{"id":3987,"date":"2003-03-04T10:18:01","date_gmt":"2003-03-04T15:18:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=3987"},"modified":"2003-03-04T10:18:01","modified_gmt":"2003-03-04T15:18:01","slug":"the_greatest_tr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/04\/the_greatest_tr.html","title":{"rendered":"The greatest trick"},"content":{"rendered":"

This train of thought occured to me during the Alpha class I was in last night, in conjunction with that Harris Poll about what people believe in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.<\/p>\n

That’s a line from The Usual Suspects<\/i><\/a>. But maybe the trick was greater than that.<\/p>\n

I’ll preface this by saying that I have a lot of problems with the concept of the Devil. On the one hand, I believe that evil people exist. (Or do they? Or just people who do evil? Or is that a cop-out?) If so, then why not an evil metaphysical being?<\/p>\n

But it complicates the whole Free Will\/Omniscient God thing even further than it’s already muddied. I mean, if the Devil is there, whispering temptations in our ears, how responsible are we for the evils we do? Yeah, there are ways to argue around that, but it still feels uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

Not that truth is necessarily comforable.<\/p>\n

But, let’s pretend for a moment that there really is a Devil, in keeping with orthodox Christian theology. The Devil is out there, trying to tempt people away from a relationship with God, etc., etc. Let’s take that as a given, and move on from there.<\/p>\n

What’s the best way to do that?<\/p>\n

I mean, yeah, temptation is always a starter, but there’s this whole religion thing that teaches you to turn from temptation, that’s always issuing warnings about you, that offers a theological alternative.<\/p>\n

Unacceptible.<\/p>\n

So, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. If you can defeat the vision that Christianity (we’ll just stick with Christianity here for a moment) offers, then going toe-to-toe with it seems to be a losing proposition. But working from inside it …<\/p>\n

Consider the temptation scene in Genesis. The serpent starts off his whole argument, not by denying God, or denying what God wants, but by focusing in on a single part of what God has told Adam and Eve: there’s this thing that you really, really want, and God says you can’t have it.<\/i> Nothing about all the other zillion trees in the Garden that God has provided, and has given his blessing to eating. Just focusing in on that one prohibition, as if that’s all that matters, as if that’s all there is. <\/p>\n

Accentuating the negative. <\/p>\n

Why are people not churchgoers these days? While most people say they believe in God, and many claim alignment with a particular faith tradition, attendance at churches and active participation in religious community continues to decline. Why?<\/p>\n

Well, think about your memories of church growing up, or even what “organized religion” seems like today.<\/p>\n

Thou shallt not.<\/i> Rules. Restrictions. Guilt. Shame. Focusing on sin, the power of the Devil, the wrath of God. Condemnation of those who are different, who have doubts, who don’t behave, who don’t act like everyone else. Fire and brimstone. Damnation. Hell.<\/p>\n

Accentuating the negative.<\/p>\n

If you look at Jesus’ message, he talked a heck of a lot more about what you should do than what you shouldn’t. He didn’t sound like Fred Phelps. Heck, he didn’t sound like Jerry Falwell. He spoke about all the Father offered, about life, about joy, all being given to those who ask.<\/p>\n

How did the churches turn so far away from that? How did the perception <\/i>of what church means turn so far away from that?<\/p>\n

And what was the result? People turn away from the concept of sin, because it’s been used as a club, as a weapon, as a tool to suppress dissent and promote conformity and obedience. People turn away from Hell because it’s been used as a threat. People turn away from the idea of a Devil because he’s been used as a boogie man to keep the plebes in line. <\/p>\n

And so people turn away from church, because that’s where those damned priests and evangelists keep harping on sin, Hell, and the Devil, right?<\/p>\n

And we know all about those priests anyway, right? And about those evangelists, right?<\/p>\n

And now, not only to people not believe in the Devil, but they look at those who do and talk about him as (a) ignorant, supersticious bumpkins, or (b) threatening fanatical zealots.<\/p>\n

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist … and that those who think he <\/i>does need to be ignored, or locked away.<\/i><\/p>\n

Like I said, I have my own problems with the idea of a Devil. The above is just an excercise in theological speculation. <\/p>\n

But if I were the Devil, I’d sure be grinning widely these days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This train of thought occured to me during the Alpha class I was in last night, in conjunction with that Harris Poll about what people believe in. The greatest trick…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7160,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/10\/18\/spooky_3.html","url_meta":{"origin":3987,"position":0},"title":"Spooky","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 18-Oct-04 9:06am","format":false,"excerpt":"While I certainly defend the right of certain conservative Christians to eschew Halloween this year because it's on a Sunday, I also defend the right of some folks to call...","rel":"","context":"In "ZT & PC"","block_context":{"text":"ZT & PC","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/zt-pc"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2600,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/05\/30\/if_its_thursday.html","url_meta":{"origin":3987,"position":1},"title":"If it’s Thursday …","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 30-May-02 7:36am","format":false,"excerpt":"... it must be time for the Thursday Thumb-Twiddler! Remember, when you do the Thursday Thumb-Twiddler, you not only entertain your readers, you stoke my lumbering ego, too! What a...","rel":"","context":"In "Personal Q&A"","block_context":{"text":"Personal Q&A","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/personal-qa"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27095,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/14\/that-evil-conspiracy-proves-its-no-fluke.html","url_meta":{"origin":3987,"position":2},"title":"That Evil Conspiracy Proves It's No Fluke!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 14-Mar-12 10:54am","format":false,"excerpt":"The GOP and talking heads on the Right are searching desperately for a way to blame the whole Sandra Fluke abusefest on, of course, Sandra Fluke, by way of some Grand Conspiracy (or four).The problem with all of these conspiracy theories is that they presuppose that Darrell Issa and Rush\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":610,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/09\/11\/perspective_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":3987,"position":3},"title":"Perspective?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 11-Sep-01 8:05pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Why am I more affected by 200-odd firefighters and 70-odd police losing their lives than by the almost inconceivable concept of 10,000-plus civilian deaths? I mean, those sorts of 10K...","rel":"","context":"In "9-11"","block_context":{"text":"9-11","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/9-11"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2869,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/09\/11\/words_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":3987,"position":4},"title":"Words","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 11-Sep-02 6:46am","format":false,"excerpt":"I run a \"quotation-a-day\" mailing list, based off of my WIST website. For today's mailing, I pulled quite a number of quotations, based on all sorts of thoughts and feelings...","rel":"","context":"In "9-11"","block_context":{"text":"9-11","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/9-11"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48760,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/08\/rt-stonekettle-57-months-of-job-growth-longest-ever-in-american-history.html","url_meta":{"origin":3987,"position":5},"title":"RT @Stonekettle 57 months of job growth, longest ever in American history","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 8-Dec-14 12:35pm","format":false,"excerpt":"RT @Stonekettle 57 months of job growth, longest ever in American history Obviously an evil trick to distract America from BENGHAZI! View on Twitter","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}