Satan Doesn't Exist · 11:01am Apr 19th, 2021
This isn't about the literal, religious Satan (although that also does not exist, and one of the arguments for why is related to the one laid out here, it is not the topic of this post). This is about metaphorical Satans. Fundamentally, the Satan of Christianity is the personification of, not just the concept of evil, but the concept of the oneness of evil; that is, the idea that all bad things stem from a singular source. This concept, stripped of religious terminology, reaches far beyond formal religious doctrine. It is the central component to conspiratorial thinking, and to a lesser but still excessive extent, a component of all ideological thinking. Whenever someone expresses the reasoning "X causes bad things, Y is a bad thing, therefore X caused Y", a metaphorical Satan has reared its head; the logic fails unless there is an implicit "all": "X causes (all) bad things". Common X's include Jews, the patriarchy, socialism, gay people, capitalism, and literal Satan (have fun matching each metaphorical Satan to their corresponding ideology, and consider how easy it is to do; blaming all bad things on one single cause like this is a defining feature of each ideology in question). What they all have in common is the assumption that since the metaphorical Satan causes bad stuff, that's enough to assume that particular bad things are caused by the metaphorical Satan, without any serious attempt to verify causality or consider alternative explanations.
Now, the meat of the problem isn't just that this happens, but that there's a convenient mental hiccup that keeps it going. It's exemplified in the stereotypical "strings on a corkboard" depiction of a conspiracy theorist: It's the belief that drawing a connection is enough to prove causality. The fundamental flaw, here, is that drawing a connection is easy: All things are connected to all other things, not in some mystical fashion, but empirically: Every existent thing, event, or concept is connected to the things in its immediate surroundings (temporal, physical, and conceptual), and since reality is one cohesive whole, these connections can be followed from any one thing to any other thing. That's not to say all things effect all other things: These connections are not all causal. In fact, the vast, vast majority are not causal. Even when considering immediately adjacent objects and concepts, most connections aren't causal; and each time you add an additional intermediate point to the connecting chain, the percent of causal connections plummets (because every link in the chain must be causal for the chain itself to be causal).
Yet the above is the go-to defense of anybody who is questioned about their metaphorical Satan. They will draw linking chains (often preemptively in an attempt to justify their irrational belief to themselves) from whatever bad thing they're focusing on back to their Satan. But they don't pay attention to whether each, or any, of the links in the chain are causal, because they're just looking for a connection to justify the belief they already hold rather than attempting to determine an explanation for the event. This is a phenomenal self-justification, because again, such a connection can be drawn between any two things. If someone sets out looking for a connection, they will find it, and if they said to themselves "if there's a connection, then I'm right about the cause", they will end up feeling justified. By this manner of ill reasoning, a metaphorical Satan can be "shown" by a believer to cause every bad thing in existence.
TL;DR: The world is complicated; different bad things have different causes; if you find yourself blaming everything on one source you've likely fallen for a common, irrational, and dangerous thought pattern. Self reflect, it's philosophically healthy.
this makes sense.