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A modern of depiction of Satan in the likeness of a goat with horns and goatee.
The Devil Throughout History: Photos
A modern of depiction of Satan in the likeness of a goat with horns and goatee. The Devil: Alive and Well?
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Images of devils proliferated in the Middle Ages. The devil was often depicted as a terrifying, horned beast. In this mosaic by Coppo di Marcovaldo (1225-1276) in the Baptistery of Florence, Satan is devouring the damned while monsters in the shape of a snake, frog or lizard come out from his body. Gate to Hell Found in Turkey
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In Christian art, the devil is typically portrayed as having horns of a goat and a ram, a pig's nose and teeth, and a goat's fur and ears. This image is a 16th-century painting by Jacob de Backer in the National Museum in Warsaw. PHOTOS: Rome Awaits the New Pope
BurgererSF/Wikimedia Commons 4.Dante
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Historically, the devil had many names and roles. He is the serpent who tempts Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, the fallen angel who rebelled against God, the Dragon, Beelzebub, the Father of Lies, Lucifer, Satan, the Prince of Darkness. A giant beast, Lucifer, the King of Hell, stood frozen to the waist in a lake of ice in Dante's Divine Commedy. Engraving by Gustave Doré illustrating Canto XXXIV of Divine Comedy, Inferno, by Dante Alighieri. When 'Exorcising' a Home May Be a Smart Move
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A popular icon in the past, the devil appears to be alive and kicking also in Pope Francis' modernizing church. The pontiff has alluded to him ever since his first homily as Pope, describing the devil as a real presence even in the 21st century. Unafraid of criticism for bringing back what many see as the superstitions of the middle ages, the Vatican last month faced the demonic threat by hosting its largest convention on exorcism. Called "Exorcism and Prayers of Liberation," the meeting included a six-day course to train about 200 Roman Catholic priests from more than 30 countries in the ancient rite of exorcism. In this 1519 painting, an exorcism is being performed on a woman who has previously killed her child and her parents. New Pope Is Argentinian Bergoglio
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Charity begins at home, and that’s also where it is first taught. But that might not hold true for many children brought up in religious households, finds a study by researchers at the University of Chicago.
In fact, although religious parents were more likely to describe their children as more altruistic and fair than secular kids, religiousness proves inversely predictive of charitableness, but positively correlated with punitive tendencies, the authors write in their study for the journal Current Biology.
Humans are a cooperative species by nature that develop prosocial behaviors early in life, so the lessons learned in adolescence will carry into adulthood.
“Some past research had demonstrated that religious people aren’t more likely to do good than their nonreligious counterparts,” lead author Jean Decety said in a statement. “Our study goes beyond that by showing that religious people are less generous, and not only adults but children too.”
For their study, University of Chicago researchers enlisted 1,170 children between ages 5 and 12 across six countries, including the United States, Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey and South Africa. The majority of the households identified as Christian, Muslim or non-religious, though children of Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu homes were included as well.
All of the children played what is known as the Dictator Game, an exercise in which in which they determined whether to share stickers they received with their classmates. The kids also undertook a “moral sensitivity task,” in which they judged a series of scenarios involving interpersonal harm. Parents also completed questionnaires on religious identification as well as empathy and justice measures for their children.
Older children tended to be more generous than younger ones, but the most altruistic children were those who came from atheist or non-religious households. Children from religious households also determined harsher punishments for wrongdoers in the moral sensitivity task.
The findings echo a University of California – Berkeley study published in 2012 in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science that found that adults who regarded themselves as religious were less motivated by compassion than non-believers when it comes to generosity. Instead, doctrine, individual reputation and communal identity proved more powerful inducements in leading believers to be charitable.
In fact, under the right conditions, specifically when primed to consider their beliefs or reputation, religious individuals are more likely to engage in prosocial behavior than the non-believers, found a University of British Columbia study by published in the journal Science in 2008.
Taken together, these studies highlight the complex relationship between faith and moral decision-making. Although religion can certainly foster cooperation and prosocial behavior, it doesn’t appear to have a monopoly on these virtues.