{"id":90743,"date":"2017-01-14T01:56:13","date_gmt":"2017-01-14T06:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/?p=90743"},"modified":"2017-01-14T14:12:30","modified_gmt":"2017-01-14T19:12:30","slug":"the-devils-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/the-devils-work\/","title":{"rendered":"The Devil\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

\""Scratch"<\/a><\/p>\n

I have many times pointed out that, despite my polemics against Christian apologetics and my critiques of Christian theology at vital points, I have no interest in persuading individuals to discard their allegiance to the Christian religion. None of my damn business, I always say! Some readers must think I am being disingenuous, intentionally misleading people, or sincerely deluding myself. Some fellow atheists no doubt wish I would just come right out and declare opposition, enmity, to Christianity and join them as comrades-in-arms. But I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not from any desire to lull Christian readers\/listeners into a false sense of security before I lower the boom. So I thought it might be worth trying to explain my approach in positive terms: what I am trying to do, not what I deny doing. And of course the natural way to begin is to compare myself with Satan. Here goes.<\/p>\n

No, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not a Satanist, though I have occasionally thought how fun it would be to declare myself one. Just imagine the publicity: the first Satanist New Testament scholar! What a riot! It might even get me a spot on TV, you know, one of those quick \u00e2\u20ac\u0153freak show\u00e2\u20ac\u009d features. But no.<\/p>\n

If you are a Bible Geek listener, you have probably heard me explain how the Satan character began as a special son of God or angel in charge of divine sting operations. The Satan (at first it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even a proper name, but a noun meaning \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Adversary\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the sense of a prosecuting attorney) was so zealous for the honor of his Lord that he kept close tabs on mortals and was quick to sniff out any whiff of pretense on the part of God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ostensible servants. What was their real motivation? Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s find out! So the Satan would mount a scenario to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153try men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s souls.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Was Job really as pious as his reputation would suggest? Try taking away his material wealth, his family, then his bodily health and see if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still<\/em> such a big fan of the Almighty. Is King David\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reliance on God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mighty arm absolute, or does he have back-up plans in case God disappoints him? Maybe whisper in his ear that it might be prudent to take a census of available soldiers?<\/p>\n

Obviously, all this is completely mythological. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just compared with modern, materialistic science. No, there is a far more serious clash with theology<\/em>: the scenario of a deity sitting on his throne up in the sky, surrounded by a flock of godlings including a special agent in charge of security\u00e2\u20ac\u201dit is sheer, polytheistic myth. Is that the god you believe in? No, of course your God-concept is defined (or re<\/em>defined) by the philosophical reasonings of Saints Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas, even if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never heard of them. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re kidding yourself if you think you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re getting your God straight out of the Bible. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s far from being that simple. Do you believe \u00e2\u20ac\u0153God\u00e2\u20ac\u009d needs an intelligence agency? Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t he supposed to be omniscient? You take that for granted as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153baked into\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the very definition of God, but the Bible writers sure didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. But back to Satan.<\/p>\n

Satan became a villain subsequent to the massive Persian (Zoroastrian) influence on post-Exilic Judaism. Jewish thinkers saw the utility of the Zoroastrian concept of Ahriman, the nefarious anti-god responsible for all the evil in the world. That would seem to get God off the hook! So the once-innocent Satan was retconned as a Jewish Ahriman. But not\"Temptation<\/a> consistently. If you wanted to harmonize the conflicting concepts of Satan, I guessed you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say he went from seeing if<\/em> you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d get caught in the act sinning to trying to get<\/em> you to sin. From testing to tempting.<\/p>\n

But even in the New Testament, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most often depicted doing his old job, testing the servants of God, to see what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re made of, as when Satan meets Jesus in the desert and asks if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d want to change rocks into rock candy, leap tall buildings in a single bound, and swear fealty to him instead of God. He seems to be putting Jesus, newly crowned Son of God, through his paces. Like Yoda.<\/p>\n

My diabolical task, as I see it, is that of the loyal opposition<\/em>. I have too much experience, much of it quite positive, with religion in general and Christianity in particular, simply to fight against it tooth and nail. It would be pathetic and quixotic. It would say more about me than about Christianity. I would have turned into a crazy, bitter ex-boyfriend. No thanks.<\/p>\n

I have seen so much of Christians of all stripes and of Christianity in its many variations that I cannot pretend there is no good side to it. There is much to be loved, and I still love it. And this sentiment seems to me basic to any study of religion, period. You have to try to understand Islam, Buddhism, etc., from all sides including the inside<\/em>. Unless you see what is loveable about it, you will never see why its adherents love it.<\/p>\n

I disagree with Christians in their beliefs (even while agreeing on many moral questions), but that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make me their enemy. Remember the saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Love the sinner and hate the sin\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? My motto is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Love the believer but reject the belief.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Thus when I refute Christian apologetics, I am trying to defend the Bible, which they and I both love, from an opportunistic abuse of it. When I critique points of Christian doctrine, I am weighing it in the balance, challenging Christians to purify their creed, to get their act together. I am demanding they stop selling an inferior product. I may even suggest how they might go about it. For instance, getting rid of the sadistic superstition of hell which corrupts moral motivation and demeans a supposedly righteous and loving God. (I was already doing this a few paragraphs up when I pointed out the difference between biblical and philosophically chastened God-concepts.)<\/p>\n

Personally, I have come to the opinion that the patient is too far gone, but that hardly settles the question. And no matter who is ultimately correct, it has to be in everyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best interest for Christianity to purify itself, to reduce the amount of mind-twisting nonsense it requires its adherents to sign on to.<\/p>\n

So you see, I am playing the role of Satan, trying to keep Christians and Christianity honest, to make<\/em> them honest, exposing their intellectual dishonesties, their suppression of their better judgment, out of loyalty to a party line. Such faith-based fudging corrupts and vitiates the faith in whose name it is deployed.<\/p>\n

So says Zarathustra the Godless<\/p>\n

\"Robert<\/a><\/p>\n

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I have many times pointed out that, despite my polemics against Christian apologetics and my critiques of Christian theology at vital points, I have no interest in persuading individuals to discard their allegiance to the Christian religion. None of my … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}