As spoken earlier- in the Old Testament especially it isn’t uncommon for several specific and different places, some of them actual historical locations in earth, to be mentioned by name and then translated in English and other bibles as “hell.” It’s like taking a conversation where someone mentions the dentists office and a conversation about the DMV and one about the afterlife and calling all three of those “hell.” That’s what they did. For many the dentist or DMV are not pleasant but they are distinctly different places and generally different experiences.

Understand a few things. Firstly the Bible clearly states in several places and implies through its assertions of god as creator that god made “hell” and only god can cast someone to hell. Satan cannot, in the Bible, cast you into hell and you cannot put yourself into hell. Your conduct may or may not warrant going to hell and god is who would send you there by the word of the Bible.
Secondly- one of the few times “hell” is described at all it is said it is dark. God will chain the devil and his angels in darkness.
Thirdly- there are some translations that use terms like “the hell of fire.” Note it is the hell OF fire not that hell is fiery.
This one… ok.

So by and large what we know about the devil or the many entities which are all
Given that one name or balled up together commonly- is that the holy books mostly say they aren’t good. In fact several books in several places stop short of calling the devil or one of the entities under that identity bad or evil exactly and do go as far to either call them prudent or essentially a minor figure. So I mean.. if we take the stance the devil is real for the sake of this discussion, most of the time when people are talking about or picturing Satan and hell they are playing make believe or going off of pop culture depictions of the devil.

and are inferences made or concepts created by people looking to create their own narrative or searching for meaning beyond what is written. They are subject to debate and have little justification in physical evidence within the holy writings of these religions. Often these concepts and mysticisms draw evidence from across faiths mixing writings or concepts and such from different faiths to create an image of validity. What is odd is how often people will reach across faiths to borrow a reference that reinforces their idea but will quickly dismiss the rest of that faiths evidence which contradicts or doesn’t suit their narrative.

Akin to older belief systems. Specifically Greek and Norse related systems. Some say the pitchfork is a loan of The sea kings trident, that the idea of hell hound(s) is an obvious allusion to hades Cerberus, that many portrayals of the devil in modern media reference various myths- often the devil in modern media may carry aspects of Prometheus or such- having brought some knowledge or ability to humans to expand their abilities or freedoms and in doing angered a higher power and was punished.
There are many other possible borrowings and influences. But undeniably the books known as the Old Testament especially and even the New Testament te surprisingly sparse in detail on hell or the devil. Most of the historical concepts of “the devil” come from the imaginations of people and word of mouth folk tale. Even common connections such as the devil being Satan and Satan being Lucifer and the snake in the garden as the devil etc. are often not directly supported in the source materials

And so through pop culture we got a skinny guy in red and or black with a pitch fork (various symbolism is attributed to how that came about but pitchforks aren’t mentioned in the abrahamic holy books with the devil) and usually a twirly mustache was given to him. A “buff” devil started to become popular with fantasy and heavy metal and such imagery, and in more recent times the idea of the devil as a more benign or AKC or misunderstood figure, often less traditionally masculine or even with feminine leanings, charisma, wit, cleverness, and often either portrayed as not evil in a sense that they have very specific motivations and a system of honor and even kindness- or portrayed as not inherently evil in a sense they provide some necessary or even beneficial function dictated by the workings of the world or politics of the divine etc. even sometimes as an anti hero who goes against a rigid and often uncaring deity and/or their “systems” to offer humans choices and autonomy- again…

Then the equivalent of a bunch of “shows” riding a fad put out images of the devil as a sinister (often suave) trickster and seducer who bargains or yearns to collect souls and hell as a pit of fire full of demons and such. Sometimes previous mythology was sprinkled in like the idea of a “hell hound” and often elements of Zoroastrianism and other belief systems and myths or superstitions. It gets very chicken and egg from there but the church caught on and society caught on and they sort of fed into each others perceptions and create these entirely new mythos and perceptions of hell and the “devil” without basis or very thin basis in actual scripture.

Let me explain that more topically- you know when they make a film or show of the book or comic etc. you love but they cut out like 1-5 characters and then clothed make a new character that takes over all the plot from the others they deleted or they just give all the important actions and story from those characters to another existing character? That’s what was done with “the devil” and “hell.”

Those things aren’t important to the broad strokes history beyond to remind people most monsters are humans and that a smile and charisma and strong words and promises to make our lives better can lead us down that same path because we too are human and it is a short and easy walk from man to monster that is in our deeds and not necessarily our goals. It’s important that for now and in a million years every human knows how to spot a Nazi wether they call themselves Nazis or not, and knows that people like that wether they are monsters or not will bring out the monstrousness in our society and in others. It is important that no generation is without ample people who will punch a Nazi on sight.

But- it’s hard for anyone no matter how intelligent to understand things they didn’t live through. Most people have trouble enough understanding the period of history they actually experienced. There is no acceptable history book where we take a neutral view of the Nazis and what they did.
There is no neutral view of the great leap or the rape of Nanking or the killing fields of Cambodia. Yes, the “monsters” in these stories are mostly all human beings. They mostly all had some reasons for what they did and they mostly all thought they were helping or making the world better or doing what was necessary but hard for a better world or a better life for those they cared about. They likely all or mostly had kids and pets and favorite foods and people that loved them. They probably did nice things for people sometimes and told a funny joke now and then and could be downright kind and gracious in the right settings.

And lastly, that same perception bias that makes a simplified “blame game” dangerous because people vilify the “antagonist” or laud the “hero” when often those concepts don’t apply… it works the other way too with revisionist history and sympathizing. Not everyone has the mental bandwidth to avoid this.
Let’s look at WW2. It was complex. It wasn’t started by the Nazis” and we can argue from the stand point of the Nazis and their sympathizers that they were not “bad guys,” they did bad things and had some problematic views on race and such. Because America was an inclusive wonderland in the 40’s and didn’t commit any atrocities right? Because other Allies like Russia were humanitarian beacons..?

