Posted on 03/25/2009 1:21:11 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
Satan is losing the battle for people's minds. This is a clear trend, and it's been mounting for a long time. The basic reason is that evil has gotten a lot of competition. Are schizophrenics possessed by the Devil? Raise your hand if you say yes. A century ago, countless more people would have raised their hands than today, when we use "sick" in place of "evil" for many things, including psychosis. The more replacements we find for evil, the weaker Satan grows. After all, the Devil is the embodiment of absolute evil, the kind that admits no other explanation. His fortunes decline when valid explanations are at hand.
Besides psychosis, we attribute criminal behavior to a host of influences -- poverty, domestic abuse, peer pressure, social resentment -- that overshadow the simple word "evil." Centuries ago, the first word that would come to mind when a murder took place would be "sin," opening the door automatically to think about the great tempter and progenitor of sin, the serpent in the Garden. Today, if we fail to understand why sadistic violence occurs, we might fall back on a phrase like "pure evil," but even then we don't automatically insert Satan's name or make him the cause. We simply mean an evil that passes understanding -- for the time being. Understanding can grow, after all.
And it does grow. Leaving aside the dwindling number of fundamentalists who have made the Devil a core belief, fewer people see the hand of Satan at work around them. Abu Ghraib was a horrific example of human nature at its most depraved, but who did the media rush to for explanation? Psychologists, not preachers. If you take the most evil acts in the world, such as the Holocaust, you must run out of human explanations
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.washingtonpost.com ...
....If Satan is so cosmic, why did he wait billions of years to appear on the scene, until the day when the Old Testament was written?
Deepak Chopra always reminds me it’s PBS pledge time.
I disagree with the premise that “not crediting Satan reduces his power”.
Power is determining an outcome without anyone knowing.
I’d say Satan is alive and well in today’s world.
Exactly wrong. The devil doesn't want you to believe he exists. The more modern replacements or explanations we have for pure evil the greater in strength Satan gets.
Deepak + washington post + newsweek = lunacy.
Barack Obama sold his soul to the devil for the Presidency. Obviously.
This needs a barf alert.
Typical liberal mindset. Abu Gharaib = evil. How many heads were cut off there?
I was forced to listen to a Deepak Chopra tape at work where he claimed, “The world is exactly as it should be.”
I burst out laughing.
Anybody with half a clue can look around and realize the world is not as it should be.
Comparing the Holocaust w/ Abu Ghraib is so stupid.
Deepok has it backwards... The Devil’s greatest feat was to convince people he doesn’t exist and to persuade people to call evil sick. The hustler works best when you don’t suspect him of being there. Working in secret is his weapon.
Deepok Chokra is a jack ass.
Yet another example of demented moral relativism. Abu Ghraib in the same paragraph as the Holocaust???!!
No mention of Saddam's human-shredders, or even of the Nick Berg beheading, which took place a day or so after "Abu Ghraib" stormed the world's headlines in 2004 but garnered barely 10% of the attention.
Conclusion: Chopra is a psychobabbling idiot.
__________________________________________
Alive? Satan owns this world. I figured that out the first time I read the scripture about the third temptation. How could Satan offer to give the world to Jesus unless he owned it.
This world is nothing but a battleground between good and evil.
I’m sick and tired of hearing about Abu Gharaib too.
I never cared about it.
I’m sick and tired of hearing about Abu Gharaib too.
I never cared about it.
So according the Chopra, there is no absolute evil (unless it is Abu Ghraib—funny how it gets listed with the Holocaust) and the Devil is just our negative feelings.
Well, as one of those knuckle-draggers who believes there is a Satan, all I can say is that Satan must be happy that he is being denied. It is easier for him to ply his trade when people say he does not exist, is it not?
The devil of the gaps.
That wasn’t satanic.
We’re all gonna have rainbows and gum drops and unicorns and..
“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing people he doesn’t exist.”
—Kaiser Soze (The Usual Suspects)
I buy the above premise. The more we think the Devil is more notion than genuine entity, the more effective he becomes.
plus the countless “oldies” concerts that run all week
YOW!

His fortunes decline when valid explanations are at hand.
Hey, so do mine. Looked at your 401(K) lately?
