The Devil made me do it!

Interesting to think about. I’ve honestly been trying to figure out what “temptation” feels like.

When I lose my temper it seems like a natural loss of control. I give in to my flesh, so to speak.

Here is a spin I have been pondering lately. I actually heard it from a friend and really like it. I won’t go into the whole idea, but in part it is this:

Our ego (or the devil and angel on each shoulder) is what keeps us from listening to Christ (intuition, still small voice, inner light or whatever you want to call it). When we do things out of guilt, greed, anger, fear or physical desire our hearts are in the wrong place-we are driven by ego.

The goal becomes to silence the ego. Become our authentic self. We are then able to act through compassion.

Anyway, I’ve got a couple books on my night stand about this type of thing I hope to get through in the next couple weeks. I like the idea of silencing the ego because it puts it all in my hands. I have the power to silence my personal “devil.”

The goal becomes to silence the ego. Become our authentic self. We are then able to act through compassion.

I like that.

I gotta say I really don’t know here. I have a really hard time believing that Satan or God influences any/all of my thoughts. I’m not really sure yet on the whole external forces of good and evil. I think it’s possible, but I think it’s possible there isn’t as well.

Our ego (or the devil and angel on each shoulder) is what keeps us from listening to Christ (intuition, still small voice, inner light or whatever you want to call it). When we do things out of guilt, greed, anger, fear or physical desire our hearts are in the wrong place-we are driven by ego.

The goal becomes to silence the ego. Become our authentic self. We are then able to act through compassion.

I really like this. For me, it internalizes the concepts of devil and angel and emphasizes my need to overcome these things.

My study of psychology provides, IMHO, a better model at explaining a lot of this stuff. However, I have yet to see a model that fits everything perfectly. Just like in philosophy, there is determinism, and libertarianism. I can’t latch on to either completely, although both present strong cases. Hence I classify myself a combatibilist. I would say if there is such a “combatibilist” position with regard to Satan’s and God’s external influence over us, I would probably be that. I’m probably not making much sense here.

Sometimes, like today, I get to a point and I wonder “who cares”? The pragmatic in me overtakes my curiosity and I wonder if it even matters to our spiritual journey. I still ask the question, if God doesn’t exist, if Jesus was nothing more than a great philosopher, does it somehow diminish my faith? And if it does, is this more a reflection on me, than on faith? Faith motivates us to action. If the mere thoughts of salvation, God, Jesus, etc. inspire us to act, what difference does it make if they are external realities? Especially if we take into consideration that we’re all simply opining on this issue and really can’t demonstrate this satisfactorily either way!! Am I being too negative?

I have lately been liking this less and less, the idea that God and Satan are both constantly pulling the stings behind all internal and external events. It builds a dysfunctional religious metaphor that we are pawns on some gameboard of life, lacking control and responsibility for the consequences of our actions. I know people at Church that talk like this, that Satan is literally behind all the bad and uncomfortable things that go wrong in their life. These are are Satan trying to lead them astray or cause them grief. Maybe it is more “real” to see that people make all kinds of bad decisions, and there are natural consequences for those actions.

A specific thing that comes to mind, is an old missionary companion of mine. We’ve stayed in touch over the many years. His wife is leaving him because of problems in their marriage. They do have problems that both need to work on, but instead of her addressing some serious flaws in herself, she is framing everything as Satan vs God. Does God want her to stay married? Is Satan making her husband argue with her? Of course! Yes! That is the problem, Satan is breaking up their marriage. It isn’t something she wants to solve with hard work, since she is just a pawn on the chessboard controlled by God and Satan. All she is responsible for is finding out what God wants her to do. She has no say in it … but nothing is farther from the truth. It is dysfunctional use of a metaphor, to avoid looking inside at the real problems.

I have been thinking about this a little more. And I have a theory that God and Satan get involved in quite a few things..Maybe, what we think is a blessing from God might be actually be Satan tempting us AND what might be looked as Satan tempting us might be God leading us to something good.Prophets, I believe, have also stated the devil speaks to them as well and even they might not know the difference. ( Quote ? ) We absolutely use God/Satan did it .. Way, way too much. IMO

I think there is no way to know what came from who until we die .. Then I’m confident God will show me where he carried me and let me know when Satan was on my heels. But until then I can acknowledge, respect, thank, and love God ( and know at the same time that Satan is real and probably always lurking near ) … I think in the end God will be happy with me .. Just by me using my God-given own mind, for taking responsibility for my actions and learning to overcome my own personal struggles in my life and within myself.

BTW How does blaming Satan( for anything really ) even play into the repentance process? It seems to me like when it comes down to repenting you need to take personal responsibilty and so on ..

Well I might be biased towards thinking good things are from God ( some not all ) and bad things come from .. my shortcomings, not Satan. BUT I’m trying to take more credit upon MYSELF when good things happen now!

I like taking responsibility for my actions and thoughts.

I believe in Satan and God but I believe neither focus/tell us what,where,when,why individually. I believe I was sent here to figure things out on my own .. God won’t push me to things just as much as Satan won’t push me to things. I have the control.

When I hear people in Church saying Satan is leading people astray I honestly can’t help but think they are idiots.-Sorry just being real.

LOL – yeah, I know what you mean. I tend to agree with Valoel that it’s a dysfunctional religious metaphor with limited application. Perhaps the limit is that it works best for simplistic, superstitious types. It’s not the only superstitious metaphor that doesn’t work for me. As Voltaire said, “It is unquestionable that certain words and ceremonies will effectually destroy a flock of sheep, if administered with a sufficient portion of arsenic.” I tend to look for arsenic rather than incantations.

I also agree with Valoel and Ray.

It is easy to blame satan for very human mistakes thereby removing much of the responsibility from ourselves.

One example that comes to mind is a family in our ward that had a son who served an honourable mission and came home and was married in the temple. A couple of years later the couple divorced due to the husband’s addiction to cocaine, alcohol, and pornography. The wife felt angry and betrayed and soon after ended up leaving the church. She felt like she received very little sympathy from her inlaws (who were a prominent family in the ward), since they were always trying to defend their son. I had the occasion to hear from the husband’s mother myself about the issue, and soon understood the wife’s frustration… the mom kept on going on and on about how her son was so stalwart, and such a valiant soldier that he was an obvious target for satan. She was convinced that he had been singled out by satan’s forces because he was so incredibly righteous.

IMO the parents seemed unwilling to assign very much blame to their son for his actions. With this approach, how much hope is there that he would ever change? I feel like an idiot quoting Dr. Phil, but I think he has a point when he says: “You can’t change what you don’t own.” I think it is too easy to just blame satan for our bad choices… I really don’t think he has that much control (if he even exists!). I am really sick of everything getting blamed on “the forces of darkness”… what is the point of anything if we really have that little freedom over our choices and actions? It annoys me on a more personal level as well to think that as I gradually pull back from the church in an effort to find a level of activity that works for me, there will undoubtably be those who will think I am being influenced by satan.

When I hear people in Church saying Satan is leading people astray I honestly can’t help but think they are idiots.-Sorry just being real.

It is a huge generalization! People get lead astray for multiple reasons ( YES EVEN Church history, Church Culture are real reasons – But we don’t see people connecting the Church with Satan! )..I believe maybe some members are too lazy or afraid to step up and actually try to understand why people step away or become disaffected – Why would they? – When all they need to do is blame Satan and retreat.

I am with you on this one LaLa.