Metaphors make a mess when they’re taken literally
A metaphor is a mental model used to facilitate a USEFUL understanding (not a literal or even accurate understanding).
“The Devil” - a red man with horns, a forked tail, cloven hooves and a sharp goatee - is a METAPHOR for the voice in my own head that engages in accusation. The literal translation of “Satan” is “The Accuser.” The symbol works because it reminds me of that inner voice’s insidiousness, it’s mischievous nature and it helps me deal with its existence by divorcing it from my identity.
But I run into real trouble when I want to avoid hell and I think there is ACTUALLY an evil red ghost-man somewhere that doles out my suffering, who actually tries to take me in with false promises in order to steal my soul and hold it in some fire for eternity. Now I’m running scared from something that doesn’t exist. I go to war with a cartoon and fail to look at the profound advice the Bible is offering when it advises me to avoid “The Accuser.”
Instead of finding peace in the thought that all accusation is confusion, I find the terror of being taken over by a malicious monster that exists outside my own innocently confused mind.
Unnecessary.
Confusing.
Counter-productive.
When I make an object out of the symbol, I destroy its usefulness and get the opposite of what I’m looking for, which is peace and the awareness of my eternal safety in what is.