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Halloween Quote of the Day: If There Are Devils, There Must Also Be Gods
It’s not a good idea to confront druid ghosts who’ve taken over your 747 in midflight, freezing the place and demanding a human sacrifice. But sometimes there’s no alternative — particularly if you’re a character played by William Shatner and the other passengers are actually about to give the ghosts what they want.
The Horror at 37,000 Feet is just that ridiculous of a movie–and just that awesome. The philosophical talk between Shatner’s defrocked priest character and the pagan woman who’s on the side of the druids is great. And then . . . and then there’s the last lines of the movie, delivered by the doctor in this gif. This is a character who knows what he does not know and who also recognizes the insight that may have motivated the former priest’s actions: If there are devils, there must also be gods.
You’ll also find this idea in the climactic moment of The Rite, where the doubting priest recognizes the evil in the room, concludes that G-d also exists, and starts quoting from the Nicene Creed. I’ve been hearing this idea a lot lately, mostly but not exclusively from @jamesdelingpole: If evil is real, so is good; if supernatural evil is real, so is supernatural good; if demonic powers exist, so do heavenly; if Satan exists, so does G-d; if there are devils, there must also be gods!
Halloween has largely moved on from classic ghost movies, the Great Pumpkin, silly costumes, and kids eating candy–things I support. It’s increasingly nightmarish, darker and darker, and sexually degenerate. It’s . . . downright demonic.
Well, newsflash: The devils are real. Evil powers exist. The most accurate and thorough conspiracy theory of them all is: Satan exists, and the big jerk does stuff.
But here’s some more news: Tuesday is also Reformation Day; then Wednesday is 1 November, and–besides being the day to which Halloween was once merely the eve–that is also Thanksgiving season, followed closely by Advent, twelve days of Christmas, and the real J6–Epiphany, when the Magi met little Jesus.
If there are devils, there must also be gods. Feed the kids some candy, shun the devils, and rejoice with where the year is going next. There are also powers in Heaven!
Published in Religion and Philosophy
A friend sent me a photo of women dressed in overly sexualized outfits for Halloween this weekend and was sort of shocked. But it makes complete sense that a holiday featuring death and devils would tend toward sexual temptation, too. And maybe that’s the right place for it honestly. These girls and women play at versions of themselves that they know would not be acceptable or laudable on the other 364 days of the year.
Perversion of human sexuality was always a priority for the devils.
And it can lead to death, as the Old Testament teaches. Also a theme in The House on Haunted Hill with Vincent Price.
Isn’t it just barely possible that everything we experience was created as a plaything by forces we would consider evil but are actually the only ones that exist?
Are we talking H. P. Lovecraft ideas here, or something else?
I’m not trying to make an analogy to anything. But the idea that if (what we consider) “evil” exists then (what we consider) “good” must also exist, seems flawed.
I’m not seeing the flaw.
I’m seeing the fallibility. But infallibility is a pretty unusual thing.
Years ago when I was a reserve deputy, our training sergeant told about how he became a Christian. Early in his career in a southern California county, some officers got together at a local establishment after their shift. Having been dealing with every kind of evil for the previous eight or more hours, they came to the realization that there had to be a supernatural force for evil in the world. And if that were true, then there also had to be a supernatural force for good.
So like William Wilberforce and slavery?
I forgot. More likely, I never knew. Care to elaborate?
In H.P. Lovecraft, there is no good or evil. Just weak and small humanity and Elder Gods beyond human comprehension.
I personally believe in goodness and evil but I think whatever God/gods made the material universe in a manner indifferent to who is good and evil. At least that makes the most sense to me.
Well, I guess it’s not an idea so much as a… theorem, maybe? Just Being Newtonian, maybe? Equal/Opposite, etc.
That could be. But it’s also possible that what we think of as “evil” actually created the entire universe that we know, merely as a plaything. Our universe could be just one part of a larger universe that might include both good and evil; but our segment of it might not.
I’m lost.
That if there is evil, there must be good, is just Newtonian: equal and opposite, etc. And it might apply to physics, at least on the simpler levels (not getting to Einstein, etc), but it doesn’t even apply to chemistry, and there’s no good reason to assume that it applies to theology or the structure of the universe. It might help people feel good, but that doesn’t guarantee anything.
