Defrocking the Devil: Theology of Fear

By Thomas J. Boynton

Defrocking the Devil/Theology of Fear is a brief history of the last 2,500 years
of monotheism using the actual words of the men who claimed to know the devilfigure
most intimately. From Peter to Constantine to Martin Luther to our present day
theologians, these men and hundreds more included in this book supported the early
Church fathers arguments for the inclusion of Satan into Christian polemics.
A dualism appeared in the story of Jesus immediately after his crucifixion.
Instead of tirelessly promoting the Christian message of love thy neighbor as thyself
a new spiritual equation of hate, torture and murder entered the theological landscape.
Defrocking the Devil is an attempt to puncture the myths surrounding the
words: evil, devil and hell. Two thousand years after the birth of Christianity and
fourteen hundred years after the start of Islam, hundreds of millions of people currently
living on this planet are in real fear of one day ending up down in the devils lair.
How did Christian belief in Jesus become conditional upon the existence
of fictional beings and wicked subterranean places? Defrocking the Devil seeks to
illuminate the darkness and empower all people of faith to move beyond theologies
that advocate violence into the spiritual equation. There have been many books written
about this dark side of Western theology, but few historians do much more than recount
its bloody genocidal history. Defrocking the Devil actively seeks to tear down such
religious dogmas by using the very words of those who extolled such a hurtful, anti-
Christian philosophy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456851286

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Copyright © 2011 by Thomas J. Boynton.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011900688

ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4568-5127-9

ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4568-5126-2

ISBN: Ebook 978-1-4568-5128-6

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cover art courtesy of the Swan nebula

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CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Beliefs and Words

The Devil and Zoroaster

Good and Evil

Otherworldly Places

Heretics, Martyrs and Devil Believers

Holy Books

Enter Islam

Holy Crusades

Hysteria

Fear and Holocaust

Contemporary Evil

Deliver Us From Evil

Afterword

Selected Bibliography

PREFACE

Defrocking the Devil—Theology of Fear is an attempt to locate and identify the literary sources of ancient religious dualism and to give an account of the dire consequences of belief systems laden with negative belief terminologies. This compendium of monotheistic writings, intends to ferret out and include as many references as possible to evil deities and diabolical places from the days of Moses to our post-modern world. This task has proven to be overwhelming. Any significant omissions to this record are involuntary and regrettable.

This book will not dissect every major aspect of religious philosophy or credible scripture, nor give equal time to all apocryphal works, Gnostic writings and events deemed revelatory by Judaic, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Islamic and Protestant religious traditions. This book is not about proving or disproving the existence of a specific God or clarifying the loving messages of widely acknowledged religious prophets. Biographies of prominent philosophers and theologians and descriptions of major historical events will be abbreviated or deleted altogether in order to concentrate on the main focus of this study: To gather statements from the historical archive during the Christian era that used demonic language to legitimize and perpetuate the hate-filled temporal power of monotheistic and monarchic institutions. This field of study is a considerable one and there will be many outstanding questions about mainstream religiosity that will not be addressed.

Defrocking the Devil is designed to be a positive instruction—an opportunity for people of faith and others to delve deeper into the mired historical record for universal truth and a renewed personal spiritual understanding. Why so many people today so readily continue to embrace self-destructive religious beliefs born in a shadowy past that incorporated torture, murder and genocide into the human equation, is as tragic as it is enigmatic.

Why is this miraculous human experience so grossly misrepresented and misunderstood in our present day? How is the overwhelmingly positive nature of creation interpreted and twisted in such a negative and debased manner? Why do mainstream fundamental religious organizations continue to perpetuate homicidal rhetoric and why do so many believers continue to follow such dogma? Why do trusted bishops and imams so egregiously want to manipulate and control people of faith? It is hoped that addressing these complex issues in the following format will help people avoid the dangerous repercussions of irrational belief in fictional mythic deities and diabolical places. An open mind and a desire for revelatory spiritual discovery by the reader will be greatly appreciated.

INTRODUCTION

This ideology of hatred has deformed true religion and is a primary reason for our world being in the throes of a fanatical, terrorist, religious conflict.

