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Complete PICLE corpus of essays by Polish advanced EFL students (330,000)

/^t/Many people dismiss Satan as demoralizing. They claim people use it as a scapegoat to shift responsibility onto. They say it is high time people began to acount individually for the things they have done. They tend to forget that scapegoats are useful psychological defence mechanisms. On television one can see the mass graves in Rwanda or Bosnia, the broken bodies in Oklahoma City or Jerusalem. This evil is so overwhelming that no sane man would ever be able to comprehend it. This is where defence mechanisms come in handy. As we no longer believe in the Devil, we reach for rational explanations: sociological, psychological, or even genetic. They help to restore our self-esteem and the sunny view of human nature. In fact, these explanations are more harmful than the old concept of the Devil. When you say 'Satan made me do it' you are still guilty of what you have done. When you blame society or genetic endowment, your guilt gets blurred or even washed away. Crimes and sins are left unpunished. So, if we do need a scapegoat anyway, let it be the one we have had for centuries, the Devil.