The Devil

The French poet Beaudelaire said: "The devil’s best trick is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist!".

A) The devil exists and indeed all atheists are his intruments. And there is Good and Evil, while health and madness are just consequences of the actions of these forces. Human society needs to be saved from Evil, protected from the devil's hidden influence. Fighting him in one's individual life - one of the believer's duty - will prove difficult however, because if the poet is right, we might not see him coming.

B) The devil does not exist, all moral issues rest on the shoulder of the beholder, human society adheres to the principles of individual responsibility, and it is mental health that is the real issue behind criminal behavior. Maintaining and enforcing sanity are matters of scientific research and poetry remains in the realm of imagination.

The blame for our collective soggy condition is not to be wasted on imaginary foes but should be focused on our own misundertsanding of the real situation.

As Woody Allen once wrote:

"We stand today at a crossroads:

One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness.

The other leads to total extinction.

Let us hope we have the wisdom to make the right choice."