Living with the Devil Quotes

“Each time something contingent and impermanent is raised to the status of something necessary and permanent, a devil is created. Whether it be an ego, a nation-state, or a religious belief, the result is the same. The distortion severs such things from their embeddedness in the complexities, fluidities, and ambiguities of the world and make them appear as simple, fixed, and unambiguous entities with the power to condemn or save us.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Living with the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil