Do I believe in The Devil?

I called home today because I forgot to call yesterday on Arkalalah. My dad picked up. at some random point in the conversation he asked me, "Did you tell your grandmother that you didn't believe there's a Devil?" I was thinking oh great I'm in trouble. I probably did at some point say I didn't know if I believed there was a devil or not, but that had to have been a long time ago. Was she thinking about this recently?

I knew I didn't want to talk about it with him. Why? Because it's pointless to expect someone to believe what you believe. I know people do it all the time, but really everyone has their personal beliefs outside of their religious doctrine, no matter what they might say. So I told him "Well if it makes her feel better to believe that I believe in the in the Devil then tell her I do."

Other than making my grandmother feel better he wanted to know if I really didn't believe in The Devil. "Why do you think the world is in the state that it's in?" he asked. I meant to say "Cus people are selfish greedy assholes" but he doesn't like when I curse so I had to reroute the sentence which probably came out sounding stupid. Something along the lines of man has free will and it's silly to place blame on some immortal being and not take responsibility for ones own actions.

Then he said "But we raised you to believe there was a devil." I said that lots of people believe in God without believing there's a devil. The Jews believe in only God and it was their religion first. Then i tried to get off the subject.

Really was this important at all? So what if I don't believe in the devil. You can't believe something just because someone raised you to, or told you to, or even if you told yourself to believe. Perhaps if you were brainwashed. Perhaps you could for awhile. After a while you would feel what you feel and you either believe what you feel or you lie to yourself.

I could go on about why I question the existence of The Devil. Why the story of Lucifer is not even in the Bible but in a 17th-century epic poem called Paradise Lost. or why Satan in the book of Job was not clearly an evil being at all. What I find strange is that Christians see Satan as the immortal embodiment of evil with the power to corrupt mankind, but will not admit that by believing that, they have made him a god. In Judaism there is only one god. If there is another being who represents a different aspect of humanity(evil), that makes it a second god regardless if you called them a god or not. You don't get one god and one devil. If you really need two immortal polar extremes then what you have are two gods. A good god and a bad god. And this is why I do not believe in a devil because I believe in one immortal being, God.

Actually even that is not true. Because I may believe in other gods such as the Great Spirit or Apollo. Our Lady of Guadalupe. For that matter there could be a Devil. Who is to say he isn't simply the guy that runs Hell. Maybe it's a shitty job and he doesn't care if who's there or not. Like Hades. Or maybe there really is The Devil and he's really pissed off that people aren't calling him The Evil God.

This is why I try not to talk about religion or politics with my family anymore. I know we just believe and think differently. it will only start an argument which no one will win. I care for my family far more than religion or politics.

And I really don't know if there's a Devil in the sense of evil personified. No one does. And if tonight the DEVIL decides to reveal himself to me...yeah I will be scared out of my wits and then believe he's real. But really if that were to happen I would think the Devil is a lame loser with nothing better to do.