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**CROSSPOST**
For years, I have heard many theories about evil. Some of them assume that greedy and controlling governments are out to enslave the rest of us. Some assume that there is a war between the rich and poor, the Haves and Have Nots. Some assume that there are supernatural forces at war.
Of those A, B, and C choices, if asked, my answer would be D: all of the above.
Think of what has been said about the Devil's greatest trick. I always heard the first quote but only heard the other in the past few years.
“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist”—Charles Baudelaire
I always thought that was the most correct until I heard this one:
“The second greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he is the good guy”—Ken Ammi”
Ah! That's the one that fits the world we live in today.
I wonder if it isn't highly moral (and "believers in a higher power") people to whom the first quote most applies and Atheists and evolutionists (highly moral or not) to whom the second applies.
One thing is for sure, Satan was smart about splitting people into different camps. He pits people of differing worldviews against one another.
As a Christian, I find unloving criticism to be an easy trap to fall into. When I hear evolutionists so glibly talk their language - about millions of years and evolving humanity - I have to sometimes grit my teeth. I'm sure that they feel the same way about my beliefs.
So the Devil's greatest trick is taking our eyes and thoughts off of the "big picture". He has us seeing and thinking in a compartmentalized way. We see issues in society or politics or education or finances as separately ruled. We see black and white and American or European or Asian, Indian (American and Eastern). We see our struggles as a group or race or nation - not as a whole and connected human existence.
All the issues that concern us as the groups we divided ourselves into are part of one big puzzle - or maybe all individual pieces on one big gameboard. While we focus on the one pixel, Satan is seeing a very clear picture of how to keep us fighting battles among ourselves.
But as slick as that trick is, Satan has one that is slicker: he has convinced people that he has a chance to come out on top in the end. And many, many people fall into his camp.
Smart.
As smart as Satan is, he has been losing the war from the beginning. As a matter of fact, to quote lyrics from one of my favorite songs, he is fighting a battle that has already been won. Why? Because those on the side of the Lord are redeemed.
Here's the thing, whether people choose to follow Satan or not, that's not the end of their personal stake. If they don't choose the victor, they fall into the lap of the lose (Satan) anyway.
And Satan does not work under one guise. He comes in many forms. He's every god that is not God. He's god that tells you you can save yourself with your good works. He's the one that says that as long as you are not a murderer or adulterer or fill-in-the-blank-sinner, you are safe. He's the one that tells you it's okay to serve him and whatever other god you choose.
Satan is a disease that infects every good thing that we were given. Patient Zero was Eve. Since then, whatever we are given to enjoy, he bleeds in like a parasite.
Whatever we have that is beautiful, he infects it to induce feelings of self-worship and lust and aggression. Music, art, literature - all of it can be pure and beautiful.
When I was very young, I remember hearing a concerto on record. I didn't understand music or music theory. I just thought that the lush sounds of the instruments playing together were so amazing. That music made me feel indescribably peaceful and happy. Not more than 5 or 6 years later, I heard a song that made me feel lustful and yearning. I didn't understand the meaning of the lyrics so I'm not sure why the song affected me in such a way. The song was "Let's Get It On" by Marvin Gaye.
Think about David soothing Saul with the music of the harp. Now think about how music is used today to hypnotize and drug people. I wouldn't doubt that for most people born before there was the internet music was probably the gateway into a lot of physical sin.
Just as music soothed Saul, I have had music make me feel aggressive. I suppose that is why generations of protestors and activists have their music. Hippie/Folk music, Black Power/Black is Beautiful music, Neo-Nazi/Skinhead music. One kind of music to make you chill out, check out, get stoned, and get "free" (with sex). One kind of music to amp you up, make you "proud", make you get up offa "that thing". One kind of music to get you marching and fighting and killing, maybe.
Literature - as the art of conveying and expressing, of telling stories to entertain. That becomes words on a page to make you feel some sexual thrill or teach you new things about the thrills or make you not feel alone in the sexual thrills you enjoy.
Movies - literature set to moving pictures - has become a medium to induce some kind of pride - of gender, nationalism, race or culture. It's the medium once used to make "stars" of some people and fans (fanatic) of others. Movies made smoking look cool and fashionable. Movies took sex - of all kinds - out of the privacy and exclusivity of the sacred marital bed. Movies took the "sacred" out of sex.
News media and advertising conditioned and guided our daily decisions about everything from food to money to parenting. It tells us what is right or wrong - regardless of morals and propriety. It feeds us information it wants us to have instead of what is useful. It skews our ideas about politics and justice.
All of these things put a lot of power into the hands of a few. Power of entertainment, information, and lifestyle guidance.
When you have time to travel down some deep and winding rabbit holes, go and read up on a few things for yourself. I can suggest some starting places:
- Edward Bernaise and why we eat bacon and eggs for breakfast.
- Music's effect on the brain. Music's effects on plants and sand and water.
- This from Truthstream Media on the subliminal messages some of us were subjected to for years.
- Go search out other subliminal messages.
- To see just how much the Satanist Aleister Crowley has affected today's culture, check out the book "Children of the Beast" by William Ramsey.
- Do a search on how the Nazis incorporated black magic and the occult into their ranks.
- Look up something called "Lucifer Publishing Company", Lucis Trust, and what it has to do with the United Nations and education curriculums.
- Look into the origins of Planned Parenthood and the eugenics and racism behind it.
