The devil

The devil is the expression of human nature at its worst behaviour.

To those who say God doesn't exist, it's nonsense etc, can I just say, that is your belief. I believe that God and Satan exist.

The 'Devil' was invented by the church in the Middle Ages to keep the masses in fear. The mentions of the Devil in the Bible are not references to the same being. The Devil mentioned in the story of Lot for example was a member of God's court. Religion is a device for keeping the people in order and Heaven is simply an example of jam tomorrow. That's why the Tories are so keen on religion.

Evil certainly exists, the concept of the devil is primitive uneducated nonsense.

I think devils walk amongst us as do angels.
There are people who harm others and live their lives to gain as much as they can no matter who suffers.
Angels are those who care for others often putting their own needs aside to help people.
So no I don't believe in a devil. There are lots of them around.

The Bible talks about good and evil and certainly mentions Lucifer as an angel who led a rebellion against God and was cast out of Heaven.

In the Book of Job, Satan asks God if he may tempt Job and is given permission to do so. Incidently, the name Satan in Hebrew means a prosecutor and in the Jewish tradition he is seen as a sort of celestial Prosecutor Fiscal whose job is to accuse our souls before the throne of God.

The New Testament talks of Jesus being tempted by the Devil, and casting devils out of those who are possessed by them, but nowhere do we find the horned monster from the Middle Ages . The thought that something or perhaps someone tempts people to do wrong is certainly Biblical, but you could chose to believe "the tempter" is our own less-than- kind desires.

Other religions have other conceptions of how evil manifests itself on earth, but no religion denies that evil is a force to be reckoned with.

Presumably, there has never been a person who was never tempted to do something wrong and acted on the impulse.

Whether they (we) tempt ourselves, or are tempted no-one really knows. Both theologians and psycologists differ in their views, as the do on whether you can be born evil, or become it, due to abuse or neglect that you experience.

As to where we go when we die, Christianity teaches that those who truly repent the wrong they have done will be forgiven. This presumably means that true repentence prevents the repentant soul from going to hell. However, it should be taken into account that Christianity also teaches that only those who believe that Jesus Christ is God and rose from the dead will be saved.

Other religions too have criteria for salvation that differ naturally from the Christian view, although repentence for wrong-doing is usually a condition.

lots have been written about the devil,and that's it ,what we have been told or read.If we open our eyes there is much evil in the world,put a d in front of evil and you have 'devil' It seems to me that at present with wars, environmental damage, advanced capitalism, materialism, narcissism ,i would say the devil has the upper hand.Prophets come along throughout time to tell us how to live, but they usually get murdered! Taoism has a good idea of yin and yang a bit more realistic,rather than a man with horns and a fork.
there does seem to be a battle with good and evil.

CCC I’m curious, you say the boy was born with a
Bad streak in him, so where do you surmise this bad streak came from ?

Doodledog
Completely tangental to the thread, but if you read the book you might doubt whether Kevin was responsible for a lot of what he was blamed for. I enjoyed the film, but thought it lost a lot of the ambiguity of the book, which was much more about nature/nurture than the film got across.

I couldn't agree more about the book being much more about nature/nurture than the film got across. But it just reinforced my view that nature wins out every time. The boy was born with a bad streak in him.

Of course, that was one of the reasons the book was so wonderful - it just made you think long and hard about it all and provoked so many different views on what it all meant.

I'd never say that any book has changed my life but I can say that book blew me away. Sorry, off topic.

I don't believe in any gods or any devils either.

My understanding is that Devilish impulses arise within all our consciousness which we can either Act upon Ignore or work through in order to gain greater insight, and make better choices. Sometimes I’m shocked by the depths of ‘negative’ thinking and feeling I’m capable of. But I own it as part of my human frailty. To assign responsibility for my own darkness on an external energy/persona would for me negate free will.

Yes, his name is Putin.

The devil is alive and well on planet earth. The Bible has a lot to say about him and how to defeat him in your life.

Practising Christians that I know believe in the devil as a real entity. They see evidence of him all around in every day life. Actively preached in their church, epic battle going on between good and evil.

