Diabolical Seduction Paradox

 Diabolical Seduction Paradox    

 

 

Imagine the Devil, contemplating two groups of people. One believes that the Devil exists, and the other does not. Which group would he seduce first?

Not the second group, for he would soon be detected by the first group. Therefore he would seduce those who do believe that he exists, for he would not soon be detected by those who don’t. And he would seduce those who believe that he exists by promising them power over those who don’t.

If that ever happened, and we noticed, then whom would we inform? The first group? But they’re seduced by promises of power. The second group? But they don’t believe.

I call this the “diabolical seduction paradox”, but I admit that the first word is ambiguous. Which is diabolical, the seduction or the paradox?

 

 

LF commented:

Ahahahahaha! I’ve got a song about that! The Devil would avoid the nonbelievers at all cost, because their *disbelief* would whittle him away. The Devil is a “spirit” -- an energy-being -- and energy-beings *eat* energy and starve for lack of it. So he’d seduce the believers first, simply so they’d keep feeding him.

 

 

NH replied:

 

I remember that song. It was a good’un.

In Pratchett’s Discworld, the gods love a militant atheist almost as much as they love a believer. It’s faith, one way or the other, that attracts them.

The Devil would seduce believers by presenting himself as something he is not, namely a savior, here to save them from all those devil-seduced people... over there.

In this case the Devil is sort of like AIDS, which attacks the immune system. Here the Devil seduces those tasked with rejecting him.

The solution, I guess, is to take such a Devil half-seriously. Not seriously enough to believe in him or his lying promises, seriously enough to laugh at those promises. And energy beings cannot abide being mocked. Like the Snark, he is distinguished...

“... by his slowness at taking a jest

Should you happen to venture on one;

He will sigh like a thing that is gravely distressed

And he always looks grave at a pun.”