No one suggested the principle you’re describing. I totally reject that principle.
All I did was support the if-then statement, “If there is a supernatural force promoting evil, there is also a supernatural force promoting good.”
In fact, I think evil is parasitic on good; evil does not, strictly speaking, exist. It’s not a thing, but a lack of goodness. A supernatural for promoting evil is, technically, just undermining good. And the if-then doesn’t go in reverse. Satan cannot exist without G-d, but G-d can exist without Satan.
There is good and there is away from good. Some of the synonymous words point to this, such as “crooked,” as opposed to “straight.” That does not suggest conformity, there are many ways to act and not injure, though we may be hard-pressed to believe it in our current circumstances.
“Evil” used to be the term of use for anything not whole. Disease, ugliness, misfortune, all these were described as evil. “Bad” came along later, as in bad health, bad looks, and bad luck. We changed the nature of the word “evil” through our use of it. Now it is a force unto itself? No, it is a human choice that requires conscious action. In this, it is perhaps more grotesque.
That ought to stir a few comments.
Sounds good to me, with one adjustment.
Except, at least for this (part of the larger) universe, the creator might be Satan, and God (of the larger universe) may have nothing at all to do with this part.
I can certainly understand that you don’t (want to) believe that, but that doesn’t make it impossible.
And evil isn’t necessarily JUST the absence of good. If the Palestinians/Hamas did NOTHING, would that be evil?
You’re reminding me of the fact that I’m fallible, which I already mentioned?
Correct; it’s the absence of the good that is supposed to be there–in this case, the good of loving your neighbors as you love yourself, the most extreme lack of which is murdering them.
I think you are a bit off here mate. Sometimes people do evil to do evil. Think of Cain and Abel. People do go out of their way to be evil. Sort of like how people go out of their way to murder Jews.
Of course they do. I agree. Why wouldn’t i?
If you want to disagree with me, start with the thing I’m actually talking about. Not whether they have particular motives or whether they do certain things, but what actually is that evil quality of their motives or of their actions which are evil–what IS that stuff?
It’s more than that – it is All Saints Day, and Thursday is All Souls Day.
I referenced All Saint Day obliquely.
Didn’t even realize there’d be All Souls. Didn’t mention Hannukah either. And I bet I missed more than those!
The devil is supposed to be a created being. A part of the created world. Like people. Therefore not part of the supernatural world. The supernatural world is uncreated.
Unless we are going to be Manichaeans and believe that the devil is equal and opposite to God. That’s the sentiment behind “If there’s a devil there must be a god” etc.
I would define the natural world as the physical world. But using your definition–Satan is totally not supernatural.
No heresy for me, thanks.
Certainly not. Why would you think that?
Look, you can make that inference because Manicheanism is wrong. You just can’t do it in reverse. If Satan and demons are real, so is G-d. But you can’t conclude that they exist on the basic of G-d exist.
This is a vagueness in western theology. Is the supernatural world divided into two parts: the uncreated part and the created part? It would seem that the difference between the uncreated and created parts of the supernatural world would be far greater than that between the created supernatural world and the natural world.
And it raises questions about the nature of faith. Faith in god includes faith in the reality of the uncreated supernatural world. Belief in angels and demons is usually considered part of all that. But if angels and demons are part of the created world, then faith in their reality is more like faith in a speculative scientific proposition about alternate dimensions.
Not sure I follow here…If Satan and demons are real, so is God. Isn’t that like saying that if [REDACTED] are real, then so are nice people?
A-whole$
You got in fast! You clicked to reply before I added an important edit!
Yes, if you want to refer to G-d as part of a world.
Yes, the difference between G-d and angel is much greater than the difference between angel and man.
Yes.
No, it’s belief in the existence of non-physical created beings. And they’re not speculative.
Satan depends on G-d, and not vice versa.
Evil depends on good, but not vice versa.
It’s a little like saying that, but not just any inference of that pattern works. The first thing is to get a rough understanding of the theory that evil is parasitic on good. It’s basic Augustine/Aquinas. Would you be interested in a few paragraphs of readable scholarship explaining it if I gave you a link?
I reckon the second thing is to ponder why non-physical malevolent forces would indicate the existence of benevolent non-physical forces, particularly G-d. Maybe in the next comment.