Is there a malevolent force in the world, embodied in an evil personage who preys upon human weakness and is the cause of untold suffering throughout history? Is the architect of this malevolent force known as The Devil, or by one of a plethora of other names such as Satan and Lucifer? Are women and men who commit acts counter to the tenets of a particular religious philosophy, acts known as sins—transported to a place of perpetual torment after death? Are such guilty people in hell right now, prisoners to endless damnation? Is there a perverse triad—devil, evil, hell—conspiring against God and humanity? Is the devil right this moment plotting to corrupt your very soul?

Millions and millions of people will answer yes to these questions because much of the religious texts and teachings of Christianity and Islam have promoted and encouraged a devil, evil, hell belief system for more than two millennia. Ironically, this mythological world view had its beginning not by revelation within these religions, but in the teachings of Zoroaster, a Persian prophet of the 5th/6th century BCE. Zoroaster was the first to proclaim a dualistic belief system in his account of a struggle between good and evil. This belief system emphasizing negativity and malevolence was carried back to Israel by the returnees from the Babylonian Captivity. Both Christianity and Islam later adopted belief in a power of darkness opposed to the beneficent power of God. Very few adherents of these faiths know that the root of this mythological worldview is found within an ancient Persian religion now known as Zoroastrianism.

Such a dualistic belief system, as demonstrated in the God vs. devil struggle, attempts to provide answers as to why there is suffering in the world as well as to provide a promise of ultimate justice. The Zoroastrian mythology about the struggle between good and evil is now so deeply embedded in the minds of adherents to the monotheistic faiths and in Western culture overall, that even people who in good times deny that they believe in and/or are influenced by such an erroneous and immoral ethic often default to just this dualistic system at times of great stress. Such a belief system has led civilization backwards and downwards. Humans no longer had to take responsibility for their own wickedness, because the devil made me do it!

Belief in the devil, evil and hell mythology is primitive, highly dangerous and wrong. It is a belief system that has the potential for human annihilation, because it provides a rationale for hatred and elimination of enemies by making them into scapegoats. Belief in the malevolent triad has led to enormous human folly. This belief system has provided a convenient ideology for religious violence and a justification for terrorist activities from ancient times to the present. This Zoroastrian ideology was present at the recent destruction of the World Trade Center in Manhattan and was used to as a foundation for the United States invasion of Iraq—Rid the world of the evildoers. (Former President George W. Bush)

I began to reflect upon the fact that the primary religious groups involved, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are monotheistic religions claiming Abraham as their common forbearer (with the aid of Sarah and Hagar). Most importantly, each of these traditions shares the common belief system related to the dualistic concept of a struggle between good and evil, God and His fallen angel, the devil.

This struggle is depicted as a cosmic mythological battle between God and the devil, which is then played out on earth with the fate of humanity in the balance. Human beings thus become the tools for, and enactors of, the cosmic struggle between good and evil, between God and the devil. Each is in competition for the favor and loyalty of the human soul.

The faithful believers, those on the side of good (God), are set upon by the enemies of God (the unbelievers or the ungodly), led by the devil. The faithful, therefore, must overcome this cosmic enemy and those in his clenches here on earth in order that good may overcome evil. Since the enemy is perceived as evil or as a devil, overcoming of the enemy can include murdering him/her. Violence and every form of oppression becomes permissible—if evil (the devil) can be projected upon the other, the one who is not like me/us, the one who is a threat to God’s ultimate triumph (plan).

History is replete with horrific instances of this. Our government leaders have often referred to Islamic terrorist nations as the axis of evil. The former Ayatollah Khomeni once said of the West: All Western governments are just thieves. Nothing but evil comes from them. Such incendiary rhetoric has crippled the human condition and has led to incalculable suffering. Accusations of evil provide each side with a rationale for violence and war against those perceived as evil.

