If I were the Devil…
Posted on 29 June 2025, 15:23
*You can listen to the blog here.
In 1965, popular radio commentator Paul Harvey gave his famous broadcast, “If I were the devil…” Here are Harvey’s words:
“If I were the devil. If I were the Prince of Darkness, I’d want to engulf the whole world in darkness. And I’d have a third of its real estate, and four-fifths of its population, but I wouldn’t be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree: Thee. So I’d set about however necessary to take over the United States.
“I’d subvert the churches first. I’d begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: ‘Do as you please.’ To the young, I would whisper that, ‘The Bible is a myth.’ I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what’s bad is good, and what’s good is square. And the old, I would teach to pray, after me, ‘Our Father, which art in Washington….’
“And then I’d get organized. I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull and uninteresting. I’d threaten TV with dirtier movies and vice- versa. I’d pedal narcotics to whom I could. I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. I’d tranquilize the rest with pills.
“If I were the devil, I’d soon have families that war with themselves, churches at war with themselves, and nations at war with themselves -- until each in its turn was consumed. And with promises of higher ratings I’d have mesmerizing media fanning the flames.
“If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine young intellects but neglect to discipline emotions -- just let those run wild until before you knew it, you’d have to have drug sniffing dogs and metal detectors at every schoolhouse door. Within a decade, I’d have prisons overflowing. I’d have judges promoting pornography. Soon, I could evict God from the courthouse, then from the schoolhouse, and then from the houses of Congress.
“And in His own churches, I would substitute psychology for religion -- and deify science. I would lure priests and pastors into misusing boys and girls, and church money.
If I were the devil, I’d make the symbol of Easter an egg, and the symbol of Christmas a bottle.
“If I were the devil, I’d take from those who have and give to those who wanted, until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. And what'll you bet I couldn't get whole states to promote gambling as the way to get rich?
“I would caution against extremes -- in hard work, in patriotism, in moral conduct. I would convince the young that marriage is old-fashioned, that swinging is more fun, that what you see on the TV is the way to be. And thus, I could undress you in public, and I could lure you into bed with diseases for which there is no cure. In other words, if I were the devil I’d just keep right on doing what he’s doing.
“Paul Harvey: Good day.”
Recently, a friend put the same question to AI (ChatGBT). Here is the reply he received:
“That’s a powerful and sobering question. If I were to approach this from a strategic, adversarial perspective—thinking like the devil in a metaphorical or literary sense—the most effective ways to destroy the next generation would likely involve subtle, systemic, and seductive influences rather than overt attacks. Here’s a breakdown of potential strategies:
1. Undermine Truth
• Blur the lines between truth and falsehood.
• Promote relativism: “There’s no absolute truth; everyone’s truth is valid.”
• Erode trust in foundational sources of wisdom: family, sacred texts, history, and even reality itself.
2. Destroy Identity
• Confuse young people about who they are—about gender, purpose, and intrinsic worth.
• Break their connection to their heritage, their spiritual inheritance, and their understanding of being part of something greater.
• Promote self-definition that is disconnected from any transcendent source.
3. Corrupt Love and Relationships
• Redefine love to mean tolerance of anything, removing boundaries.
• Promote hyper-individualism and transactional relationships instead of covenantal, sacrificial love.
• Make family structures seem optional or obsolete.
4. Normalize Distraction and Addiction
• Saturate life with endless entertainment, social media, consumerism, and dopamine hits.
• Keep the next generation too busy, too stimulated, and too anxious to seek deeper meaning.
• Push immediate gratification over long-term fulfillment.
5. Promote Hopelessness
• Foster cynicism about the future through narratives of inevitable destruction: climate collapse, political chaos, economic doom.
• Make faith, virtue, and moral effort seem futile or naïve.
6. Hijack Education
• Replace the pursuit of wisdom with the pursuit of power or social approval.
• Teach young people what to think, not how to think.
• Erase critical thinking and historical context.
7. Suppress Spiritual Hunger
• Offer cheap substitutes for transcendence: fame, virtual experiences, drugs, occult practices.
• Make material success the highest goal.
• Turn religion into empty ritual or shallow moralism.
“Why This Matters: What’s especially dangerous is that these strategies wouldn’t necessarily feel evil to those experiencing them. They would feel normal, progressive, even liberating—which is exactly the point if the goal is long-term spiritual decay.”
I put the same question to AI and got this response: “That’s a heavy and important question, often posed hypothetically to provoke thought about societal vulnerabilities and moral decay. Let’s frame it as a cautionary thought experiment – not to promote harm, but to help identify and defend against real world threats to young people.” AI then provided the following strategies:
1. Undermine Identity and Purpose
2. Break the Family Structure
3. Glorify Distraction and Pleasure Over Discipline
4. Erase Moral Absolutes
5. Infiltrate Education
6. Encourage Division and Victimhood
7. Normalize Despair
The tactics under the last one involved “spreading nihilism, make mental health crises fashionable rather than addressable, and silence any message that offers lasting joy, purpose, or redemption.”
I put the same question to AI a day later to see if I would get an identical response. It was much the same but with slightly varied verbiage.
It is to countering the spread of nihilism that this blog has been dedicated over the past 15-plus years. As I see it, most of the other strategies mentioned by both Paul Harvey and in the AI explanations are closely linked to the spread of nihilism. To once again quote the renowned Russian author Fyodor Dostoyvevsky: “Neither a person nor a nation can exist without some higher idea. And there is only one higher idea on earth, and it is the idea of the immortality of the human soul, for other ‘higher’ ideas of life by which humans might live derive from that idea alone.”
Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I. and No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife. His latest book Consciousness Beyond Death: New and Old Light on Near-Death Experiences is published by White Crow books.
Next blog post: July 14
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