A creature gone bad...

A creature gone bad.
What a humiliating description... is the devil squirming with embarrassment and shame? probably not.
Fr "SingtheMass" correctly deems it a tragedy for people to believe in the devil but not in the Lord, but I believe the sad fact is that surveys show that it is not all that uncommon, in this time and in this society.
Now I admit I have my doubts that some of the sad young people who declare themselves "devil worshippers" are any such thing, but are like the foolish little people who drift into gang membership -- desperate to belong somewhere, anywhere, they are merely grasping at straws, even an ugly, corrosive, poisonous straw.
Nevertheless, there are those who believe in the existence of demons but not in Our Lord God.
And thank you, Father, who identifying the originator of the Kaiser Sozay maxim -- Baudelaire, eh?
But I am drifting from my main point, which is that the devil is both lazy and smart, and often has recourse to something more effective, (and easier on him,) than a frontal assault on Truth Beauty and Goodness.
One of the "windows" that can be climbed in after being pushed out the door is the building up of the inferior, or even worse, of the opposite.
Instead of working so hard to destroy the Truth, the devil puts his energies into a glam make-over of Falsehood.
Instead of trying to tear down Beauty the huckster of the world puts lipstick on pigs and tempts suckers to idolize ugliness.
He makes the bad seem not-so-bad, kinda fun, maybe even "good enough" -- and voila! his patsies no longer seek the Good.
Because we're not as smart as he is, but we're probably, most of us, his equal in laziness (or am I projecting because I'm so dang slothful?)
So we're delighted to have our failure to strive affirmed, we're very happy to have that for which we settle endorsed.
Once a lie seems to work, once ugliness is comfortable, once we get by with something evil -- well, why not?
There were no consequences...
It was (and this, finally was my point,) No Big Deal.
And strangely, by devaluing them, we devalue their opposites.
Yes, it is wrong to give the devil too much credit... but for some of us, it has been more dangerous to give him none at all.
For if we de-fang the devil, what need to avoid him, chained like a dog to a tree? Indeed, what need for the chain?
See? he's harmless.
And if the Evil and Ugliness and Falsehood that are his stock in trade are inconsequential, unimportant , if choosing them was No Big Deal -- well, Goodness and Beauty and Truth must not matter all that much either.
............................
Satan Exists and Christ Defeated Him (via Zenit http://www.zenit.org/english)
By Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap, the Pontifical Household preacher
2/9/2008
Demons, Satanism and other related phenomena are quite topical today, and they disturb a great part of our society. Our technological and industrialized world is filled with magicians, wizards, occultism, spiritualism, fortune tellers, spell trafficking, amulets, as well as very real Satanic sects.
Chased away from the door, the devil has come in through the window. Chased away by the faith, he has returned by way of superstition. The episode of Jesus' temptations in the desert that is read on the First Sunday of Lent helps us to have some clarity on this subject.
First of all, do demons exist? ....it must be noted that many great writers, such as Goethe and Dostoyevsky, took Satan's existence very seriously. Baudelaire, who was certainly no angel, said that "the demon's greatest trick is to make people believe that he does not exist."
The principal proof of the existence of demons in the Gospels is not the numerous healings of possessed people, since ancient beliefs about the origins of certain maladies may have had some influence on the interpretation of these happenings.
The proof is Jesus' temptation by the demon in the desert. ...
How could a person know anything about Satan if he has never encountered the reality of Satan, but only the idea of Satan in cultural, religious and ethnological traditions? They treat this question with great certainty and a feeling of superiority, doing away with it all as so much "medieval obscurantism." But it is a false certainty. It is like someone who brags about not being afraid of lions and proves this by pointing out that he has seen many paintings and pictures of lions and was never frightened by them.
On the other hand, it is entirely normal and consistent for those who do not believe in God to not believe in the devil. It would be quite tragic for someone who did not believe in God to believe in the devil!
Yet the most important thing that the Christian faith has to tell us is not that demons exist, but that Christ has defeated them. For Christians, Christ and demons are not two equal, but rather contrary principles, as certain dualistic religions believe to be the case with good and evil.
Jesus is the only Lord; Satan is only a creature "gone bad."....
Nothing and no one can do us ill, unless we ourselves allow it. Satan, said an ancient Father of the Church, after Christ's coming, is like a dog chained up in the barnyard: He can bark and lunge as much as he wants, but if we don't go near him, he cannot harm us.
In the desert Jesus freed himself from Satan to free us! This is the joyous news with which we begin our Lenten journey toward Easter.