the devil's paradox

[scifes]

if you reached a conclusion that the devil doesn't exist, how do you know the devil didn't make/help you reach that conclusion?

is there a philosophical solution? even within the religious domain?

of course here we're assuming the devil has the ability to partially sabotoge your thoughts, or be a little voice in your head egging you this way or that. and it's in his benefit you don't believe in him.

 

[cosmictraveler]

Most anthropologists that stumble upon a unknown tribe somewhere deep in a jungle have never encountered any of them claiming that there's a devil that they know about. Many other cultures, Early Egyptian, Chinese and Buddhist have no such "devil" that they talk about. So that would tell us that if others never heard about this devil then it never existed except for those societies that embraced the mythology of Christianity. So to even consider that this devil myth is real would be very hard to prove not only to other cultures but to the many who are educated and research such myths to see that they are just that, a myth created by a few people to control others.

 

[Yazata]

if you reached a conclusion that the devil doesn't exist

I don't believe in the devil.

how do you know the devil didn't make/help you reach that conclusion?

I don't. Of course that isn't really an issue for me, since I don't believe in the existence of the devil.

is there a philosophical solution?

Your question seems to translate into the more epistemological question of whether or not I might be making a mistake. I'm something of a falliblist, and I accept that all of my conclusions are tentative and that I can always be making a mistake. (Even in matters of mathematical or logical proof.)

even within the religious domain?

I don't think that it makes any difference, regarding this fallibilism issue at any rate, whether or not the conclusion is in the religious domain. People might want to argue that religious issues have different psychological or existential properties or something, but that's a different question.

 

[CptBork]

if you reached a conclusion that the devil doesn't exist, how do you know the devil didn't make/help you reach that conclusion?

By the exact same means through which I would/wouldn't know if the devil put the idea of "God" in my head, naturally.

 

[wynn]

is there a philosophical solution? even within the religious domain?

God wins per definition, even if the devil exists.

 

[spidergoat]

If it's possible for some entity to interfere with your thought process, then all your beliefs are suspect, even belief in God. Perhaps only one supernatural entity exists, and he's evil, but he wants you to believe he's good. Perhaps only God exists and the devil is a myth. One would think God would have this power as well, so why doesn't he just make everyone believe in him?

But there is no valid evidence of anything supernatural, and no evidence of external beings making you think things. Occam's razor is a good principle to follow here. If you disbelieve in fairies, how do you know fairies didn't make you think that? If you disbelieve in unicorns, how do you know unicorns didn't make you think that? I could go on but you get the point. It's reasonable to assume our thoughts are our own.

 

[scifes]

i just want to point out again that the reason i didn't generalize my op, or draw an analogy to it, then post it in philosophy, is because this specific example has factors which are hard to drag into general cases, like the devil-god relation, which is hard to exemplify with something else.

By the exact same means through which I would/wouldn't know if the devil put the idea of "God" in my head, naturally.

but that's illogical, the devil opposes god, why would he put the idea of his existence in your head?

God wins per definition, even if the devil exists.

that's very interesting, but what do you mean exactly?
god may have allowed the devil some power over our thoughts to test our faith in his existence.
or it may be the mind's pure logic tackling and revealing a none-existing entity the thinker believes exists.

 

[wynn]

Do you believe in eternal damnation?

If you do, then "getting it right in this one lifetime" will be of vital importance to you, which is why the notion of evil and the devil and his possible tricks on you are also crucial.

If you don't believe in eternal damnation, then the role of the devil is different - temporary at most.

 

[Adstar]

if you reached a conclusion that the devil doesn't exist, how do you know the devil didn't make/help you reach that conclusion?

is there a philosophical solution? even within the religious domain?

of course here we're assuming the devil has the ability to partially sabotoge your thoughts, or be a little voice in your head egging you this way or that. and it's in his benefit you don't believe in him.

I don't think this question could be argued convincingly on either side.

