Stupid things religious people say

[emjay]

-and very much wanting our family to be part of the magaverse.  The kind of people satan would attack, in their estimation.  To be fair, the whole mundane issues as satanic attacks thing is a recent flash in the christian nationalist pan.  Dial the clock back ten years and any of them would have quickly and without any thought to other externalities told me I needed a plumber...rather than a priest - but they've long believed in the personification of evil.

Right, well I can't really comment on the American politics side of it, I just was making general observations rather than looking at historical trends or whatever, so I'll have to take your word on that.

I think that evil, as perceived or as it is, is even more uncomfortable for our minds when we entertain the idea that no one is actually behind it.  If no one is behind it it can't be gamed or bargained with or defeated.  No magic words, no holy relics...not even a god...could stop it.   It's natural to us, if it's not a devil it's a shadowy cabal.  As bad as the world those sorts of views describe sound, it might be useful to consider that those worlds are actually better than the alternative..even if, especially when, the alternative is factual.

Interesting point. Funnily enough I've been thinking about similar things myself lately.... about evolution and natural selection and the 'meaning of life', if that's even a cogent concept here, relative to them; that there's no purpose or intention behind it; they're just processes, but they're nonetheless processes that feel like cold indifference to the brutality and suffering they cause. Probably not quite what you're talking about, but that is a very brutal and stark reality when you think about it... just processes doing what processes do, all without a man behind the curtain but with a brutal inevitability about it. As I said, probably not quite what you're talking about but still an uncomfortable reality to think about in certain existential terms. You can't bargain with that either.

But I see your point, and can vaguely remember having that kind of bargaining mindset when I was a Christian. I couldn't be more different now. Now I'm well aware there is no bargaining to be had... the universe is indifferent to us... and it's only recently that I started thinking about that in more depth, from a kind of nihilistic point to view, like I said, regarding evolution etc.