Our All-Purpose Scapegoat: The Devil
Skip the B.S.
by Skip Eisiminger
“Those with the most doubts about the Devil are those most under his spell.”—Cotton Mather
“The devil is a gentleman who never goes where he is not welcome.”—John A. Lincoln
CLEMSON, SC—(Weekly Hubris)—1/17/11—I’’ll never forget the day the doorbell rang and my wife answered with me close behind. Checking the peephole, she said, “Uh, oh, trouble.” As the door swung open, I understood. There stood a moon-faced fellow on our stoop with a Bible in one hand and some leaflets in the other. “Hello,” he said. “Has Satan ever knocked on your door?”
“Not till now,” said my wife, and we both laughed. To his credit, the young man maintained his composure, but he knew that intimidation was not going to convert anyone at our address.
Though the federal government recognizes the Church of Satan and grants it a tax exemption, many, like my wife and me, no longer take “the Prince of Darkness” seriously. Yet, just 250 years ago, one could buy insurance in London against going to hell.
In the Deep South, I imagine one could still sell a few “stay-out-of-hell” policies to the 60 percent who believe in “Lord Harry” right down to his cloven hooves. After all, in the South, nothing is so firmly believed, to paraphrase Montaigne, as what is least known. Try knowing this: a local fundamentalist recently claimed that succumbing to the “Power of Darkness” is “going horizontal and perpendicular, which is backward.” I take it that we’re supposed to go forward, but at what angle? The author then offers a “70-90 percent guarantee.”
But to most of my colleagues and the college students I teach, Satan is a joke in 2011.
“If you run across Route 666, take it,” advised one student from New Jersey when telling me of the road signs that have disappeared across his state. In one county, it was so expensive to replace them that they changed the name to Route 665.
Another student confided that the closest he’d come to the devil was an “evil spirit” in some Thunderbird wine. A young colleague speculated that Satan had moved into the fuel pump of an automobile he fondly called “the Anti-Chrysler.” And our son routinely exorcises the deviled eggs at the K & W Cafeteria.
In Israel, when tourists ask to visit Gehenna, the closest thing to a hell in the Old Testament, they are bused to a public park in the lush Valley of Hinnom. Today, much of Jerusalem’s old town dump has a climbing wall, picnic tables, and playground equipment.
In most of the educated world, one hears that the devil is in the details, the diagonal, or dementia—not behind every tree, as the Puritans thought.
Partly as a joke, I once gave a freshmen composition class the option of writing on the following, “If a cannibal child is fed Christian missionaries, will God or Satan claim the child’s soul if he dies in infancy?” I told the students they did not have to take the topic seriously, but a surprising number speculated on the irony of Christians’ plundering Eden. Content was admittedly difficult to evaluate on that assignment.
In another class, a student wondered aloud what would have happened if Jesus had been born feet first. Would there be those who regarded him as the Anti-Christ today? I gave points for imagination on that one.
One does not have to travel very far from this small university town to find people referring to playing cards as “the Devil’s Bible” and dice as “the Devil’s bones.” A Black student from Charleston once told me his minister often warns, “Go fishing on Sunday and catch the devil.” In Maryland, I’ve been told, some avoid saying hell with one of the most prudish euphemisms I’ve ever recorded: “H-E-double-hockey-sticks.” Further north, the Amish refuse to use pneumatic tires because “the devil lives in the air.” In England, some churches still have a north-side entrance called “the devil’s door.” It’s opened for baptisms to let “Old Gooseberry” leave without threatening the child’s innocence.
And at the Vatican, I’ve read that even though Pope Benedict is considering eliminating Limbo, the hundred-acre community of saints still employs four exorcists.
An old story has an Inuit and a missionary discussing heaven and hell. After a long description of hell’s torments, the aboriginal asks, “Do you mean that if I’d never heard of hell, I wouldn’t go?”
“That’s right.”
“Then why did you tell me?”
It’s a fair question, and one my wife and I answered by never threatening our children with hellfire. We thought they could learn that myth when they read Dante or Milton in school. Growing up Presbyterian in Georgia in the 1940’s and 50’s, I had heard enough stories of hell to scare me to the brink of neurosis. As a father in the 1960’s and 70’s, I thought surely there was a better way.There is, and it has nothing to do with fear.
