The Devil made me do it! syndrome

Remove all ads!

Disclaimer:
This is not an argument of whether or not Satan exists as that can no more be proven or disproved then the existence of God.

I was thinking about the belief that Satan is now here on earth roaming about fomenting wars, acts of violence, plague and all sorts of problems for us mortals.

It seems to me this is passing the buck. I'm not responsible for any wrongs I do because 'the Devil made me do it'. It takes responsibility away from human beings and IMO is a cop-out. To me it lessens the dignity and integrity of humans.

 

True. It lessens the integrity of those who use it. It is childish, to a point, as it means basically denying responsibility for your actions.

Unless you were possessed, and I don't think I have seen that, you take your actions. If "the devil made you do it," it is the devil in you, your weaknesses and failings. In which case you either need to take measures to rein yourself in, or you can't be bothered.

Normally, blaming it on a third party (unprovable, at that), is just that, cheap and irresponsible. However, sometimes it is much more. This is the case when you want to create a myth of your own perfection: you can not be wrong, hence you must not be wrong. This is usually the case with public people, who know all too well their failings, but do not want to address them or least of all, confess them. Then it can get ugly.

 

Most Christian theology that I am familiar with states that the Devil can tempt us and even trick us but he cannot MAKE us do anything. Our actions are ours and ours alone. Given our fallible nature, we will succumb to those temptations and the penalties for that will fall on our heads unless we give those sins over to Christ, who paid for them because he loved us.

That said, there's still a whack of people who try to fob off their sins on the devil, their spouse, their parents, their siblings, the government or the even more nebulous "society". It's a pathetic cop out to use the Devil as the scapegoat, and it's the same when they try to do it with anyone else.

 

LKD has hit it on the head. The Devil can't force us to do anything. He can make it seem like the best decision, but he can't make the decision for us.

 

It is all about personal responsibility. The world would be a much better place if people would just own up to their mistakes and try to fix them.

 

Sure. At the same time, the world would also be a better place if more people outside of sociology departments understood that a tremendous amount of one's life is shaped by forces beyond one's control.

 

Others have defeated this 'argument' above, but I'll summarize it all in two words:

COP OUT.

 

@AMaster: One might not be able to control many of the forces that shape one's life, but one can certainly damn well control one's reaction to those forces.

I agree with j_e.

 

You folks did notice the lack of moralism and the like in my statement, right? I'm not excusing anything, merely pointing out empirical reality.

 

For sure, we make our decisions based on what we learn and the situation at hand. But the bottom line is that they are our decisions. Perhaps when we bugger up, we could look at the circumstances and our decision within the situation, then we can learn from it and make a better decision next time...

 

Oh, sorry, AM - I wasn't referring to your previous post, but to the "devil made me do it" as the previous argument.

Apologies if I was unclear - it was ENTIRELY MY FAULT, due to sloppy wording - should've said something like "the virtually cliched excuse to avoid personal responsibility by claiming subordination to a personification of evil has been punctured already, but I'll summarize...".

It reminds me of one of George Carlin's bits about religion (early stuff before he became bitter and partisan):