The Devil's Battle Plan

[AntiTheist]

If I were the Devil I would encourage atheists to try sowing seeds of doubt among Christians by visiting Christian websites and referring to Christian beliefs as crazy beyond belief (as one poster just did in post #50).

Blast it! They’re on to us! Retreat! Retreat!

 

[Samson01]

If I were the Devil I would encourage atheists to try sowing seeds of doubt among Christians by visiting Christian websites and referring to Christian beliefs as crazy beyond belief (as one poster just did in post #50).

This a formable tactic as is to isolate, cutoff, and pierce the heart. In public, then the family and then in the Faith. Hows it working so far?

 

[cynic]

he should help making a few more seasons of *Nip/Tuck *

 

[toufell]

good work
great article…good comments

 

[tonyrey]

I obvoiusly don’t believe that, but we are in a position where there is no way to distinguish that crazy belief from the crazy beliefs of any particular religion, including Christianity.

What way is there to distinguish your crazy disbelief from other crazy disbeliefs?

So I wonder how believers know that they’re not being fooled by the devil.

How do you **know **you’re not being fooled by the devil?

 

[tonyrey]

Blast it! They’re on to us! Retreat! Retreat!

Ah, that’s what you write - but you’re still hanging around. I wonder why…

 

[puzzleannie]

Obviously you don’t understand sarcasm, even when it hits you in the face. And then you counter my fantasies with your own equally unsupported and ludicrous ones.

and perhaps the most effective tactic of all , whenever true Christians gather to discuss their faith, prevent any true enlightenment or spiritual awareness by fostering an attitude of mutual recrimination, character attacks, sarcasm, and verbal gymnastics.

 

[Leela]

This is a thread to test your powers of intellect and imagination. C.S. Lewis (The Screwtape Letters) and Peter Kreetft (The Snakebite Letters) would approve.

If you were one of the Devil’s lieutenants, how would you counsel him to ruin the human race and increase the population of hell?

Or, what strategies has the Devil already used with greatest success?

Any takers?

Convincing the media that there are such things as “values voters” as though anyone votes based on anything other than their values. Obviously people who are concerned about women’s health, the rights of homosexuals to have government recognized relationsips, and the transmission of sexually transmitted disease have values too, but somehow the devil was able to convince the media that only the positions of pro-life, anti-gay rights, anti-birth control, and anti-public health measures to reduce STD constitute “values.”

 

[Timothy17]

The devil’s lieutenant would probably recommend the devil to study the 1st century church and, having become an expert on primitive church worship and received a degree to prove it, become a liturgist and “correct” the Church’s worship.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Leela

the rights of homosexuals to have government recognized relationsips

Would those be Freudian “sips”? As in Oedipus and Electra “sips”?

 

[Leela]

Leela

the rights of homosexuals to have government recognized relationsips

Would those be Freudian “sips”? As in Oedipus and Electra “sips”?

I’m not sure what ‘Oedipus and Electra “sips”’ means, so I don’t get your joke.

Perhaps it is just the devil at work?

By the way, is this devil business official Catholic doctrine?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

*By the way, is this devil business official Catholic doctrine? *

The rite of baptism makes reference to the devil. There are official exorcists (holy priests) approved by the Church for casting out devils. Christ himself did cast out devils. I don’t see how it can be more official than that, even if some of the details are up for debate.

All the evidence points to a diabolical troublemaker everywhere and at all times among humans, from Adam and Eve right up to you and me.

 

[colmywaykurtz]

Hi, Charlie! One strategy the Devil has used extremely successfully is to tempt human beings to think they are absolute masters of themselves and of this planet. The bloodstained history of mankind is ample evidence of the horrific amount of unnecessary suffering and death caused by the lust for power. Nietszche even preached the gospel of the Superman which led to the diabolical Holocaust of millions of Jews. His belief in the Will to Power, contempt for Christianity as a religion of weakness and proclamation of the “Death of God” eventually culminated in his own insanity. Dostoievsky had pointed out that everything is permissible if God doesn’t exist. Historical events have demonstrated time and time again that the conscious or unconscious belief that we are the authors of morality is a blank cheque for unlimited self-interest and injustice on a worldwide scale. The truth that freedom is our greatest gift is cleverly distorted to mean we should be absolutely free to do what we like with our life on this earth - and to hell with anyone who tries to stop us! In reality we are well on the road to hell when we constantly put ourselves before everyone else…

Moral relativism and convincing people he doesn’t exist are effective means. The extreme two views of sex definitely accomplish his purpose, too.

To this, I would add the erosion of people’s ability to even focus on God and His purpose for us by convincing them that worldly concerns–like money and social status–are so all-consuming in both their preciousness and their precariousness that one can’t afford to stop working toward them even for a moment. This is an incipient false gospel that separates many from God in this age.

But, tonyrey, I don’t give that statement about Nietzsche unqualified assent. I think Martin Luther did far more damage in Germany and the rest of the world than Nietzsche ever did. He had his own will to power and his own unlimited capacity for fantasy that laid the groundwork for the extreme expression of these things in Nietzsche and Hitler&co.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

He had his own will to power and his own unlimited capacity for fantasy that laid the groundwork for the extreme expression of these things in Nietzsche and Hitler&co.

