I won't Pick on God. Too Many of God's So-called Believers Do That, Seemingly Daily.

So I will trash on the Devil, instead. And by that I mean to say I will trash the mere idea of such a critter.

And I think (as usual, I am mostly composing as I go here, but I think it will be a quickie) we can debunk the need, the place for such a creature in the world of humans, if not then the actual existence of such.

My thesis, in a nutshell, is that given the range of depravity and cruelty that humans are capable of, merely on account of their being human, given the extent of human pettiness, thoughtlessness, selfishness, and deliberate spiteful harmful action, is there really any need for an outside source of wickedness?

The rational answer is no. Humans at their worse are very, very, very wicked. And they need no outside help to be that way.

So that leads to the other point, if there is really no need for Satan to be an independent source of wickedness, and there clearly is not, why would such a creature even exist?

Ok. I admit that the second conclusion is the weaker one. So let me qualify that. As I really did not prove there is no Satan, his job is similar to that of the fabled Matag Repair man. He doesn't get many service calls, I'd imagine. But I hear he can knock out a hand made fisherman's sweater in record time. He has had lots of time to get his knits and perls down cold.

And before I end, as this was not really what I had most in mind since my last post, I guess what I really had in mind was something deeper, and partially religiously inspired (in the topical sense), and that is likely the question why do people believe in the nonsense they believe in?

Hmm. Now if I totally remove this from the world of spiritual, and Theological frames, I guess I was drifting back into my philosophical frame of mind. But I must have not been up for the usual sort of Epistemological chat.

So there it is.