@kellyjay said
If there is evil.
Does that change anything in the world, or how we look at anything?
If there is no evil.
Does that change anything in the world, or how we look at anything?
If your belief in "Satan" and your belief in your Christian God figure are the only things that stand between you and the doing of "evil" things, so be it.
I welcome the effects your beliefs have on you, if that is the case.
You complicate the issue, however, by constantly referring to yourself as "evil and wicked" which I have no reason to believe you are.
Your religious beliefs are an example of something you have absorbed from your human environment (nurture) and they combine with your individual human character/spirit (nature) to form your unique moral compass which is what governs your interactions with others.
If your moral compass tells you that you are "evil and wicked" [and, as you have claimed, you deserve to be tortured by your 'maker' blah blah blah], that's OK, but it seems to me to rather disqualify you as a commentator on the meaning of "evil".
It reminds me of how Fetchmyjunk insisted for months and months that 'getting angry with your brother' was equally as "evil" as exterminating 6,000,000 Jews.
Yeah, right, who's going to refer to a crank who believes something like that to tell us what the word "evil" means, having rinsed it of all practical meaning through some boggle-eyed ejaculation of dogma?
The notion ~ your notion, in fact ~ that every human being is "evil and wicked" and therefore deserves to be tortured by their creator being after they die, makes you sound a bit like a crank too.