Interesting point. Hitler’s appeal was much more to the Protestants than to the Catholics of Germany, as I recall from reading a breakdown of the votes for Hitler in the different parts of Germany. Moreover, the Lutherans were the least persecuted group after Hitler came to power.

 

[colmywaykurtz]

On a (semi-) lighter note, I remember a quote from the movie Bedazzled (the original, with Dudley Moore). The devil said he came up with the seven deadly sins in one afternoon, way back at the beginning. Since then, he had been in a prolonged slump. The only thing he had come up with recently was advertising.

It’s only semi-humorous.

 

[Reepicheep]

I’m not sure what ‘Oedipus and Electra “sips”’ means, so I don’t get your joke.

Perhaps it is just the devil at work?

By the way, is this devil business official Catholic doctrine?

Relations-h-ips.
And yes, the existence of the Devil is official Catholic doctrine.

 

[Greg27]

Since there is already so much evident evil on the part of people in the world without resorting to demonic agency, I think the devil has little left to do. If I were the devil’s servant though, I would recommend cloaking yourself in religious garb and doing evil in the name of God, or using God as a shield to avoid accountability. If the devil exists, he is in my view most manifest where people trust absolutely and blindly in their leaders and their beliefs. The devil’s work thus can be seen in things like the burning of alleged heretics, the Inquisition, the Witch Crazes of the medieval period, the religious wars and persecutions that go on around the world, and the extermination of innocent people at the hands of those who believe in fundamentalist or secular ideaologies, such as the Communists in 20th century Russia and China, the Nazis, and today, people like the Taliban.

 

[tonyrey]

Moral relativism and convincing people he doesn’t exist are effective means. The extreme two views of sex definitely accomplish his purpose, too.

To this, I would add the erosion of people’s ability to even focus on God and His purpose for us by convincing them that worldly concerns–like money and social status–are so all-consuming in both their preciousness and their precariousness that one can’t afford to stop working toward them even for a moment. This is an incipient false gospel that separates many from God in this age.

But, tonyrey, I don’t give that statement about Nietzsche unqualified assent. I think Martin Luther did far more damage in Germany and the rest of the world than Nietzsche ever did. He had his own will to power and his own unlimited capacity for fantasy that laid the groundwork for the extreme expression of these things in Nietzsche and Hitler&co.

I entirely agree with you. To reject the Apostolic Church lock, stock and barrel in favour of his own interpretation of the Scriptures is certainly the result of presumptuous, intellectual pride…

 

[Bob_Crowley]

This is a thread to test your powers of intellect and imagination. C.S. Lewis (The Screwtape Letters) and Peter Kreetft (The Snakebite Letters) would approve.

If you were one of the Devil’s lieutenants, how would you counsel him to ruin the human race and increase the population of hell?

Or, what strategies has the Devil already used with greatest success?

Any takers?

It depends on a particular society at any given time. As Lewis indicated in the Screwtape Letters, the devil has everybody running to the side of the boat that is almost gunwhale under already. A sex dominated age like ours has everybody on their guard against prudes, while a cruel age like that of Nazi Germany will have their followers on the guard against liberalism.

Today for example, he will promote sexual liberty and perversion (I don’t need to spell out the evidence), abortion on demand (again evidence not needed), greater disparity between rich and poor (obscenely over paid CEO’s), profligate use of natural resources so that we ignore the needs of future generations and burn it all up ourselves, official atheism in legislative society and division of church / state - all emphasised so the state gets all the power. In all these areas we are nearly gunwhale under already, yet we are on our guard to make sure these things are able to be continued with ever greater destructiveness.

When God does take the initiative eg. when He wanted to clean up His church in the late medieval period, and when He wanted to do something about the desperate state of Victorian age workers, the devil usurps the scene by dividing the church using politics, and giving socialism a bad name via Bolshevik atheists. He knows what coming and bends men’s minds to do his will instead of God’s.

Which makes it a bit difficult for God. As Screwtape said, “The enemy (God) can only woo.” The devil is under no such limitations. One of the things that always strikes me when I watch movies on the collapse of Germany eg. “Dresden” (about the fire bombing) was how stupidly disciplined the German soldiery & SS were - executing people for sheltering deserters, shooting looters over a pot, executing anyone opposed to Hitler who had dragged Germany into the ashes. The boat was just about to go gunwhale under due to Nazi brutality and they were still doing it. But that’s the human race for you.

The devil doesn’t have to work very hard sometimes. We do a lot of it for him.

 

[AntiTheist]

What way is there to distinguish your crazy disbelief from other crazy disbeliefs?

Evidence. There’s no evidence for your god or for Thor or any other god, but there’s plenty of evidence for other beliefs (like, for example, that the earth is a spheroid shap).

How do you **know **you’re not being fooled by the devil?

Well, there’s not evidence for god claims. I suppose it’s possible that the devil is hiding evidence from me, but if that’s the case, there’s still no reason to believe.