I can only give a biblical perspective.

The Bible states that those who reject the love of the truth are given over to satans deception. It's kind of like, if you don't want Me to be your lord i will give you over to be a servant of satan.

I guess then it is in satans court as to whether this new servant believes he exists or not. satan might think it will further his plans more if the person does not believe he exists, so therefore satan would ensure that the person remains in the dark.



All Praise The Ancient Of Days

 

[Adstar]

Most anthropologists that stumble upon a unknown tribe somewhere deep in a jungle have never encountered any of them claiming that there's a devil that they know about. Many other cultures, Early Egyptian, Chinese and Buddhist have no such "devil" that they talk about. So that would tell us that if others never heard about this devil then it never existed except for those societies that embraced the mythology of Christianity. So to even consider that this devil myth is real would be very hard to prove not only to other cultures but to the many who are educated and research such myths to see that they are just that, a myth created by a few people to control others.

The belief in spirits and demons is prevalent in every culture i have heard of. shamanistic practices in African, India, island peoples, and south and north America all point to the spirit world and demons. Many of these same cultures believe there is a king of the demons, they may have different names for their king of the demons but most have the same concept.



All Praise The Ancient of Days

 

[toltec]

if you reached a conclusion that the devil doesn't exist, how do you know the devil didn't make/help you reach that conclusion?

If you don't believe Cthulhu exists, how do you know Cthulhu didn't put this idea in your head?

If you don't believe Flying Spaghetti Monster exists, how do you know Flying Spaghetti Monster didn't put this idea in your head?

If you don't believe blue fairies exists, how do you know blue fairies didn't put this idea in your head?

If you don't believe leprakauns exists, how do you know leprakauns didn't put this idea in your head?

repeat ad infinitum.


The question can't be answered only because of the way you ask it. You have written the question as a negative claim asking for a positive proof. To make the question valid, simply reword it as a positive claim asking for negative refutiation, then it can be easily answered.

 

[Yazata]

i just want to point out again that the reason i didn't generalize my op, or draw an analogy to it, then post it in philosophy

Your original post did ask for a "philosophical solution". My response is to point out that your devil's deception scenario seems to be just one of a whole set of literary embellishments on the ancient philosophical problem of skepticism.

There have also been Descartes' demon, brains-in-a-vat, how-do-we-know-we-aren't-dreaming, and more, that express what appears to be a formally analogous problem. How can we tell the difference between truth and falsity, if all possible evidence that would enable us to decide might itself be illusory and false?

is because this specific example has factors which are hard to drag into general cases, like the devil-god relation, which is hard to exemplify with something else.

I'm not clear what you are talking about to there. Please elaborate about what you are hoping to get at in this thread.

but that's illogical, the devil opposes god, why would he put the idea of his existence in your head?

Why would the devil create a false idea of god in our heads? I don't know. Maybe the image of god is fundamentally flawed (the OT does tend to depict god as being morally deficient and as if he has psychiatric problems) and maybe the devil is just looking for people who reject that image of divinity for principled reasons. Maybe the devil is looking for a few-good-men, like the Marines.

We can create no end of imaginary theological scenarios. There's still the problem of making choices between them that are based on something more tangible than our own human whims.

 

[spidergoat]

It seems to me the devil would want people to know about him because it undermines two accepted qualities of God, omnibenevolence and omnipotence. Omnibenevolence because a good God wouldn't torture anyone for eternity, Omnipotence, because he is unable to abolish a figure who is accepted as evil, who makes people do evil things. The existence of a devil would prove that God is either not good or not all powerful.

 

[kx000]

The devil wants to be real in your minds. He wants to bring your evil out so you get scorched by God. Why? He's proving a very clear point to the sons of God.

 

[wynn]

We can create no end of imaginary theological scenarios. There's still the problem of making choices between them that are based on something more tangible than our own human whims.

