Genre: Urban Fantasy Setting: Modern day America My antagonist is a Catholic priest who has the limited supernatural ability to know that Hell is a very real place and damnation can happen. He's furious that that people treat the trappings of evil so casually and enters into an alliance with some minor demons to bring real, fire and brimstone capital "E" Evil back to the world in the hopes of "scaring people straight". Help me brainstorm, what are some of the modern day trappings of evil that set him off? I'm not looking for the things that are really and definitely wrong with the world like the Holocaust or school shootings, more stuff like people casually wearing Devil costumes for Halloween (or celebrating Halloween, for that matter), goths with upside-down cross tattoos, people routinely taking the Lord's name in vain... stuff like that. Just need a few more ideas to add to his Big Reveal I've Been the Villain All Along and Here's Why speech (yes, it's cliche. It's supposed to be cliche).
This actually sounds very interesting, a nice kinda twist ending...I have a genuine idea, but like do you think something more controversial, specifically abortion, would be too far?
People listening to black metal or writing 666 everywhere jokingly? Making bad jokes or memes about religion?
Abortion might fit in, not sure. Wouldn't hurt to have a couple things in his list that are more broadly controversial, thanks for the thought. Black metal is good, thanks!
Mmmhmmm. modern day evils? Working of the 7 deadly sins, I could name a couple: Well, greed for one (and perhaps the most important one in my opinion). Everything today is always to do with money. I mean, you can't even answer nature's call anymore without forking out a couple coins. Kind of depressing statement about our society I think. I suppose there is lust - or the portrayal of it. Don't think I really need to provide examples or details. but Lynx commercials are a good example. But, these are too "one the nose" and things you do not want (as stated in OP). But I mentioned them as you can work backwards from them. For instance: Greed can be status symbols of your choice (like cars, watches, etc...). Lust can be in T-Shirts with fornication imagery or wordage upon it (or upon them?). I could see a character doing a little rant about $250K watches.
I will suggest you actually if you have free time to talk with priests in real life. Don't say about your story, you can always say you are just gathering information because you like to study religion, cults or simply curiosity. Secondly, be the priest, not in a literal way but put your shoes on his shoes Now that you have all the information, you can start to ask what is for you sin? Or even, imagine yourself making a pact with the Devil, what do you think he will ask for? What rules he will apply you to follow? Is he good? Evil? Or perhaps just a metaphor to humanity to describe our bad side? Or like Necronox suggested you can use the 7 deadly sins. If you decide to choose the last option, imagine the demons physique, give them power but weakness as well. For example, gluttony demon may have a strong stamina but lacks swiftness.
I'd take the Seven Deadly Sins and make a list of those things we do without thinking, and that if we took the Bible literally, would damn us to Hell. I have a coworker who's the laziest motherfucker you could ever imagine, and that he's grotesquely overweight, and addicted to his fucking smart phone means he's at least guilty of "Gluttony" and "Sloth". Remember though, it's "Pride" that is the Father of all Sins. So you'll need to come up with those things we do out of sheer ego.
Vampire, witch and half demon protagonists in fiction. Pornography. Public dislike of the Catholic church.
Right now there's a lot of TV shows focusing on an "antihero" protagonist - Dexter, Hannibal (ish, everyone loves Hannibal), and generally heroes are just getting more and more morally skewed. (Santa Clarita Diet?) Maybe it would be fun to feature a parody of one of these shows in your book, use the viewership towards an antihero character as an example of people "worshipping" evil? You could call it Dexy, if you want to make it particularly obvious (and weirdly cute, imagine a serial killer called Dexy).
Or maybe some blogger in your world has created a fan fiction involving two characters from the Bible in a gay relationship. I'm sure your priest character wouldn't be too happy about someone "shipping" Moses and Judas. Maybe this already exists, thinking about it. I'll leave it up to someone else to Google that.
Can I just say as a Christian that I love the thought of showing how evil with Christian trappings (such as committing mass murder to force people to stop saying "oh my God" as an expletive) is worse than entertainment with "evil" trappings
Evil is the other face of good. The "Holocaust" as you mentioned as evil, was done in the interest of good. The difference being which side won the war.
... I would actually call that one of the trivializations in Western culture: the idea that no one's perspective is worth less than anybody else's. "The Nazis didn't see themselves as evil, and they didn't commit genocide specifically for the purpose of 'being evil,' so they weren't evil."