At some point in almost everyone’s development, however, Satan and his home become useful as metaphor. The death of God and Satan has not been the tragedy for the imagination that Wallace Stevens feared; instead, for most of us, their deaths have resulted in a shaking off of those church-forged chains.
William James thought, “The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.” I agree with James’s main clause, but I’m not sure how we’re supposed to keep that rascal pinned. Too many 20th-century devils like Stalin and Mao have died at advanced ages in the comfort of their beds and at the pinnacle of their power. Even Hitler lived into his 56th year and had the luxury of committing suicide before the last Jew in Europe could tear him to shreds.
Mark Twain used to wonder why more people didn’t pray for Satan. Apparently, they are.
My fundamentalist sister has assured me that I’m destined for hell. If she’s right and I get a chance, I’ll send a report. Frankly, I’m more worried about humans’ behaving like devils than the Devil. According to Stanley Milgram, about 70 percent of us are capable of fatally electrocuting our fellow man when he gives the wrong answer on a memory test.
The Scots like to remind people that Satan’s boots don’t creak. Actually, they do, but we don’t pay them any attention. They sound just like our own and the neighbors’.
Sterling Eisiminger
Dr. Sterling (“Skip”) Eisiminger was born in Washington DC in 1941. The son of an Army officer, he traveled widely but often reluctantly with his family in the United States and Europe. After finishing a master’s degree at Auburn and taking a job at Clemson University in 1968, he promised himself that he would put down some deep roots. These roots now reach back through fifty years of Carolina clay. In 1974, Eisiminger received a Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina, where poet James Dickey “guided” his creative dissertation. His publications include Non-Prescription Medicine (poems), The Pleasures of Language: From Acropox to Word Clay (essays), Omi and the Christmas Candles (a children’s book), and Wordspinner (word games). He is married to the former Ingrid (“Omi”) Barmwater, a native of Germany, and is the proud father of a son, Shane, a daughter, Anja, and grandfather to four grandchildren, Edgar, Sterling, Spencer, and Lena. (Author Head Shot Augment: René Laanen.)
7 Comments
eboleman-herring
Skip, the older I get, the more amenable I am to “admitting of evil” in the universe. It’s sort of like Einstein’s* fiddling around with his equations after he actually KNEW he’d got everything right: my first, gut feeling, in life, was that there HAD to be Evil. There’s so much “out there,” how in hell can we know? And how else are we to explain the sociopathy and psychopathy around us? If I believe in Good, must I not believe in Really, Really Bad? That’s the short form of the query, of course. I could go on for years….
*…not to imply I’m Einstein-esque.
Michael House
For more information about the Devil, go to the BBC website, pull-up Radio 7 comedies and listen to “Old Harry’s Game.” Absolutely hilarious.
Skip Eisiminger
e, Michael Shermer once recommended that we never use “evil” as a noun, only as an adjective. Works for me. Otherwise you have Satan roaming about Tucson making Mr. Loughner crazy. I’d prefer to think there’s an organic explanation for his madness. Many evil folks are surely out there; there’s just no Satan lurking in the shadows–though he has been spotted at Bob Jones. Skip
Michael, Thanks for the BBC tip–I’ll check it out. Skip
Ignacio Alava
This is certainly a thought-provoking article. I am a Christian and I believe in God .. on the existence of Devil -I believe he is all around us and that I believe that for sure. But Skip, Eboleman-Herring, Michael House, I have a reply.
To start with, I don’t know what you believe in but I know for sure you are smart and brainy and you certainly have my respect for voicing your thoughts in public. You may or maybe “agnostics” or “skeptics” and I hope you wouldn’t mind the reference. They are what they are – those not simply not committed to the existence of God or the Devil.. or simply the Good and Evil.. but deep inside they have their own ideas but not inclined to show it or still in search for answers but may not admit they are still in search or that they already have the answers..
The problem that each knowledgeable God-fearing person (and that includes me, a Christian) is that there’s a lot that they have to explain to people who are are not readily or not all willing to accept God. Some believers are not even willing to confront that problem and they are happy and satisfied with what they believe. But some like me will not simply let remarks from anyone without a reply like what this article evokes, that’s why I am taking the trouble to reply. My reply, however, may not be original and I don’t claim ownership to it. In this age of the Internet.. it’s hard to claim what’s really original.
