Demonic activity

[Sparko]

Um, why would truth change? Only false ideas get changed.

[Manwë Súlimo]

Nothing in religion has healed a single disease, built a single machine, proved a single thing about the cosmos, or presented us with a viable answer to any number of questions like how did we get here, and why are things the way they are.

Yea, Newton, Mendel, Bohr, Pasteur......what have they ever done for science? Not a damn thing, I say. What's that? They were religious? Eh, must be a fluke. Oh, wait. It was the monasteries that kept ancient knowledge intact during the so-called Dark Ages because the monks had a fondness of keeping wisdom written down and transcribed. Must be another fluke. Silly flukes. Religion can't do any positive deed for science. What's that about Heisenburg and Quantum Theory? Will you please shut up about religious men that helped us advance as a species? I have a pet theory to maintain and I'll be damned if I let facts get in the way.


Eh? What's that about Kepler? WHAT DID I JUST TELL YOU?!

[fm93]

Don't forget about Georges Lemaitre, a Catholic who helped develop the Big Bang theory.

[Manwë Súlimo]

Don't forget about Georges Lemaitre, a Catholic who helped develop the Big Bang theory.

ARRRRRG, YOU DON'T LISTEN VERY WELL! STOP PROVIDING EXAMPLES THAT CONTRADICT MY UNREASONABLE BELIEF IN THE ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM OF RELIGION!

Worldview....slowly slipping away.....must......read some Dawkins.....

[Sparko]

Yea, Newton, Mendel, Bohr, Pasteur......what have they ever done for science? Not a damn thing, I say. What's that? They were religious? Eh, must be a fluke. Oh, wait. It was the monasteries that kept ancient knowledge intact during the so-called Dark Ages because the monks had a fondness of keeping wisdom written down and transcribed. Must be another fluke. Silly flukes. Religion can't do any positive deed for science. What's that about Heisenburg and Quantum Theory? Will you please shut up about religious men that helped us advance as a species? I have a pet theory to maintain and I'll be damned if I let facts get in the way.


Eh? What's that about Kepler? WHAT DID I JUST TELL YOU?!

and Christians were the only ones willing to help during the plagues, and they virtually invented hospitals to take care of the sick and needy way back in the 3rd century. And a Catholic priest came up with the big bang theory.

[fm93]

NOTHING is without question, NOTHING, EVEN religion, even god. I take NOTHING on soley on FAITH without empirical evidence and a peer reviewed system of challenging everything.

You know, it's interesting...Christianity teaches something exactly like that. Read 1 Thessalonians 5:21--"Critically examine everything. Hold on to the good." And btw, the Greek word translated as "faith" is pistis, which was used as a rhetorical term for forensic proof. Did you ever notice how when the apostles evangelized, they always relied on the hard evidence of the empty tomb and Jesus' miracles?

So you see, Biblical Christianity and reason go hand in hand.

Nothing in religion has healed a single disease, built a single machine, proved a single thing about the cosmos, or presented us with a viable answer to any number of questions like how did we get here, and why are things the way they are.

Well, I happen to know of a book called the Bible that constitutes a counterexample to your claim...

Your answers all rely on faith in a 2000 year old book, written mostly by uneducated men, with NO women writers, and passed down by mostly illiterates in an oral tradition.

For someone who boasts of being a champion of reason, this is a rather illogical and ignorant rant. None of the above matters if the information in the Bible is still accurate. You can't judge the credibility of a document simply from the credentials of the author.

NOTHING from the bible has been preserved, there is no ark

And why would there still be? If the Genesis story was allegorical in that passage, then there is no issue. If it was a literal event, then the ark would very likely have been taken apart to be used for houses and tools.

no ark of the covenant

I have no clue why you think this should still remain.

no holy grail

No, really? Could it possibly because the tales of the holy grail were products of the later church, and are not in the Bible at all?

no single piece of evidence that Jesus existed beyond what is written in the bible.

I see you you've never heard of Josephus, Tacitus, Thallus, the Talmud, Lucian, or Mara bar Serapion, to name a few.

Yep. Just as I thought. The PHD in your username stands for Piled High Deep.

