This is one that has vexed me for a while. Why is the Devil usu. depicted as tormenting evil doers? In Dante’s Inferno, a three-faced Satan is shown mercilessly and perpetually chewing on the three great traitors of all time, (IIRC) Cassius, Brutus and Judas. In other places, and in just the popular imagination, he is shown mercilessly poking sinners in hell with a trident (sometimes mistakenly referred to as a “pitchfork”).
Think about it. According to most Christian dogmas (which I only loosely subscribe too, BTW), Satan wants people to be evil. He is allegedly the author of evil. When sinners eventually go to hell, he would be congratulating them, wouldn’t you think?
He wants them to be evil so that they will fall into his clutches and be tormented, of course. He wants to spite them and God at the same time by ensuring that they don’t enjoy eternal bliss. He’s perpetually tormented himself by being in Hell, and misery loves company.
Good and Evil aren’t just names for sides. Satan doesn’t welcome people into Hell, bellow “Haw haw! Well done kid! This way for the booze, drugs, loud music and lots of sex with the cool kids while those suckers up there float around on clouds all day. Let’s get this party starrrteeeed!”. People who say they’ll take Heaven for the climate and Hell for the company are overlooking that Hell’s climate will tend to preoccupy you to the exclusion of enjoying the company.
Satan as torturer doesn’t feature very much either in the Judeo-Christian scriptures, or in formal Christian theology or teaching. The mainstream Christian view, I think, is that the principal torment of Hell is the sinner’s full awareness of having chosen perpetual separation from God. Demons, pitchforks, lakes of fire etc feature in the popular imagination largely on account of writers and artists, not churchmen; they are so much easier to depict in a powerful way than overwhelming existential regret.
Having said that, the Christian view that Satan wants you to be evil is entirely consistent with the Christian view that Satan hates you, and would harm you in any way he could. There is no basis for any expectation that, if you are evil, he will be grateful and will express this by not torturing you. Gratitude is not one of Satan’s characteristics. So the notion of Satan-as-torturer may not be at the centre of Christian thought, but it’s not fundamentally at odds with the Christian understanding of Satan
You just don’t understand the local culture Down There.
When Satan’s demons welcome newcomers with Hellfire, Brimstone, and [del]Pitchforks[/del] Tridents, that IS their way of congratulating these evil souls. It’s just their tradition.
Note, you have to be really EVIL among the Evil to be greeted by Satan Himself, I would think. His lesser demons deal with the day-to-day rabble.
Biblically, Satan is not in charge of hell, but is cast there to be punished along with those who followed him. So if anyone is being tormented, it’s not Satan doing the torment. Hell is the wrath of God, not of Satan. I suspect (more or less without evidence) that the concept of Satan being the boss of hell in charge of administering the torments originated in medieval Catholicism and was popularized by Dante in The Inferno.
A good way to look at this is look at (emotionally/sexually/physically) abused children who are told that they are ‘bad’ and ‘worthless’ and that they deserve what they get. It is the adult who is bad and worthless but imposing that on the child, who usually goes on to life a less then spectacular life due to the damage.
Satan is the adult in the above, that years later still effects the mind of the child, still poking still eating away - even after the child has grown into a adult. Yet the child was always innocent, it was the adult that ‘sinned’ and the child bore the punishment, this transfer makes the adult feel better, even if for a short time, at the lifetime expense of the child. No matter how much the child grows, in the mind the 'now adult child ’ the abuser adult will grow in proportion and the child will never overcome on his/her own.
The lifetime of the child translates into a eternity in the afterlife christian dogma
Shit runs downhill. Just because you did what was expected of you doesn’t mean the boss will treat you well. In fact, the boss thinks you are an idiot, and likes making your afterlofe miserable, because torturing you almost makes him feel better about how shitty his situation is.
Hell is being denied God’s majestic presence in the afterlife. With God you can leave behind your worldly wants and desires and be at peace. Hell is to be constantly reminded of what you had while on earth and not being able to quench the desire. Think of the movie Ghost and the guy in the subway who could see cigarettes but not have one.
The devil as tormentor seems to be historically related to the suppression of the pagan worldview by the Christian church – man tormented by his animal nature – a nature that is not inherent, but is rather caused by Eve’s sin. It seems that the devil became a more sophisticated “Faustian” tormentor when the legal profession became established. A fearsome Devil that only Jesus (and the earthly incarnation of the Church led by the Pope, who is God’s agent on Earth) can protect you from from is a strategy to end pantheism.
My favorite depiction is the Homer Simpson and the Devil short from the annual Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror. The commentary being that everyman Homer is too base to even be tormented.
My second runner up is Rodney Dangerfield’s devil in Little Nicky.
While the devil as torturer is not a primary focus in Christian theology–certainly not these days–the idea is not outside scripture:
[QUOTE=1 Peter 5:8]
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
[/QUOTE]
A devil seeking to devour people is hardly a passive character, nor is he a a recruiter for a college football program. He wants to lure people to him so that he may inflict pain on them.
If memory serves, in C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, devils literally devour the sinners they entice into hell (though that’s not to say Lewis was claiming that’s how hell “really works”).
Good and Evil are exactly names for sides. They are metaphors for the consequences of action, and nothing more.
The problem with describing actions in Heaven and Hell is that every person who ever lived and thought about them have different but equally valid notions. There is no religious authority for these detailed descriptions beyond the accretion of folk beliefs over the centuries. There are multitudes of these beliefs and people are free to pick any of them, like Halloween costumes. None mean anything real.
People who say they’ll pick Hell for the company are effectively saying that Hell doesn’t exist and the people who violate standard Christianity’s mores are more interesting people than mealymouthed believers. The saying is a rejection of religious teaching. It cannot be overturned by insisting that your imaginary version of the afterlife is realer than theirs. You are just confirming their point.
That is nice, but we were approaching this from within Christian popular mythology. Your response is akin to joining a “Imperial Star Destroyer versus the Enterprise” debate to point out that both ships are fictional.
While your contribution may be objectively factual, it does not add to the discussion.
As long as we’re in GQ that’s the only permissible answer. It’s what Malacandra said that has no place here.
I also dismiss the claim that there is “a” Christian popular mythology. There are many. If you want to assert one, then at least be specific about what particular subset of believers adhere to it.
Hey, at least I was trying to present a coherent reason why the Devil would be doing what he’s traditionally depicted as doing, instead of just snarking on someone else’s answer on the grounds I think it’s all so much horseshit. You pays your money. Admittedly GQ may not be the place for the question in the first place, but that’s another story.
That is why I referred to “popular Christian mythology.” This is not a question of dogma or the beliefs of any given sect; this is more a question of the “secular” notion of Hell as presented in cartoons and stories. Again, GQ might not be the best forum for this.
Slight hijack, but The Devil and his compatriots were depicted as having “fun” in the French stereo photo cards called “Diableries” that were popular in the late 1800s.
Also, the question was “Why is the Devil ***Depicted ***As Tormenting Sinners.” Emphasis added. So, internally consistent reasons for that **depiction **are legitimate GQ material, irrespective of the actual existance of either fallen angels or afterlifes.