For me, the problem with the Devil is that he is too smart to show himself in different forms nowadays just like he is part of Good or God that we (believers) accept to exist… that’s the problem.
Devils existence is such that he makes it even difficult to acknowledge that he really exist. A lot of times, he comes in a form that’s looks too good (oftentimes “humorous” or similar to what’s really good) a form to simply talk about for enjoyment but ignore for a lot of smart people to relish and use as ammunition to make fun of God-fearing people’s belief. But once the Devil is successful to accomplish his form to be ignored and become like the Good so as the Good to ignore as well, then presto, he’s done his job.. period.
There’s a lot in my life that only I could attest that tells me there’s good and evil and that’s why I believe in the Christian God and what the Devil could do. Other people may ridicule my belief ( I had experienced that with other friends, relatives, and co-workers) but I don’t care simply because they didn’t have the same experience in life as I did and I won’t even bother to have a discussion with them. I should not forget the power of prayer which has been my only vehicle to communicating with my God.
Also, there’s a lot in life that I cannot explain. I don’t understand a lot of my body anatomy but I believe on the existence of my brain, heart, liver, kidney and what my doctor and my readings say about how and what I should take care of. I don’t understand a lot about the universe but I believe the existence of the planets and the solar system. I don’t understand a lot about history but I believe a lot of things that happened in the past that we could learned from. I don’t understand a lot about what Einstein theories are but I accept a lot of things that are pertinent and important to my existence. Lastly, I don’t understand a lot about God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus as given in the Scriptures and handed down to me but I accept and believe the Things that are pertinent to my life and future as a thinking human being empowered with a mind, heart and soul different from the simple living creature like the amoeba, the frog, the fish, and free-willing wild animals of the forests and the like who do not have the mind and soul that I have. These I believe and I am not ashamed to let everyone know.
Now, may I ask if you would not mind, what’s your belief? Do you believe in the existence of your soul or you’re like the amoeba, the frog, the fish and the rest of them creatures. When you die, your body goes to dust and is that the end of you.. period?
JAMES FLETCHER
My belief in the devil can be explained and supported by the ever present spirit of antisemitism. there is no reason for anyone to be mad at ISRAEL . There is a huge tension and turmoil that pervades the MIDDLE EAST that goes far beyond the physical realm,involving spiritual warfare. The sheer madness that is the middle east can not be successfully explained by conventional means. and those who question the BIBLES validity need look no farther for authentification than the city of JERUSALEM. always in the news and the center of attention even tho a very small place. powers beyond this realm gravitate over that city nonstop.
eboleman-herring
A preview of a poem in my next column (not my own, of course, but James Fenton’s):
“God, A Poem”
by James Fenton
A nasty surprise in a sandwich,
A drawing-pin caught in your sock,
The limpest of shakes from a hand which
You’d thought would be firm as a rock,
A serious mistake in a nightie,
A grave disappointment all round
Is all that you’ll get from th’Almighty,
Is all that you’ll get underground.
Oh he said: ‘If you lay off the crumpet
I’ll see you alright in the end.
Just hang on until the last trumpet.
Have faith in me, chum—I’m your friend.’
But if you remind him, he’ll tell you:
‘I’m sorry, I must have been pissed-
Though your name rings a sort of a bell. You
Should have guessed that I do not exist.
‘I didn’t exist at Creation,
I didn’t exist at the Flood,
And I won’t be around for Salvation
To sort out the sheep from the cud—
‘Or whatever the phrase is. The fact is
In soteriological terms
I’m a crude existential malpractice
And you are a diet of worms.
‘You’re a nasty surprise in a sandwich.
You’re a drawing-pin caught in my sock.
You’re the limpest of shakes from a hand which
I’d have thought would be firm as a rock,
‘You’re a serious mistake in a nightie,
You’re a grave disappointment all round-
That’s all you are,’ says th’Almighty,
‘And that’s all that you’ll be underground.’
lol
there is a song… by a band called diamond head…. the lyrics are
am i evil?
yes i am
am i evil?
I am man
yes i am