[TyRockwell]

I would really appreciate it if some of the people in this thread who claim to have interacted with demons or demonic forces or whatever would try to provide us some concrete details of what the interaction was like, what leads them to believe it was the/a devil, how did they "overcome" the demon/experience, and so forth.

I have always been very interested in these sorts of topics, but I must admit that I am extremely skeptical that any old random person has had a close encounter with a demonic force. For example, this thread is barely onto its second page, and yet we already have several people who believe they have encountered devils or evil spirits (or whatever you want to call them). What an amazing stroke of luck that such an admittedly rare type of encounter is already represented several times in this thread's population. Please understand first, though, that I am not calling these people liars or fakes, I simply have a hard time accepting that, out of all possible explanations for whatever it is that you experienced or encountered, an honest-to-God (pun intended) demon is the most likely explanation. Call me an empiricist on this one; it seems that most claims of interacting with supernatural forces, especially malevolent supernatural forces, usually have an alternate nonsupernatural explanation that is at least as possible as the idea that a person has encountered and directly interacted with an actual demon or evil spirit. I don't claim that this never happens, but I am of an opposite view to the OP. I would hold that such encounters happen so rarely as to be virtually nonexistent.

Here is one example:

About seventeen years ago, a 20-something year old woman brought a man she was dating, about her same age, with her to a Bible Study in my living room. There were about 12 to 15 people in attendance. Before we got started, we were playing Christian music and talking. The man was obviously uncomfortable and anxious, rubbing his hands together, fidgeting in his chair, tapping his toes and heels, and pulling at his collar and his sleeves.

When I picked up my Bible, and asked the group to turn in their Bibles to a certain passage, the man stood up, and told his date, "Come on, let's go." She agreed, but to go out the door, they had to pass right by where I was sitting. When he got next to me, he asked if the palm of my hand burned when I held the Bible! He said, "Because it burns mine."

I said "No," and I immediately knew he had a demon. Then he said, I believe involuntarily, "My name is Dark Angel, and I ..."

But I cut him off, saying, "I rebuke you, in the name of Jesus!" At that moment he was thrown backward about 8 feet, without having been touched, and slammed into the wall next to the front door. He slid down to the floor, nearly knocked out, as if he had been punched. He was dazed, sitting on his bottom on the floor.

I called out for a couple of other mature brothers in the Lord, one, a good friend, to come help minister to him. But as I was turned, he reached up to the door knob, opened the door, and crawled out, very quickly. By the time my good friend I had called got there, the demonized man was on his feet, staggering and running to his car. I was about to go after him, but my older, more experienced friend held me back, and said, "Let him go. He doesn't want to be helped." The man backed his car out of my driveway, really fast, almost going into the ditch. He had left his date behind.

Later, my girlfriend, Joyce, drove her home. In their conversation, the girl told Joyce that she hadn't been dating him long, and that he wouldn't go to church with her, so she told him they were going to a "little get together." He didn't know he was driving her to a Bible study.

Joyce is now my wife, and can verify this happened.

[TyRockwell]

Correction. It was about sixteen years ago, since Joyce and I have been married for fifteen years.

[Catholicity]

St Theresa of Avila was said to have had nightly struggles with the Devil. She would wake up and see goopy visions over her. I think and the Church teaches a couple things 90 percent of possesions (not opressions or activity itself) is happened when the individual has willingly cooperated in some way with the activity itself. Typically the person associated with the activity doesn't want it removed. There is in some circles, an overzealous motion to label every kind of struggle as demonic (anxiety, depression, sickness, etc.) And in some circles we often become overzealous to remove the activity from our own lives. A few things to remember.
1) We are NOT alone. We have the prayers of the saints and the Church with us and our Blessed Lord Always.
2) In Jesus, we are loved, and it is by His grace we are made whole.
3) The devil (devils demons, etc) have only as much power as we give them. They work off fear, and cling to it. But the reality is, when we recognize they have no power, they cannot harm us, unless we are to be taught something and it is allowed through some work.

Thus we have every right to say to a diabolical entity "Oh its just you" And move on. In this sense we are to say "I am in Christ, you are not my captor, I am His friend" by this acknowledgement, we are free.