Now children grow up, many don’t advance much in their comprehension as adults and while many do- they often get busy and have other priorities and so tend to revert to only being able to follow or understand short and simplified summaries of complex concepts and events. Key details. Context is lost and there are other issues with this- but who even reads my comments? They are full of context and specific language generally and they don’t get read or are even despised for their length and detail, because people generally don’t want that. They want the key take aways and the simple version.

So monarchy isn’t my first choice for a system of governance but if the idea of monarchy makes a person upset they should take a hard look at the world in general and get very upset.

What’s more, while the nature of capitalism does easily lend to greed and shady dealings, the nature of communism in practices lends to totalitarianism and repression. The rejection of codified and systemic means to account for human greed and self interest leave communisms without the tools to deal with these basic aspects of human nature and will inevitably lead to corruption and graft because people have no other means to express their natural behaviors. Even if you remove a cats claws it will express scratching behavior. If you give the cat healthy outlets to express these instincts you can get the cat to behave in a manner that isn’t destructive and is conducive to a stable and working living arrangement. In absence of those measures the best you can do is repress the behavior through extreme means that are either cruel and unpleasant to the cat or prohibitive to general life conduct.

At this point some may think in error that I am arguing against capitalism or for communism as at the heart of the concept of many flavors of communism is the idea that this stratified system repeating in different guises makes these systems essentially the same.
There may be truth to that but to date no communism of any scale or note has succeeded in actually eliminating this “pyramid” structure and it is essentially impossible that a functioning system without these structures would ever exist in the conceivable future.
The “classless” societies have all been very much divided by class and have had the same disparities or worse in standards of living and wealth distribution as every stratified system.

In other words, your odds of getting a competent and effective ruler in a two party democratic system are arguably not much better and may even be worse than the odds of getting a competent and effective ruler by north right and conflict of succession.
Not that I favor monarchy- that isn’t the argument I seek to make here. Instead I argue that we haven’t actually stepped away from these systems of government that much and for the grand promises of revolution for the past several centuries, revolution has largely served to remove an obstacle to power for a príveles few seeking the position for themselves but offer little meaningful change to the average person.

What it comes down to is checks and balances to power. Where you have effective checks and balances a monarch has no more power than a president or even less.
If we ignore the fact that “elected representatives” often truly aren’t elected by the people and argue that regardless of these facts a democracy is fundamentally different ad there is some element of choice in a ruler Vs. Predestination, that is still somewhat pointless. As we very well know from modern politics, a ruler elected by elites or a ruler elected by the people is not always the most qualified or prudent choice. They are generally the person most liked or identified with based on a carefully curated image by the voting groups.

In a 60-40 vote, if the two sides fought, the 40% could actually win a war. Conflicts have been won with much more I balanced forces. It’s arbitrary though. The counting of votes removes variables like tactics and such and makes it a sheer game of strength of numbers. That’s how this stuff works at a fundamental level. It’s really not so different. We also need to remember that there are permutations and flavors of government. Direct democracy and representative and so many ways to do it. There are monarchies where the monarch doesn’t have absolute power such as constitutional monarchies and voting lords and various systems where the military is involved.

We don’t HAVE to vote. The fundamentals of almost all human interaction are for e or threat of force. If you have a population of 100,000 people and take a vote where 80,000 vote yes to something and 20,000 vote no, you are in essence being told that if you try to act in a way commiserate to the no vote that you’ll be facing 80,000 enemies. Instead of a vote we could just fight and war if people disagree. Sometimes we do. The January 6th rioters used force of numbers to try and force their way and it turned out that despite momentary success there were way more people willing to stop them than help them
Voting is a way to avoid the destruction and death and disruption of fighting whenever we disagree.

Fundamental and known to humans since before recorded history is strength in numbers. So a king needs support to be a king in anything but name, but why would someone support a claim to king vs. claiming to be the king? Simple, strength. If the king can gather 50 men with 500 soldiers combined to say they are king in exchange for a cut of the good life or promises of things they care about, and be free of all the duties of a king they don’t want- and another person can only get 5 men… the person with 5 is better off joining the king usually and settling for a smaller take than trying to have it all against those odds. And that’s how politics works in democracy more or less in the modern world. Donald Trump told Mike Pence not to certify a vote. Wether you believe he was right or wrong- Pence didn’t listen. Donald is no longer President. If enough people believed he was still president and supported that- he’d still be president. It’s all in the numbers regardless of the system usually.

Simply put- you could declare your house or your car an independent nation tomorrow where your current nations laws and rule don’t apply. You could claim the entire block belongs to you. But I’d you start murdering people because that’s ok in your new nation or stop paying taxes to or allowing transit of people from the old nation- and the police of your old nation come to set that straight- do you have the power to stop them and enforce your claims? If the military comes do you? If the neighborhood one block over has declared itself a nation and comes to annex your block, can you protect yourself from them?

Those executives then lend parts of their power and wealth and such to lesser nobility and on other goes down the line until we reach the lowest rungs of society which are usually the peasants or general population. Within this group there are those with more proximity to money and power and less, defining socio economic strata between them. In exchange there is an upwards flow. The ruler “owns” everything in name- but to make that reality they need the might to be able to enforce their will and the rewards to trickle down to keep those beneath them happy in supporting them. Lesser nobility provide members of their populations as soldiers and workers and such. They provide money and resources. They get to keep a cut but in exchange their ability to take is protected by the whole of the government.