Reading and hearing such pejorative statements by religious and government leaders led me to begin wondering about the use of violent words and to ask where this sort of incendiary language comes from—that is, calling one’s enemies evil? I also noticed that other descriptors, such as devil or Satan, were often used. The United States had been called The Great Satan by some Islamic fundamentalists. Christians say that the terrorists were of the devil. What is the genesis of such harmful and irrational thinking, and will we ever free ourselves of the Zoroastrian-inspired spirituality that allows one to hate thy neighbor?

One needs to search for the root of the projection of evil upon perceived enemies. The ancient Zoroastrian myth of the battle between good and evil is the genesis of and provides the groundless rationale and ideology for the obliteration of perceived enemies. This ideology of hatred has deformed true religion and is a primary reason for our world being in the throes of a fanatical, terrorist, religious conflict today.

Once we have categorized a person or group as evil, we have the liberty of mistreating them—from exile, to the extreme of murder and genocide—and all in the name of good. Rather than alleviating suffering, this oppositional dynamic between good and evil, God and the devil, has borne immeasurable suffering in the world. Such a worldview tends to foster misanthropy in people, not philanthropy.

Consequently, this central dogma in monotheistic religions has become a primary root of malevolence in the world today. This root must be pulled out! It must be exposed for what it is—religious terrorism: terrorism of mind, body and spirit. The devil is not responsible for immoral happenings in the world—human beings are! It is our words and our superstitions that fuel inhuman malevolent behavior. We must accept total responsibility for our actions. We must hold ourselves solely accountable. For who else deserves blame? Only then can we alleviate human suffering caused by mythological thinking that has followed us into the 21st century.

In the roughly 2,000 years since Christian monotheism began its rise to domination of theological thinking in the Western world, the loving ethics of Jesus Christ have been grossly perverted. The politics of spreading the resurrection story to a mostly pagan world has preoccupied Church leaders in the development of rigid enforcement techniques in order that Catholicism maintains its power base and that each successive generation of the faithful continue to return to the Church for ever more dubious theosophy. Such enforcement techniques range from excommunication to the burning of witches—from intensive bible study and prayer to ethnic cleansing and unimaginable torture. How this social system has managed to survive such self-deprecation speaks volumes about the capacity of the collective human memory to conveniently forget such crimes against humanity. With a violent history of persecuting non-believers, Christian denominations today have somehow managed to sweep this confusing history of hate under the rug, while continuing to proselytize love and forgiveness to the unwary.

In 2004, Rev. Jean Wright and I, attended a conference on evil in New York City that featured theologians from all three monotheistic religions, numerous Ph.D.’s, a U.S. Congressman, various authors on the subject of evil, and professors from leading universities and schools of divinity. On paper these highly educated men and women seemed ideally suited to get to the root of all the malevolence in the world due to devil belief, so we were eager to begin this two day conference.

Speaker after speaker addressed the hundred or so attendees, and we were soon awe-struck at the amount of intellectual verbiage that flew from the podium. One by one, with polite applause between speakers, they spoke about evil with polysyllabic words and technical jargon that did absolutely nothing to dispel the notion of evil’s existence. Rather, they spoke about malevolence, referencing nearly every word in the vernacular of evil. It became quite evident that this was not a group who intended to let the air out of this archaic and destructive belief. Instead, they did all they could to keep the patient alive and breathing.

During intermission on the first day, we milled around and entered into conversations with (the ardent mostly believers in evil) members of the audience and noticed a small offering of evil related-pamphlets and brochures on a table against the back wall. After a thorough inspection, we decided to bring back some bookmarks the following day (that we had recently made that were back in the hotel), declaring our firm opposition to the very concept that there is evil in the world. These bookmarks declared the existence of the Evil-Free Planet Project—an idea we had one evening back in Massachusetts—to continue the momentum of our sermons. The bookmarks were multi-colored and contained such statements as: Imagine excising the word evil from our vocabulary. Imagine a planet free of mythologies and ideologies that foster hatred and fear. On the reverse side were quotes from Norman Vincent Peale, Carl G. Jung and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

And so it went for two grueling days, Doctors of Theology, Instructors in Psychology, and Emeritus Professors of Psychoanalysis, all trying to hedge their bets as to the existence of the devil or hell, and vacuous regarding what to do about countering their perceived evil in the post-modern world. For all the energy that went into this promising seminar, nothing was noticeably accomplished. They weren’t able to identify the world leader most closely resembling the antichrist nor prepared to ask us to run out into the streets and deface the nearest Roman Catholic shrine.