[Catholicity]

[QUOTE=Michigan PhD;3077509]You make it too easy. One the one hand you admit that your entire world view is based on your faith in god, NOT in your belief in science. Then you say that scientific theory is constantly overturned by the next experiment, which is both accurate and inaccurate. Scientist seek to find fault with ALL theories, that is how they are either proven right or wrong, nothing wrong with that, it's how we learn as a species. You said something about science before 1500, of course science before 1500 was NOT what science is today, but then again language today is different than it was six thousand years ago, so what? Since 1500 we have learned a LOT about science, but VERY little has changed in what is believed by religion.
Ehhh....... Let me ask a few reasonable questions here. What is the "world view" based on? Well, it depends on whose persepective you are looking at it and whom you are asking the questions. I see a failure to address that A number of us accept that science is the study of the natural world. Many of us who hold a higher belief also put a great deal of belief in the study of the natural world and accept its changes and advances. Now you point out that Christianity has not changed and this poses some kind of problem for you. Yet some of the more ancient traditions have changed with time to bring into the modern culture. While The God we choose to worship has remained the same as has our relgious book, certain practices have, and really for the better.
You do realise that NOTHING in Christianity has changed in 2000 years, same bible, same story, same theories, same notions, same faith, same belief in mythology, same magic; NOTHING changes. MY faith in science is that NOTHING is without question, NOTHING, EVEN religion, even god. I take NOTHING on soley on FAITH without empirical evidence and a peer reviewed system of challenging everything.
Allow me to justly point out that science is the study of what we can see feel, taste, touch ,or touch or smell or hear. These are its limits.
Anything else is is nothing more than FAITH, RELIGION, tom foolery, and the blinders are on. Nothing in religion has healed a single disease, built a single machine, proved a single thing about the cosmos, or presented us with a viable answer to any number of questions like how did we get here, and why are things the way they are. Your answers all rely on faith in a 2000 year old book, written mostly by uneducated men, with NO women writers, and passed down by mostly illiterates in an oral tradition. NOTHING from the bible has been preserved, there is no ark, no ark of the covenant, no holy grail, no single piece of evidence that Jesus existed beyond what is written in the bible. So, you are correct, we probably don't have much to discuss.[/QUOTE
The Declaration of Uneducated men and women for writers and oral tradition simply is a declaration of how uneducated you are on matters of the Bible. Oral Tradition in the OT? Sure...written by the most educated literate scribes and the best historians...ABSOLUTELY!!!! NT....Written by A Physician, A Pharisee, A Tax Collecter, A Woman, a Rabbi, Greek Scholars....Wow uneducated you say??? men who understood and spoke at least two if not three languages, and were schooled all of their lives. As to Evidence that Jesus existed, Lets not Just discuss the Talmud and Josephus, lets Bring in The Protoevangelium of James, the Shepard of Hermas, Pauline Corpus, the Didache, The Acts of Peter the Acts of Paul, The letters of Clement I and Mary Magdalene and Thomas. Shall I go on?
Your either or someone who got hurt by religion and has decided to go nuts here. and thats all I have to say

[franktalk]

When I was first becoming a Christian I was told by a friend that I was destined to work in spiritual warfare. I had no idea what that meant. It did seem strange that someone who had cast out demons was telling me what my future was. As I read the scriptures my spirit awakened and I started to see more clearly. What this means is I cast off the world and started to rebuild my world view. But I was weak and had many doors open to evil that I was not aware off. One night I awoke to find a demon at the foot of my bed. I could not make out the detail but I knew it was evil. I was shaking in fear but forced myself to get out of bed and stand. I knew I had to confront the spirit or accept it. I knew somehow that if I accepted it I would lose my way. By this I knew that my path was leading me to faith in God and if I turned then I would return to the world. Once I was standing I had no idea what to do. I closed my eyes and said "Jesus save me". The next moment I awoke with no fear and feeling I had the best nights sleep ever. I made it a point to research spiritual warfare and now protect myself.

My head was filled with many voices which thought were mind. But after a spiritual cleaning my mind is clear.

I have other spiritual encounters but this one set the stage for my life. I now get called many things by people of this world. The world is not your friend once you start on the path to God.

Here it is five years later and I still know each thought and each movement from that night.