What did the devil ever do that was so bad?

[Kendodd]

My 13 year old asked me this, I struggled to answer and couldn't actually think of anything particularly bad (gave Eve an apple?) What did he do? Does he torture people in hell? I really don't know what it says about him in the bible.
He'd been doing RE (or whatever it's called now) and said that God did loads of terrible stuff but somehow he's the good guy.

We're not a religious family.

For me to even try and answer that I would have to try and acknowledge that god and the devil exist and I cant do that.

I agree with him on the god (if he exists) is bad point. Stephen Fry spoke brilliantly on this very point :-

Well, this is a really good question, isn’t it?
When the devil tempted Eve, it was with fruit from the tree of knowledge wasn’t it? Knowledge of good and evil I think?
God didn’t want Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge. What’s so bad about that?

Thanks for your input. I was a bit proud of him for thinking that. The question had never occurred to me. Hopefully someone knowledgeable will come along soon.

Get him reading Paradise Lost when he’s a bit older — Lucifer is very cool.

You have to be christian to believe in the devil.
If you don't believe in god then its all hypothetical.
Lile asking why the tooth fairy beeds teeth.

Who's the bloke Stephen Fry's talking to?

needs

I don't believe in God and so of course don't believe in the devil. The question still stands though. What bad things did he do? The only thing I can think of is the apple and didn't he offer Jesus some food in the desert or something?

Gay Byrne
Irish TV presenter, kind of national treasure* type.

*not undisputed

Christianity wouldn't work without a bad guy.
The religion needs to create fear in order to control.
The whole good evil/salvation stuff would fall apart without the devil.

Don;t look for logic- this is christianity.

What bad things does the bible say he did though?
So far we have six posters (including myself) and it seems the worst we can come up with is that he gave a women an apple.

Satan represents the evil that is in the world. Turning people away from God's plan of a good and loving life, tempting them to do the wrong thing (think the story of Adam and Eve). We all have the capacity for evil, Satan represents that rather than being a red guy with a forked tail.

The religion needs to create fear in order to control.

The murderous, vengeful god is pretty scary on its own.

Religions make more sense when you don't take them literally.
Absent dogmatism and authoritarianism, many people find religion useful to make sense of things like life & death, consciousness, human nature, society.

God is the metaphor for goodness and love, the way randomness forms into order. Satan the metaphor for ego and selfishness, self indulgence and the tendency for things to fall apart. Things that exist and trouble us, and we need to find some way to find peace with

@Kendodd

What bad things does the bible say he did though? So far we have six posters (including myself) and it seems the worst we can come up with is that he gave a women an apple.

The Bible paints him as a temptress.

In actual fact he is offering them something God didn't want them to have (knowledge).

The snake in the garden = science

He was thrown to Earth for being proud and vain (because he was really good looking) then started tempting people to lead vain, greedy, proud lives. So turned people away from God.

I'm not even sure he ruled Hell in the bible - that might have been Dante's work.

Yeah… arguably not that bad

I do not believe in the Devil ( d EVIL). He is just the personification of evil and how humans can be tempted to do bad things.
I'm not sure about God (GoOd). I m more inclined to believe in some spiritual life force- but not the way he is depicted to us in Christianity.

The fall is about human consciousness.
Not innocent like animals but becoming homo sapiens.
Knowledge can bring pain. That's being human.

Lucifer is the angel who rebelled against Gods authority, saying it's better to rule in hell then serve in heaven. He is conflated with the Devil. If you look at it in the metaphorical sense, it's not about Submission and Authority in themselves. It's about which values you.live by.

Lucifer rebelled against God and was thrown down to hell for his disobedience. By tempting eve, he brought both knowledge and original sin into the world (and handily provided a pretext for misogyny along the way).

Christianity is rooted in a Machien worldview which comes up against the problem of omnipotence and omnipresence (so, why allow Lucifer to exist in the first place if you knew what he was going to do? It's cruel). The mythos is a mess, but when it started out, so was most of the pagan beliefs found in the Roman empire.

OP, I would direct your son to Paradise Lost and Good Omens for alternative views of the devil.

And who's this bloke Dante?

Most of what we think about the devil is not biblical, it's from stories (Dantés Inferno) and is a mishmash of other 'dark' characters in different mythologies.

The Bible says very little. The serpent tempted Eve to be disobedient. It meant that the trusting relationship between God and Mankind was damaged, and Adam and Eve hid from God.
When Jesus was fasting in the wilderness, the devil tempted him to misuse his godly power for his own benefit- creating food, demanding angels look after him, making himself king. That wasn't the plan. If he had done that, he wouldn't have been able to substitute for all mankind.

Theology is a bit deep and subtle- it refers to and is based on lots of other elements. The answers are never straightforward.

OP has your son watched The Good Place? If not I'd recommend.

Well so far compared to God, the devil sounds saintly.