“Stretching ourselves out as it were against nature we measured it.” –Alan Watts, “Just So”
One person we are aquatinted with was describing hornets nests and how their proximity to ground was a predictor to how cold the coming winter would be. Predictably several people sent her private messages telling her variously how ridiculous or unscientific or pagan her ideas were.
If you’ve ever had a chance to really observe group dynamics, the group has a set of beliefs to which they demand compliance. Not overtly, such that they would even admit this to themselves, but it is more subtle and persistent. These beliefs could be about the benefits of natural foods, the best way to car-seat your children, vaccines, public/private schooling, Democracy or religious ideas. Groups also reach out and compare themselves to other groups which are judged and condemned. Individuals wind up adopting the tenets of the group without critical examination of each one.
If the term “satan” (Hebraically defined as “the accuser”) is used to mean the part or propensity in each of us to judge and condemn the world, people and works we observe, then the end result of this satanism is to accuse and condemn until there is perfect uniformity and sameness according to our definition of what is “good.” This need we have for everything to be “good,” or the same, or uniform, are the seeds arguments, anger, wars and destruction. Satan may get a small portion of what it desires for a time, but eventually nature will win out. Breastfeeding advocates, for example, can say “breasts aren’t sexual,” but declaring it, legislating it, or using other means of force will never change nature. The French Revolutionist’s requirement of uniformity to their cause resulted in massive bloodletting until the Paris drains were clogged with it, and disgust and revulsion took its place.
According to one religious tradition the archetype of satan voiced “I will save all, not one will be lost” of course according to its version of good, evil, salvation and damnation.
If God is the opposite of Satan, then one of its aspects is about eternal unending variety which cannot be all comprehended by an individual, and as such it cannot all be effectively controlled.
Breathings 