“What religion calls discontentment—the root of sin—is in truth nature’s cry and humanity’s deepest drive for freedom.”
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The Power of the Frame
History is always written by the victors. The winners choose the words, and the words become the story. When power is at stake, freedom gets reframed as rebellion, questions as doubt, and conquest as God’s will. The devil himself may be less a cosmic villain than the greatest frame job of all time — a convenient mask for everything power fears.
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Eden: Autonomy Framed as Rebellion
In Genesis, the serpent isn’t called Satan or Lucifer. He is simply described as “more crafty than any beast of the field.” His words to Eve don’t sound like pure evil; they sound like empowerment: “You will not surely die… you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Later interpreters — not the text itself — identified this serpent with Satan (Revelation 12:9 makes that leap). That is already a framing move. If this figure reflects the spirit of Samyaza, the leader of the Watchers in 1 Enoch, then the offer makes sense: he had chosen autonomy for himself, and now he extends it to humanity. Yet tradition reframes this hunger for knowledge as “discontentment” and the first sin. Autonomy, the most natural of desires, is cast as rebellion against God. The victors’ version turns freedom into failure.
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Job: Suffering Framed as a Bet
The book of Job is another framing device. The satan is not a rebel sneaking back into heaven but a courtroom prosecutor fulfilling a role. And it is God — not Satan — who says: “Have you considered my servant Job?”
Taken literally, the story collapses. How would Job know heavenly dialogue? But Job has always been classified as wisdom literature, not history. Its purpose is to dramatize suffering by projecting it into a cosmic trial. The effect is the same: Job’s pain is framed as part of a divine wager, shifting the burden of blame onto an accuser instead of onto God or the raw mystery of human suffering.
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Lucifer: Autonomy Framed as Pride
The traditional story says Lucifer fell because of pride — he wanted God’s throne. It is worth remembering that the “Lucifer texts” in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 were originally written about earthly kings. Only later were they reframed as cosmic backstory.
But what if we let the idea run differently? What if the real issue wasn’t power-lust but autonomy? What if he simply refused to remain under a system he saw as tyrannical? In that light, Lucifer is less a petty tyrant-wannabe and more a Promethean figure: not content to live under imposed order, willing even to overthrow it to free others. Yet the victors’ narrative reframes his choice as arrogance and ambition. Autonomy once again becomes the unforgivable sin.
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Scapegoats: Framing Blame on the Other
Leviticus 16 describes the ritual of the scapegoat: one goat sacrificed, another driven into the wilderness with the people’s sins tied to it. The community’s unrest is projected outward.
That is exactly what “the devil” becomes: the eternal scapegoat. “The devil made me do it.” “Satan tempted me.” It is framing in its purest form — shifting the burden of responsibility onto another. René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire and scapegoating reveals this universal human trick: envy breeds rivalry, rivalry breeds violence, and violence gets vented onto a scapegoat.
The details even highlight the problem: in Leviticus, the goat is innocent but framed as guilty; in popular religion, the devil is framed as guilty for everything, even what springs from our own desires. Either way, the frame absolves us.
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Conquest: Framing Greed as God’s Will
History repeats the same move. The Spanish conquistadors framed indigenous people as heathens. Massacre was framed as obedience to God. Rape was framed as conversion. Gold stolen by the ton was framed as “for the glory of God.”
The same Bible that spoke of love and freedom was weaponized through the frame. This is not a digression from theology but the very same mechanism: victors writing the story so they look righteous, while those who resist look evil.
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Jesus in the Wilderness: Contentment vs. Rivalry
When Jesus is tempted, the adversary presses on natural desires: hunger, recognition, power. Nothing alien — only the longings every human carries.
Jesus resists not by demonizing desire but by choosing contentment: “Man shall not live by bread alone… You shall not test the Lord… Worship God alone.” Mark notes that he was “with the wild animals” — chaos all around him — but he refused the restless rivalry that drives humanity.
James later makes it plain: “Each one is tempted when he is dragged away by his own desire.” The adversary only has as much power as our discontent allows.
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The Root of Sin: Pride or Discontentment?
Augustine and Aquinas insisted pride is the root of sin. But scripture points elsewhere:
• The Tenth Commandment warns against coveting — discontent.
• Paul in Romans 7 says coveting stirred up every other sin in him.
• Puritan writers described contentment as the rarest jewel, the antidote to sin.
• Girard showed rivalry and envy, not pride, fuel violence.
Here’s the key distinction: pride is the mask; discontentment is the spark. Pride is how we justify ourselves after the fact; discontentment is what set the whole thing in motion.
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Conclusion: The Devil as a Frame Job
From Eden to Job, from Lucifer’s fall to the scapegoat ritual, from conquistadors to modern power plays, the pattern is consistent: freedom, autonomy, and even suffering get framed in ways that serve those who hold control.
The devil is less a cosmic villain and more a frame — the convenient mask pinned on whatever power wants to suppress: curiosity, autonomy, resistance. Religion brands it discontentment. History brands it rebellion. But beneath the frame lies the oldest truth of all: nature itself cries out for freedom.
The question is not whether that cry is evil, but whether we will let it be twisted into envy and rivalry — or whether we will learn the rare jewel of contentment without surrendering the drive to be free.
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