Yeah, Mephisto isn't the devil in the Christian sense (I don't feel qualified to comment on other religions and their devil type concepts), he's a demonic creature who instigates evil when he can, but he only exists because evil already exists in the world.
The only time he's been actually destroyed was by Franklin Richards many, many years ago (in the Byrne FF run I think), and even that noted that Mephisto is the embodiment of all humanities sinful acts, so defeating him serves no long term purpose, because humanity will still commit evil acts and in doing so, recreate and re-empower Mephisto eventually.
Punching Mephisto might prevent a few people from making deals with him, and thus make the world a slightly better place (Though his appearance in New Mutants suggests he's not doing that as much as he used to because there's no real point to it), but it certainly wouldn't have an uimpact on the general popualtion's capacity for evil and sin.
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The only time he's been actually destroyed was by Franklin Richards many, many years ago (in the Byrne FF run I think), and even that noted that Mephisto is the embodiment of all humanities sinful acts, so defeating him serves no long term purpose, because humanity will still commit evil acts and in doing so, recreate and re-empower Mephisto eventually.
Punching Mephisto might prevent a few people from making deals with him, and thus make the world a slightly better place (Though his appearance in New Mutants suggests he's not doing that as much as he used to because there's no real point to it), but it certainly wouldn't have an uimpact on the general popualtion's capacity for evil and sin.