None of the learned speakers stood before us, clearly and unequivocally stating: No, there is no devil or Satan or Lucifer or Powers of Darkness! Such a notion is preposterous! You are a fool if you believe in such religious tripe. Evil and hell are just more antiquated terminologies that attempt to resurrect the misguided mythologies of a much more ancient time.

This perplexing symposium, this train wreck of pomposity in mid-town Manhattan, merely underscored the degree of difficulty we were going to face by addressing the baffling issue of evil in our contemporary world. How could we expect the average well-meaning man and woman to wade through all the convoluted language and symbolism that has attached itself to the belief in evil and hell and powers of darkness over the millennia when our supposedly best and brightest, these highly educated authors, theocrats and bureaucrats, can’t see the forest through the trees?

The purpose of Defrocking the Devil is to divest the conceptual devil of the power invested in him by the Hebrew, Christian and Islamic traditions. The dogma related to the ancient mythology of the devil is so pervasive in our modern culture that even people who do not consider themselves religious interpret the world as a combat between good and evil—God versus devil. Such good versus evil dualistic thinking does nothing to empower individuals, institutions or societies; rather, such a worldview actually inhibits religious faith and any hope for universal understanding. We believe that for far too long, people have been misled and controlled by the sanguineous fear engendered by this negative belief system, and it is time to face this issue directly and bring this evil house of cards crashing down!

History is riddled with traditions and superstitions that have crippled the human condition. Social advancement for women and other ethnic groups has been hampered by religious teachings about the place of women and minorities in the world. We see the continuation of such teachings from the Taliban and other Islamic sects. Likewise, the church supported slavery and the abrogation of rights of African-Americans and Indo-Americans until recent history. We are aware of Christianity’s hampering of scientific thought for hundreds of years. Even now, issues such as birth control and infertility procedures (relating to the female body) split various religious groups and doctrines. Just as we continue to live with the residues of accepting dogma and myths as truth and reality rather than superstitions, so the continuing archaic belief in the devil and hell and the propagation of evil are on-going examples of such misanthropic imagining. We believe that continued adherence to such dogmas is irrational and, on the part of those religious communities that teach it, unconscionable.

To aid in this divestiture of the devil, evil, hell dogma, I will present the genesis of the myth. I will show its development over time into a major doctrine of faith. I will try to document the misuse and abuse of others by this ideology of hatred and fear that such a dualistic doctrine evokes and call upon religious leaders and others to divest the devil of the power invested in him by their respective religious institutions. While my primary focus will be on the clarification of Christian dogmas, I hope this fundamental message, one of hope and improved spiritual understanding, will be heard in the Jewish and Islamic worlds as well.

Between the pantheon of mythological figures, including Zeus, Athena, Apollo, Aphrodite, and thousands of other demigods and religious deities that have captured the human imagination, only the prince of darkness has increased in stature over the last two millennia. Continued belief in this mythological being is hindering our desire for peace, justice and tolerance on earth. Belief in this most unlikely of monsters has captivated us like no other mythic figure and continues to terrorize our minds and compromise our dreams right up and into the 21st century. This very moment, people all over the world are still living in real fear of the imaginary powers of evil, of the devil and of eternal damnation.

Over time, ancient mythologies were slowly left behind as people progressed intellectually. Belief systems rooted in the old mythologies no longer fit with the lived experience of adherents and they became regressive rather than progressive. The ancient mythologies gave peoples a way of understanding the world and their place in it that facilitated their development. However, as they began to understand the world in newer ways, ways that supported their development and progress, they either reinterpreted the myths and/or freed themselves from them.

