I’ve only just seen that ‘devil’ has the word evil in it. The moment this realisation dropped, whilst with a cuppa at the kitchen counter, I went sleuthing online. Apparently devil is linked to the Greek word ‘diabolos’ which means slanderer. Even back in ancient times, when there was no worldwide web to spew into, derogatory and untrue statements to harm another person were considered premium malice and you needed to think before thou verily spake.

I continued typing until in ‘People also ask’ I found just deserts in Psalm 101:5 which says, “whoever secretly slanders his neighbour, him I will destroy.” Although I’m not up to snuff with biblical psalms, I recall that Johnny Cash in a song about the “long time liar” and “back biter” suggested, “God’s gonna cut ‘em down.”

Just a hop and scotch away in the Hebrew language I found out that the word ‘satan’ means accuser or adversary. In both Jewish and Christian traditions satan is the name of the chief spirit of evil so at least all mean people with narcissism or over-inflated egos which they haven’t bothered to humble down, and/or a propensity to be invasive, can be appeased with that credit.

Conversely, and I blame my upbringing, I’ve always been aware that the Germanic rooted word ‘God’ which means supreme being is an ‘o’ short of the Indo-European word ‘good.’ But on this occasion, I discovered that the Old English use of the word ‘goodness’ implies a benefit or gift. Well that makes sense – being good must be an advantage because our actions are prompted by our thoughts and loving or hopeful ones (whether to ourselves or others) are exceedingly more useful than hate.

According to the OED, from 1966 Americans started using the expression “I’m good” in response to questions and requests to express – “I’m not in need of anything.” I like to think that next time I answer, “How are you?” with an automatic “I’m good” I might remember that contrary to my daily cravings for more of all life’s good stuff, I do in fact have enough. Although I discovered a university student pointing out that in the Persian language the word for God – Khoda – reflects the word for good – Khoob, from my ten minute or less research, the online consensus is that it’s just a coincidence that ‘god’ and ‘good’ almost have the same spelling,

Whether you do or don’t believe in a supreme being, c’mon all of us sane people know that morality is a necessary compass. Even without a gov poll to back me up I reckon I can wholeheartedly declare that we’re united in our belief that actions such as bullying, assault and torture are so very wrong. As a youth, when I was being taught that it matters how you live your life, (perhaps in RE class, perhaps from the Romantic poets and classic Victorian writers who settled so readily in my consciousness,) I imagined that after death, people go to a waiting room with the actions of their lives recorded in a booklet and each page divided into three columns headed Good, Bad and Evil (had I seen the movie then ‘Ugly’ might have been the third column header.)

I believed that to reach my sweet lord I should have very few entries in the last two columns, or at best, show evidence of how I’d attempted to erase any wilfully wicked and immoral actions. In my imagination, hell was a parabolic sumptuous banquet table where residents had no limbs; or in the inferno I’d either be subject to slavery like I was witnessing in the TV series Roots or related to a man like JR Ewing.

Contrarily, enough good deeds or actions would take me up the stairway to heaven, a place where ‘birds flying high…butterflies all havin’ fun, you know what I mean.’ Then came a teenage epiphany in which I understood that hell and heaven are other words for freaking horrible and lovely jubbly; and don’t hold your breath until death, it’s all happening right here right now, as we choose.