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All my life, I believed the Devil was real, Not only that, but I believed that it was very important that people know
the Devil was real. There was even a time when I would have said that I was married to the devil....bot not anymore...
But now, I don't know if I even really believe in the Devil. I do believe that everyone on Earth has within them an incredible
capacity for evil, and I think that if you can imagine the absolute most horrible person in history, or the person who hurt
you the most in your entire life, then it's easy to somehow imagine that you're better than they are, or superior in some
way because you never started a war or killed anyone or hurt people on purpose. But I don't think so. I think people hurt
and kill one another because they find themselves in situations where they have that much power, or opportunity, or even feel
it might be necessary. Because somewhere along the way they learned that it was ok to make the choices they were making. I
think that, given the right set of circumstances, everyone has the capacity for that kind of evil.
So I don't know if I believe in an actual Devil, and I don't know what difference it would make either way.
I still have to make the choice to do what is right or not, and I still have to make that choice every day. I decide how to
spend my time and where to focus my efforts. Whether there's something whispering in my ear or not doesn't seem to matter.
Maybe the Devil is real. But maybe God just made up stories about the Devil just to see what we would do.
Like, there was this one episode of M*A*S*H where Hawkeye made up this imaginary doctor named Captain Tuttle
so that he could appropriate some money for some orphans or something. But then people started talking about Tuttle like he
was someone important, and the Army tried to give him a medal for donating so much money to orphans, and Hot Lips would act
like she was attracted to him (which of course she was, being all about power and influence like she was). And in the end,
the stories about him became so exagerrated and Tuttle had become so important that Hawkeye had to fake his death, and the
Army awarded him some kind of posthumous medal.
Maybe this is what the Devil is like, just a boogie man or a scarecrow that God made up to see how we would react
to him. And maybe all these weirdo goth chicks who dress up like vampires and the freakish dudes in black robes who sacrifice
goats are all just ridiculous and stupid like the nurses at the 4077th who stood around crying at the memorial for Captain
Tuttle.
I know people who talk about demons and devils so much that you'd almost think they liked them. Every misfortune
or accident is attributed to "demonic activity" and it's like there is no chance or probability and everything that happens
is the result of a huge game of ping-pong between God and the Devil.
The show Joan of Arcadia was about a teenage girl to whom God routinely manifested Himself, and in the last
couple of episodes she met this devil guy. But he was just a regular dude, more like Joan than like God. And the Buddhists
talk about a tempter named Mara, but I don't know that they think he's real, either.
Anyway, I'm not saying he's not real. I'm just saying I'm not worried about it, and if he is real, he's probably
more like you and me than he is like God.
(From The Mailbag January 31, 2007)
I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but every reasons that you gave for not believing in the Devil are reasons
that I don't believe in God. ~~Jen
Well, Jen, I don't know how I could take something the wrong way when you're telling me what you believe.
First of all, the reasons I question the literal existence of a Devil are purely intellectual. I don't know why
I should feel obligated to believe in a Devil, or why it should be necessary for my relationship to God.
Having said that, the reasons I believe in God are completely different than the reasons I might question the
existence of the Devil. I have encountered God and I can speak to His existence from personal experience. That I can't submit
this to you as definitive proof is academic. I'm not talking about what you believe; I'm talking about what I believe. Put
simply, I seek God in my heart and He reveals Himself to me. I don't feel the need to subject Him to tangible, immediate proof.
(From The Mailbag February 7, 2007)
Thanks for posting my email! I'm famous! But you didn't answer my question *mad face* ~~Jen
Technically you didn't ask me a question.
All I meant to say is that if you question the existence of a Supreme Being for purely intellectual reasons,
I totally get that. It's a hard thing to get your head around, and really to accept it you have to be able to admit that there's
a lot of stuff you don't understand. In fact, the more you think that you know, the more in the end you're going to have to
admit that you don't. It's hard for everybody.
That's why I say that you have to be open to possibilities, rather than seeing everything in black and white.
Try to think of the most happy you've ever been, the most safe, the most secure.....and what if that's where God lives? Not
that God is that feeling, but that He reveals Himself to us there?
First of all, that wouldn't be something you could prove to anyone else. And I suppose if you never felt that
way, it's something you would never understand.
I don't know how you feel, Jen. I don't know what you believe or why. If you're like most folks, it probably
changes from day to day and hour to hour. But if there's something in your life that you lack, something that you're constantly
seeking, maybe it's God. Maybe not. All I can say for sure is that if you're open to the possibility of God, whatever else
you believe already, He'll show Himself to you. I can say that with certainty because He showed Himself to me.
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