SYMPOSIUM: IF I WERE THE DEVIL …
… Yea, hath God said?
~ Gen. 3:1 (Satan’s first words in the Bible)
Note: This column was inspired by broadcaster Paul Harvey’s “If I were the Devil,” published in 1964 and 1996.
Socrates (470-399 B.C.) – a renowned Greek philosopher from Athens who taught Plato, and Plato taught Aristotle and Aristotle taught Alexander the Great. Socrates used a method of teaching by asking leading questions. The Greeks called this form dialectic – starting from a thesis or question, then discussing ideas and moving back and forth between points of view to determine how well ideas stand up to critical review with the ultimate principle of the Socratic dialectic being Veritas – Truth.
Characters:
Socrates
The devil
Isaiah
Socrates: We are gathered here today at my Symposium to discuss this question: Was the devil’s greatest deception to get people to believe he doesn’t exist? Assuming for the sake of argument that the answer is yes, imagine the catastrophic evil, pestilence, famine, genocide; imagine the global, political, economic, legal and religious perversion the devil could unleash upon humanity – from antiquity to the present – and not receive any blame because he doesn’t exist. Yet I hear the poetic lines of Jakob Grimm who, writing of the devil, said:
He who loves his country, should also wish to understand it; He who wishes to understand it, should try at every turn to penetrate its History.
With that said, let us now briefly penetrate key events in American history to determine if there is such a thing as the devil, and if so, let us speculate how he would affect America – the world’s last best hope. What would this fallen archangel do to humanity?
Original text of Harvey’s 1964 essay:
The devil {a soliloquy}: If I Were the Devil. If I were the Prince of Darkness I would want to engulf the whole earth in darkness [Paganism]. I’d have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree. So I should set about, however necessary, to take over the United States [U.N. Globalism].
I would begin with a campaign of whispers [liberal media, propagandists]. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve, “Do as you please” [anarchists]. To the young I would whisper “The Bible is a myth” [atheists]. I would convince them that “man created God,” instead of the other way around [humanists]. I would confide that “what is bad is good and what is good is square” [hippies]. In the ears of the young married I would whisper that work is debasing [unionists], that cocktail parties are good for you [elites]. I would caution them not to be “extreme” in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct. And the old I would teach to pray – to say after me – “Our father which art in Washington” [Social Security, Medicare, welfare state].
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