i've posted before about people overestimating the "cultural christianity" of certain types of (usually regressive) ideas like sexual conservatism, gender essentalism, etc. but one thing i do think is very culturally christian in media is the idea that demons are out there trying to get you to do sins. that's really quite specific. in christianity i gather it's because the devil is trying to...raise an army? or something? he wants there to be more people in hell than heaven for some reason. but in most other religions demons don't really get anything out of human sin because why would they. so mostly they just try to kill people and take their stuff
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in reply to @yrgirlkv's post:
As an outsider looking in (first from outside the US and Christianity, then in the US and outside Christianity) I was also confused on the motivation there. My best guess from pop culture was basically, "because the devil is evil, he likes to torture people, and he can only torture people if they sin, so he tempts people to sin so they go to hell so he can torture them (also somehow this is good because they're supposed to be tortured if they fall for it)".
this was also what i figured but when i learned he used to be an angel i think that explanation started to make less sense to me
I think in the end it's just an incredibly paranoid religion in general
I mean, in the bible Satan very prominently fucks with Job just to prove a point, so I'm not sure if he needs any specific plan behind it
growing up christian, we understood it as, like...demons do evil things because they are evil. same with the devil. the devil wants people to go to hell because that's evil and he is supposed to be the ultimate evil. it's just black-and-white mentality. similarly, everything god does is good because god is good and only allows good things to happen. even if something seems bad, it's actually good (unless the devil did it) and we just don't have a complete understanding as to why because we are flawed mortals
nevermind the conflicting christian belief that god has ultimate power and knowledge over everything, which implies that he built everything like this On Purpose, including our inability to understand his motivations. you're not supposed to dig into it. you're just supposed to accept it as reality
That shit about demons isn't even biblical. Every Christian conception about demons comes from medieval folklore and shit but the fundamentalists who supposedly only believe the Bible and take it literally buy into all of it. Even though demons are barely in the Bible and don't fucking work any of the ways they've been alleged to work.
It's kind of a confusing idea because, hell is seen as a punishment for the sinners, and even lucifer himself was sent to hell as a punishment... but at the same time, there's this idea of a rivalry between heaven and hell.
And also according to the bible there will be an apocalypse in which the forces of hell will descend upon the earth, that's why christians believe that if they are faithful to god, they will be protected from the end of the world and the devil's army.
This idea is used mainly to keep people from questioning authority, especially in the US... It's easier to keep people in line if they're always afraid of some boogeyman who's gonna steal their children or something.