Well, he only thinks he owns it, but it’s by the Lord that he has any say about it. Besides, how many criminals are out there selling pieces of property that don’t belong to them? It’s a con as old as, well, the temptation in the desert. Remember the Brooklyn Bridge!
Personally, considering what types of individuals we were/are dealing with, I hope it was HELL for the terrorists.
If you had to pick four of the above five events from the last 100 years to demonstrate "a horrific example of human nature at its most depraved", which one would most sane people leave out? Could it possibly be the one that this anti-American writer chose to highlight?
Frightening fact #6:
(6) Another socialist and captivating speaker has just taken power in what is the strongest country in the world and used to be a bastion of freedom. The socialist's supporters are hoping that this experiment will turn out better than all previous attempts at socialism. After all, their messiah promises "change" once he has enough power, and he makes it sound good. What could go wrong?
So once again we have a lib telling us that Bush replaced Satan. Incredible.
If the author had been referring to Abu Gharaib as it had been operated under Saddam, I'd be inclined to agree with him; however, there's little doubt he was instead referring to a few mindless fraternity pranks perpetrated by a handful of poorly disciplined US soldiers.
Ephesians 2:1-3 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air [satan], the spirit [satan] that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
So where can one start with an article written by Deepak? - One to whom the Gospel is hid because the 'god of this world' (satan) has blinded ... Mr. Deepak does not know. He does not believe Scripture and he is blind leader of the blind...
Mr. Deepak can philosophize all he wants, but satan 'wins' by getting people to take their eyes off of Christ -- our only hope for Salvation. 'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life' ... Jesus is The Only Way - satan deludes us by getting us to follow all kinds of fairy tales: self-help programs, gaia as god, government as god, pretending that we wrestle only against flesh and blood and not that we are in mortal warfare against 'principalities and powers, the rulers of darkness in this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places'. Mr. Deepak would have served his readers better than by writing his essay and just repeating the tried words of Peter:
1 Peter 5:8-9a Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil [satan], as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith...
Deepok has not seen true depravity if he thinks this the most depraved humans can get.
>Satan is losing the battle for people’s minds<
No he isn’t!
11/4/08
I rest my case.
Seems like he's got a good hold on yours, Deepak. (Or maybe you are just hiding in a cave and haven't looked around at the world lately.)
I have always suspected schizophrenia could be satanic. However, I don’t know how that could ever by proven.
Yeah, underpants on the head, the horror.
Yea, naked Muslim twister and panties on heads rank right up there with Auschwitz.
Deepak Chopra is such a total fiduciary bag.
I’ve heard him rail against the concept of “evil,” on the grounds that it “leads to war.” (Classic liberal relativism.)
And I’ve heard him rail against “evil.” (Anything done by a Republican.)
Asking why Satan didn’t “show up” until the Old Testament was written is like asking why there was no gravity until Isaac Newton. Oh, and tell me: Did the Aztecs and Mayans get all those images of dragons and serpents and monsters, and their practice of human sacrifice from the Old Testament? Satan didn’t “show up” in Mexico City a long time before any Old Testaments hit bookstores in America?
And speaking of evil: How many people were killed with poison gas at Abu Ghraib? How many people got their hands chopped off at Abu Ghraib? (Or maybe Chopra was talking about Abu Ghraib when S. Hussein was running it!)
He was lying, of course. It's all he does, because he has no power of his own.
Christ is King.
The Old Testament was written in a day? Who knew?
Putz.
>> The more replacements we find for evil, the weaker Satan grows. After all, the Devil is the embodiment of absolute evil, the kind that admits no other explanation. His fortunes decline when valid explanations are at hand. <<
It’s funny the way Chopra states that like a simple truism. Yet Christianity teaches the opposite notion. C.S. Lewis put it well: “The greatest triumph of Satan is convincing Man he doesn’t exist.”
>> Abu Ghraib was a horrific example of human nature at its most depraved, but who did the media rush to for explanation? Psychologists, not preachers. <<
First, if Chopra thinks Abu Ghraib represents human nature at its most depraved, he’s a jaw-dropping idiot who desperately needs to tour Hussein’s old torture cells. But putting that aside, does the media’s response really say anything great about the cosmic nature of the universe, or the shallowness of the press?
>> ....If Satan is so cosmic, why did he wait billions of years to appear on the scene, until the day when the Old Testament was written? <<
Uh, what?
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