I believe in Satan as a force for evil which can influence people if they allow it. I believe in God as the force for good. If only God existed then the world would be a heavenly place with nothing bad happening but we know that is not the case. Satan (the force of evil) is causing much suffering. As I've said on other threads our human brains are not capable of understanding all this properly because we live in an earthly dimension and can only see what our eyes show us. It's no good asking why this or that happens because it's all too much for us, just as we wouldn't expect a baby to read a book.

snowberryZ

That's not how I read it.
My mother was never very maternal and the three of us didn't turn into cruel children and mass murderers.
In the film the mother was constantly rejected by Kevin.
He was unlovable
I think it was more nature than nurture.
He was a bad apple.
Other than the one time she snapped, (after being continually mentally tortured by him) she never showed cruelty to him.

It's strange how we all take different things from it.

Indeed, and that's a sign of a good book, I think. The nature/nurture argument was left open for the reader to decide.

In the film we saw everything through the mother's eyes, and it was clear that even as a baby she thought Kevin was deliberately acting to spite her, which is impossible, whereas the book definitely suggested that there was another side to every incident. She thought that his delayed speech was deliberate, and that he was being uncooperative when he couldn't play the games she wanted him to.

I can't remember in detail now, but wasn't there a time when Kevin was blamed for throwing bricks off a road bridge, and it turned out not to be him at all? There was doubt about the guinea pig/hamster incident, too - in fact he wasn't definitely guilty of anything except disrupting her life - and she was entirely unable to warn to him, or relate in any way. I would say she was mentally cruel from the day he was born.

As you say, though, it's not certain - I think that Lionel Shriver said that she didn't know the answer either - she just wanted to write about what might happen if a mother didn't love her child.

Meant but

MissAdventure
Sorry bit that would be telling!

It is the boogie man version for adults

That's not how I read it.
My mother was never very maternal and the three of us didn't turn into cruel children and mass murderers.
In the film the mother was constantly rejected by Kevin.
He was unlovable
I think it was more nature than nurture.
He was a bad apple.
Other than the one time she snapped, (after being continually mentally tortured by him) she never showed cruelty to him.

It's strange how we all take different things from it.

snowberryZ

I watched We Need to talk about Kevin on Netflix recently.
I know it's only fiction but that boy was truly evil in my opinion.
I know a mother's love is supposed to be unconditional but I could never forgive my child for doing that to a sibling.

I couldn’t finish that book. The mother who never wanted her baby and continued to dislike and reject him repelled me.

snowberryZ

Doodlebug, I read the book as well.
Any person who purposely puts a pet guinea pig in a waste disposal, blinds their little sister with corrosive drain cleaner and then kills her with a crossbow is plain evil in my books.
And that's before he locks teenagers in a hall before killing them.

All the mother was guilty of was having pnd. She tried all ways to try and get through to him and to show him love.
He was vile to everybody.
So I would say evil does exist.

Ah, we had a very different view of the book then . I thought that Kevin's mother blamed him for all those things (his father didn't), but that Shriver (the author) was very careful not to let us know whether or not he was guilty, so the question was whether he did what he did because of years of being cast as evil, or whether he actually had been all along.

I don't think that the book proves or disproves the existence of evil, though - it is just a novel - but it explores the question of what causes people to commit evil acts.

So where will these people go, on judgement day?
Does it depend on whether they truly repent?

Doodlebug, I read the book as well.
Any person who purposely puts a pet guinea pig in a waste disposal, blinds their little sister with corrosive drain cleaner and then kills her with a crossbow is plain evil in my books.
And that's before he locks teenagers in a hall before killing them.

All the mother was guilty of was having pnd. She tried all ways to try and get through to him and to show him love.
He was vile to everybody.
So I would say evil does exist.

Yes, we have choices.

MissAdventure

Wasn't Lucifer cast out of heaven?

He was a fallen angel.

God = good
Devil = evil

A clever use of words.
There is good and evil in all of us, in different proportions.