Does that imply that someone's viewpoint is worth more than another? But if that is the case, then whose? I am of the opinion, that as your say, no one's perspective is worth less (or more) than anybody else's. But I do not think this is a trivial idea or concept. I would like to say that X is better then Y when it comes to many subjects, especially evil. But who is the one to decide? Even the most unbiased person on earth will still be biased at some core base level. He will still have assumptions, judgements and the likes which he will apply. I would actually disagree with that personally. Evil is not necessarily the opposite of good. Besides there is the entire conundrum of, as your implied in your example, of what is considered good and evil and by whom. And the whole "the victors won the war" I don't particularly agree with. I think "It is the people with power that write the war" is perhaps more accurate. After all, those people with power are often those that won the war (otherwise they probably wouldn't have won), but I think there is an important distinction between these two statements that need to be made. Besides, "Good" and "Evil" are really just social constructs. Take them out of a social settings and there is neither. Both imply a reference point, one without which they become meaningless. Changing that reference point can make anything "Good" or "Evil". However it does not in my opinion validate either of them. It would be like saying "the house is big." Big according to what? it is a completely pointless statement at it's core.
Just my opinion here but whether the Nazis believed they were doing the right thing or not, what they did was definitely evil. At the end of the day people don't get to decide what's evil and what isn't, but everyone gets an opinion on it, and I would hope a lot of people would agree that, basically, it really doesn't matter what the Nazis thought they were doing. They did bad. But anyway, back to topic...
I would say that there are some grey areas in humanity's ability to understand morality. Genocide does not strike me as being one of them.
Morality can be literally anything (which makes it pointless in my opinion). Can I morally justify genocide? Sure. I have done it before. We justified exterminating bears or wolfs in some countries/areas. Their are not humans but it is 'genocide' nonetheless. Alternatively, why do we value human life so high? because it is someone else or because they are like us? A cat has a personality as much as a human beings. But we can go and put a cat down. So why not humans? A cat probably doesn't want to die but most people don't seem to care whether or not it agrees with it. And yet, murder of a human being is illegal and justified wrong, but the same to a cat is fine and okay?
I think that before anyone can speak on the topic of good and evil, they would have to define those terms. I'm going with, "evil is when one person's whim supersedes another person's need."
Dabbling in any form of magic. See Deuteronomy 18: 9-10 for details of all that. Also, consider the Priest himself is involved in a form of religion that is trivializing the evil their own church has performed.
Evil = Drive to power without responsibility. (Now you know why I'm so critical with SJW:s.) Good = Drive to take responsibility with minimal amount of power that is needed. Note: - Evil does not need bad will. It is often in the cloths of "good" will. - Good can be very flawed and incomplete. - Good and evil are direction, not destinations. Doing bad or deeply evil things in the name of "good". - Building racial segregation and racism in the name of antiracism. - Building evil totalitarianism in the name of antifascism. - Killing babies in the name of "choice". (Read: consumerism.) - Identity politics. (Nazism was identity politics. Communism is.) - Dishonesty "for good reasons". - "Interpreting" what someone "really" means. - Virtue signalling. Evils logic is projective. It sees it's own evilness in others and badmouths it. Evil can't see it's own evilness and it can't be without noticing it. It's sollution is to see it elsewhere and attack it viciously.
Hang on everybody, before this ends up in the Debate Room, go back and read my OP: I probably should have mentioned that this book is, overall, rather a comedy. The priest is going to be more than a little unhinged, although not obviously so, and in thinking of it, I really like the above suggestion of the Seven Deadly Sins since so few moderns, whether religious people or not, take them as seriously important. I'm thinking my priest might be particularly triggered by gluttony, since that's the one that I see most observed in the breach, and one that's easy to work in as foreshadowing and clues to the character's obsession. Only getting a small salad and some bread at dinner, tiny little tupperware containers in his bag lunches, oblique criticisms of his peers when they order more than they need, etc. Imagine how nuts it would make you if you saw Infernal influence behind every Super Size McDonald's campaign. Imagine if the Big Gulp looks like gateway to Hell. Imagine if the expanding American waistline was a more serious threat than abortion or secularism, because even good churchgoers didn't see the problem and were not only not repenting, but were hitting the buffet on Sunday afternoon. Imagine you were right... Yeah, I think I've got my Evil, thanks to everyone for your help.
Ooh, interesting. I googled "overweight priest" and found this: Not religion-bashing, but this fits in very nicely with the priest's obsession.
That can depend. Premartial sex is rampant and even people who are not religious tend to raise an eyebrow as to whether it's good. Innocent things like ripping music from the internet as opposed to paying for it can be seen as stealing. Pornography use. You are on track with harmless sub cultures like Goths. There's nothing wrong with Goths. I had one woman in my church look at me horrified because I had friends who smoked and drank.
I''d take a look back at the 7 deadly sins because many are as relevant today as they were hundreds of years ago. Also read the synopsis of Dante's Inferno because the victims of that had done things I didn't think was really a sin. But then I'm not religious and so don't pay a huge amount of attention to their belief system - it's too complicated and full of contradictions.