We have distanced ourselves long ago from Zeus and Apollo, but in 2011, we have yet to distance ourselves from the devil’s evil psychological grip. We need to unshackle ourselves from theologies and belief systems that no longer serve the betterment of humanity. One of those worldviews that is critical to our survival, and from which we desperately need liberation, is the devil/evil/hell mythology. My hope is that this book will initiate such a process.

BELIEFS AND WORDS

Early ideas are not usually true ideas.

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

No one knows who asked the first astronomical question: Where am I? No one knows who asked the first philosophical question: Why am I here? Such groundbreaking moments were achievements 4.5 billion years in the making. A planetary life form for the first time exhibited the innate ability to ponder the world and oneself in an objective manner. A human being was finally able to stop running and hiding from predators long enough to contemplate something other than immediate self-preservation. Perhaps finally recognizing the person reflected on the surface of a calm lake began the rapid social evolution of our kind?

The asking of questions was unprecedented on earth. The formulation of elementary questions was a giant step forward, but it was also the beginning of a frustrating and dangerous component in the rise of civilization: the elucidation of omniscient answers to these universal questions. Belief systems are those inventions that you create to explain what you do not understand.1

The early history of composing answers (beliefs) to fundamental questions was as critical to human progress as any primal discovery or pattern of migration. Along with tool making and the development of communication skills, formulating beliefs was (and still is) a means to increase the odds of survival on a planet whose motto is survival of the fittest. Beliefs, though intangible (you can’t actually hold beliefs in your hand like a spear or an animal skin), nonetheless are critical to the continued advancement of our species.

Belief is the infrastructure of the mind attempting to make sense of the world we inhabit. It is a ladder the human brain uses to climb out of the abyss of our prehistoric past—a way to distance oneself from yesterday. It is a search for truth, and a critical mechanism for human survival. Beliefs are your limited understanding of the world/universe and your infinitesimal place in it.

No one recorded who asked the first question, but it is certain that we have been asking a lot of questions ever since. The calamity began when primitive minds began to formulate primitive answers—answers (beliefs) that specifically conjured up mythical beings, imaginary places and impossible events—beliefs that precluded that someone else had to die so that you could live a more fulfilling or less stressful life.

Beliefs don’t necessarily need to be factual. Beliefs are often compromises on the truth. They may only contain a kernel of truth, yet they pass for the truth for anyone exposed to the idea, either by a teacher, medicine man or person of high standing in the community.

Belief system: A series of ideas organized to project an image of what is ‘Real’. These ideas are often manifested through interaction with others like parents, peers, mentors, educational material or society institutions. A belief system can have a profound impact on the way in which one lives one’s life as well as serve as an indication for the general health of an individual, family or society.2

The history of humans is the story, in part, of the history of believing in false belief systems. Belief in the devil, evil and hell are three such grim examples. History is full-to-overflowing with ideas, beliefs and inventions that seemed like a good idea to some at the time, but eventually became tragic footnotes in the dusty historical record. Trial and error, followed by more trials and more errors, was the ethic our species used to eventually push up and almost out of the primordial ooze—and from this ooze we have yet to fully extricate ourselves. Sadly, we remain fixed in this quagmire, mostly of our own making, because of our failure to fully understand and emulate the do unto others credo that Jesus himself lived by and tried to teach others to live by as well.

The curse of man, and the cause for nearly all his woes, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible. H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)

Stone Age cultures were overwhelmed with false and often harmful beliefs—explanations and remedies that did not achieve a desired result. Often times, discarding unworkable beliefs was harder to accomplish than patiently discovering ones that actually did work. Today, primitive cultures, which depend upon voodoo, superstitious notions, the reading of palms, numerology, and a host of other unscientific and unconnected ways to bring about desired items and events (rain, healing and buffalo, for instance), continue to hold on dearly to beliefs and methodologies that simply do not work. Such false counterproductive thinking only increases the likelihood that the desired event will be delayed or denied altogether. You are less likely to seek out untried irrigation techniques, other methods of healing or a more focused search for meat. The tendency is to remain inert and resigned to drought, illness and famine, able to make progress only if it is arbitrarily determined to be a dubious spirit’s