Tod Worner is revisiting the movie The Exorcist, learning new things about this old classic:
The devil’s tactics are brilliant. He tries to convince us he doesn’t exist and that sin and evil are old-
fashioned constructs we have assigned to the products of genes, environment, psychology and evolution. Bad things, we are convinced, happen because they are determined, not chosen. In effect, there is no freewill, no responsibility and hence no sin or evil…and no need for redemption. As Baudelaire famously said, “The devil’s finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.” Or if he can’t convince us he doesn’t exist, he can employ half-truths to convince us that he “may have a point”. Every Biblical representation of the devil shows him as the craftiest rationalizer. He is not called the “Father of Lies” for nothing.
fashioned constructs we have assigned to the products of genes, environment, psychology and evolution. Bad things, we are convinced, happen because they are determined, not chosen. In effect, there is no freewill, no responsibility and hence no sin or evil…and no need for redemption. As Baudelaire famously said, “The devil’s finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.” Or if he can’t convince us he doesn’t exist, he can employ half-truths to convince us that he “may have a point”. Every Biblical representation of the devil shows him as the craftiest rationalizer. He is not called the “Father of Lies” for nothing.That but a piece of a finely written post.
Go read the whole thing.
