I feel like it's more common to compare something to the devil. There's a bunch of sayings that include the word devil and Satan in it, even Bob Ross says 'Beat the devil out of it' when he cleans his brushes. I mean (not trying to offened anyone's beliefs here) Satan is a mythical evil figure. I'm sure its quoted he's done some evil things, but its more generalized evil. Whereas Hitler did some pretty horrific and specific things that we have documentaion of.
Saying my dog acts like Satan is understood like "Oh she can act sweet and nice but can turn vicious."
If I compared my dog to Hitler, people would read it like "Oh she enslaved a government and commited genocide on an entire group of people."
I see. Yeah, not everybody believes in Satan or his existence. But if you look at a Christian’s point of view, it’s even more offensive and exaggerating to compare anyone to the devil (including saying that they are worse than the devil). Satan is so evil that you can’t even imagine it. I believe he is real. I also believe he is the mastermind behind most (if not) all evil in the world, not just the events in the Bible. But I also accept that not everybody believes in that since not everybody believes in Satan, so I can’t argue against them. As for Hitler, he is real, hence why it would be more offensive to compare people to Hitler. Now there are characters in fiction that are truly worse than Hitler (there’s a trope out there called Complete Monster, which is a type of character that has absolutely no redeeming qualities), but the difference here is that they are fictional, so even comparing them to Hitler won’t work.
Other analogies like that include comparing any tragedy (including 9/11 and the American Civil War) to the Holocaust, comparing any prison to the Holocaust, comparing any court case to the Dred Scott case, and comparing anybody to any other historical villain.
I mean, I don't really care as long as the comparison made sense and was valid.
I'm not religious so I throw around the devil reference. I find something like Hitler to be more sensitive.
That is true. While I don’t believe Hitler is any worse than the devil, Hitler is clearly more evil than almost anybody else that existed (even worse than Joseph Stalin, who killed even more people, and Tomas de Torquemada, who tortured people at a much worse degree). While the Holocaust is the worst event in history (and unique in terms of how bad it really is), Hitler also rounded up populations that didn’t agree with him or weren’t like him, banned literature and media he didn’t like, and started one of the worst wars in history. To compare people to someone like that is very childish, is disrespectful, weakens your argument, and offends not just who you’re comparing to, but also many other groups (especially Holocaust survivors). Yet, people still do it, to get what they want. And it’s more commonly done than you think, and was done for far too long.
In my personal opinion, I think it would be more offensive to compare people to Satan than it is to compare people to Hitler. You seen my argument on why it’s bad to compare people to Hitler. Imagine what it’s like doing it to Satan.
I would like to see others voice their opinions on how offensive it is to compare people to the devil.