniscent Deity) and H.E.L.L. (Hitler Elite Labor Lobby), they reached a compromise. The a few of the interesting settlements:
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Pauly Shore could continue making movies, so long as they go straight to video.
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The Spice Girls would be broken up, but remain horribly etched in everyone’s memories.
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O.J. would be found innocent but still would make appearances in tabloids and on tabloid TV until judgment day or 2085, whichever comes first.
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The Macarena was agreed not to be a deadly sin, but would require 10 years in purgatory for every second a person performed it.
I agree, Duck. Just reporting what they told me. There’s a LOT of things they taught me that I think are total bunk, logically.
If I were the devil I think I would enjoy the job. In fact it sounds like fun going around with a pitchfork jabbing all those bad girls… If I go to hell I hope I can apply for a commission as Devil’s deputy.
I’ve alway thought of the Devil as sort of a metaphor for the broken family. He has tears in his eyes because he was rejected by God (can’t remember who said that one, Dante or Augustine or somebody). He works against God, fights Him at every turn. Does he enjoy it? Good question. I kind of think of him as an angry child, trying to get back at his parent in a childish rage. He wants to spite God, to reverse all good works. It is simultaneously a wicked pleasure, and a great pain to his demonic heart.
It is heretical to say, but I believe the Devil is full of guilt. In fact, the guilt is the only part of God that remains in him. The guilt doesn’t make him stop his evil ways, it just makes him more and more enraged. He is fractured; alone; he cannot create a universe, he can only taint the one he is trapped in. So I guess Satan is just a brat, albeit a very influential one.
The devil probably enjoys its job just as much as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny do.
I always understood that the devil wants us to be miserable like himself. His one goal to make us all as miserable as he is.
That would mean that the devil had just the same amout of control as God would have. When the devil is sad, he or she would then make us (Humans) sad in some cruel and ugly way.
And if what you say is the case, then why would God let the Devil do such things if it is feeling restless. Does God enjoy watching what the Devil does? Ha! (Funny thought coming up…) What if God created humans, so that the Devil could destry us, So God could get pleasure from watching one of his most disagreeable creations try and destory all the creatures, beautiful in God’s eye?
Bit like the old Roman Rings. The lion, slave and the ever- watching Emperor!
So if the stroy of the snake is true, would that mean that we have a hint of evil in everyone of us?
Pepperlandgirl; What are your thoughts?
well, he does, according to John Milton,
In Paradise Lost book 1
Satan says to Beelzebub
“To do none but evil shall be our sole delight”
I think that, for the purposes of this arguement, Satan takes his enjoyment trying to piss god off.
Rather like a troll, really.
The Devil is a he?
Or you have Mark Twain’s, Letters from the Earth, where the Devil writes back to heaven saying “You won’t believe what they believe down here!”
My personal favorite is, most people can sing or play an instrument but they think when they die that they will sing like angels and play the harp.
gkj
What follows are MY opinions from MY interpertations of The Bible and Book of Mormon. It does not reflect the opinion of any Church.
The devil can’t MAKE us be anything. And God can’t MAKE us be anything. We have agency, the freedom of choice. If we want to give the Devil power to make us sad, than we will. Otherwise, it shouldn’t be a problem.
God didn’t create Humans so the Devil could destroy us. He created us so that one day we can be like Him. But we can’t choose right if we do not know wrong. So he gives us the power and the tools needed to become like God, but he also gave us the same power to become like Satan. In so doing, he gave us agency.
The idea that God receives pleasure from watching the devil work is disgusting, to say the least.
Everybody has the capacity to be evil, just like everybody as the ability to be divine. Even Jesus was tempted, but he chose not to give into that temptation. None of us are inately evil, but all of us have the choice.
Next time someone pisses you off you have a choice, to act on that anger, or to try to solve your problem peacefully. Nobody is MAKING you choose or the other, you have your own agency.
Of course Satan enjoys his job. At least, he would if he existed. (I’m an atheist, you see.) The way I’ve heard it, Satan rebelled against Heaven and God. He did this because he wanted to. The way I see it, if you spend eternity doing what you want to, then you must be happy from time to time.
Suggesting something there, John? 
Matt
Where did the idea of devil as tempter and torturer of wayward souls come from? Why would God allow this? God sent him to hell as punishment, not to give him a job. Just one of the more confusing parts of Christian theology.