Well. It's been awhile since I've visited this one. My thanks to Karma and BakerStreet for the points fest there... When you stop slagging each other off on a blogsite and come to actual blows let me know. Watching people bleed is just the funnest thing. However, all your comments were at least related to the topic and are actually useful illustrations of one way in which Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism etc etc ad infinitum ad nauseam are all equally 'religions of devils'
'Devil' is not a pejorative term in my opinion. Neither is 'Angel' a term designating something 'good'. According to the Book of Tobias, Asmodeus (or Apollyan) protected the maiden Sarah from her evil suitors by killing them as she and her various husbands were about to celebrate their Nuptials. And we all know it was an Angel God sent to kill the firstborn sons of Egypt.
Angel, Demon, call them what you want. They're all the Firstborn, and they all hate us equally for having supplanted them in the love of God.
What we call 'devilish' is generally associated with our passions, and with our lust. So that any religion capable of inciting those passions and lusts is in that degree a religion of devils. You'll remember I hope that I offered a reasonably clear definition of why my own faith is a religion of devils. In my own case it's because I exalt those aspects of myself which are sexually dominating and feed on the pain which I inflict upon the bodies of my lovers. I've found a way to make these things my God while connecting them not to whatever peculiar condition characterizes my mental/spiritual/sexual life (which would be no more than a kind of spiritual masturbation) but to something Other that exists outside myself and might just as well be called God as anything else. There was a time when I referred to It simply as 'LoU'.
Christianity, indeed any religion in my opinion, is a religion of devils precisely because it incites the kind of fatuous and irresolvable 'debate' that's occurred here, where understanding is not facilitated by communication but actually obscured by it. Generally, the intellectual/spiritual passions (as oppoded to the fleshly ones) incited by religion are those of anger, envy, pride and fear. All of which have been wonderfully displayed in Karma and Baker's entertaining spat. Along with, of course, condesencion, arrogance, and the urge to patronise each other with comments of a 'there there, dear, I'm sure you're trying really hard and it's not your fault that you're just too dumb to understand..." type.
And since it's this kind of conversation, and these types of passions, that are incited whenever believers discuss their respective faiths, and since historically discussions of this type have usually resulted in war (when they're conducted on a large enough scale, with sufficient vehemence, and over a long enough time - just as they're about to again in the discussion between Islam and the West) I feel justified in concluding that all religions, Christianity included, are in fact religions of devils.
I used to think the fault lay with the believers. Now I'm certain it lies with the concept of religion itself, where and if the concept of religion included a broadly unified dogma, a structure of authority, and the willingness of believers to abandon civility, decency and good sense, whenever a priest (or mullah, or pope, or whatever) requires them to.
The very fact, the simple act, of investing faith (which is surely one of the most potent passions of the mind and spirit) in such a structure apparently guarantees that the result will be conflict of the bitterest sort, both within and across communities of believers.
Long before I left the church that Sabrina referred to, long before I left the Church, I'd come to the conclusion that all priests, vicars, deacons, presbyters, bishops, pastors (ecclesiarchs of whatever title and uniform) are all in fact thieves and murderers - thieves of liberty and murderers of the spirit - and, therefore, devils.
As I say, Karma's and Baker's buffoonery here provided a useful illustration of something I hadn't made clear in the original article.
Thanks.
