I have one basic question in my mind.
Why do we always think that God is all good and devil is always evil? I think it is a great prejudice against the devil. In fact, the question should be is God all good for you, as you can see in many religions, whether it is Christianity or Hinduism, we can see God taking sides and you being on the wrong side of God. The religion teaches us that God can in fact hate you.
Take the example of Ravanan in Ramayana or Egyptians in Christianity. God took the side of their enemies and helped their enemies to destroy them.
Theist put forward the theory of “Greater good”. I interpret Greater good as good for others and not for you. This can be seen through the example of Bhisma in Mahabarata. He was killed as he was in the side of Kauravas so as to uphold a greater good. But still if you consider Bhisma’s perspective, God has been against him.
One thing is true for sure. Every thing depends upon the perspective.
But consider this scenario. If the God is all good, then if something bad happens to some one, then God doesn’t like that person at that particular time, or he has fallen from the good will of the God.
So here comes the question of is good really good? What if God just wants to play with his favorite pet and is spanking him just for the fun of it? Definitely he will throw some biscuits at the end of the day for sure.
One more thing to consider is whether you really want the good as which is considered in the conventional terms. Consider the story of Jonas. A great saint once promised Jonas that if he walks around the world a thousand times, the doors of the heaven will open to him. So the very day, Jonas started his walk. But unfortunately he died before he could finish it.
Even after his death, he became a spirit and continued walking. One fine day, he completed his quota and the heaven’s doors opened. So with great joy, he went through the doors of heaven. But alas. Heaven was not what he expected heaven will be. He felt the expectation of seeing heaven was better than the heaven itself. So he asked Peter, the great angel who was guarding the gates of the heaven to open the gates again for him if he walks around the world a thousand times more and he left the heaven and is still walking. The crux of the story is, Jonas didn’t want the good as considered in conventional terms.
What could be considered as a good life could be frowned upon by another sect of people. Rock music entices some and creates headaches to some other. Classical music can bring tears to some and sleep to some other. Good food could bring ecstasy to some and agony to size zero models. Heaven could have been amazing to angels and boring to the devils.
So there is no absolute good and bad. So is absolute good God and absolute bad devil.
But if the devil is good for you, then most probably you are bad 😉
PS: The story of Jonas is a modified version of story told by Doestovsky in his novel “The brothers Karamazov”.
White Noise 