Is it not a whim to consider all of our choices to be mere whims?

 

[wynn]

The existence of a devil would prove that God is either not good or not all powerful.

Only in a Universe where one has to "get it right" in this one lifetime, or suffer forever in eternal damnation.

 

[Michael]

if you reached a conclusion that the devil doesn't exist, how do you know the devil didn't make/help you reach that conclusion?

is there a philosophical solution? even within the religious domain?

of course here we're assuming the devil has the ability to partially sabotoge your thoughts, or be a little voice in your head egging you this way or that. and it's in his benefit you don't believe in him.

Actually this isn't true.

The reason why most people don't believe in Satan is because there's ZERO good evidence that Satan has ever exited in all of human history. If Satan were out and about walking around and doing Her thing, like in the Biblical story of Genesis, then I am sure people would at least believe in Satan. As that's not the case, people don't.

Add to this if you were lucky enough NOT be have been infected with the monotheistic meme, your whole ideology and way of looking at the world may be completely different. For those people, they don't even know what a Satan is, it doesn't exist in their world.

 

[Reiku]

I liked that Michael... ''Her'' thing...

 

[wellwisher]

Consider the legal defense called criminally insane. The concept of criminally insane is something we infer from outward behavior, but can't pin down externally as a thing like a rock or tree. It is based on how the unconscious mind/brain interacts and influences the conscious mind. The conscious output behavior allows us to infer this concept of criminally insane. It is an abstraction to explain behavior that borders on way out there.

The concept of the devil works the same way. It is not outside like a rock or tree or an animal walking around, which you can observe, but rather one infers it from human output behavior. Criminally insane has certain parameters, which we add to, as new circumstances and legal trials occur. The Devil inside also has certain observational parameters which are added to, as new circumstances occur. The church had a list of inferences based on human behavior.

There is a logical reason for the devil inside and its influence on behavior from which is can be inferred. It is based on knowledge of good and evil. Any law which differentiates good-evil behavior is a type of binary data in the sense within the law are both the evil and the good directions at the same time, so people can avoid one behavior and do the other. For example, killing is evil. This also implies, not killing is good. Both are implied in the same law.

When the brain engrains memory it makes use of the limbic system which adds an emotional tag to the memory. This is why the strongest memories have a strong emotional valance. Even senile people often remember their childhood since this is when emotion is strong and memory engraining strong. Relative to the binary laws of good and evil, the good side of the law gets a positive emotional valance (peace, love security, etc.) while the negative side gets a different emotional valence (fear, rage, pain, etc.).

The brain stores memory in layers based on emotional valence, with each law of good and evil stored in two separate layers. One layers has all the good or positive sides of laws. This is reflected in religious symbols like heaven where it is populated by all the good behavior, full of peace and love. The other or the evil fear/rage layer has all the negative sides of the same laws. This is reflected in symbols like hell where there is all the violators of law, plus emotions of fear, pain, rage, etc.

The devil inside is connected to personality firmware that evolved within humans, which makes use of the fear layer of law as its matrix of expression. It only exists because of law of good and evil and the way the brain will segregate the binary law via like emotional association . Without the tree of good and evil (philosophical systems of morality), there is less segregation of memory and the lower the influence of the devil. Some cultures don't create this polarization, but once created, it does create an internal polarization between conscious and unconscious.

The devil inside is inferred from behavior which use the negative matrix, which in turn is maintain, by law of good and evil. If we change laws of good and evil, we reduce the polarization and also reduce the devil inside.

 

[CptBork]

but that's illogical, the devil opposes god, why would he put the idea of his existence in your head?

Well according to virtually every religion I've ever come across, the universe is wired in such a way as to look as if it completely contradicts the religion, yet this is supposedly trickery to conceal the creator. So if "God/devil" likes to play nasty tricks on scientists to lead them away from all claims of supernatural phenomena, then there's no reason they couldn't conduct other mindf--ks on top.