Do demons really exist?

by Inisc 57 Replies latest jw friends

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  d

  Demons symbolize unknown fears.
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  just n from bethel

  I hope so. I read that they get their kicks by pushing sexy believing females into the arms and sheets of their human equivalents: bad-ass rebels. It'd be nice to know that if I needed, I'd have an endless supply of invisible stormtroopers to set me up with some hot dates.
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  SweetBabyCheezits

  Hahaha - great stories, JNFB & Shack. Also digging the Sagan quote. Going back through Demon-Haunted World right now and loving it. Wish it was required reading for the general populace.

  Biometrics: My wife played an ouija board when she was 14 years old. At first she thought it was a joke. She asked questions about her future, and they described many details about her future life, including her husband (me). Everything they said was spot on including my height, weight, features, the year we got married, number of children, and many other details.

  I have an ouija board and can't get it to tell me shit. Do I need to be a highly suggestible 14 year old girl?
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  TTWSYF

  I'm not afraid to be ridiculed for admitting that I believe in demons. I beleive the bible is the word of God, not because it makes any sense, no, of course not, but only because I have been given the gift of faith, though I did nothing to deserve such a gift. There are too many bible passages to mention, but here are 2. Not from my favorite version, the NWT. Respectfully, DC

  MATHEW 9; 32 Now when they were leaving, look! people brought him a dumb man possessed of a demon; 33 and after the demon had been expelled the dumb man spoke. Well, the crowds felt amazement and said: “Never was anything like this seen in Israel.”

  MARK 5;.” 8 For he had been telling it: “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.” 9 But he began to ask him: “What is your name?” And he said to him: “My name is Legion, because there are many of us.” 10 And he entreated him many times not to send the spirits out of the country. 11 Now a great herd of swine was there at the mountain feeding. 12 So they entreated him, saying: “Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.” 13 And he permitted them. With that the unclean spirits came out and entered into the swine; and the herd rushed over the precipice into the sea, about two thousand of them, and they drowned one after another in the sea
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  SweetBabyCheezits

  I beleive the bible is the word of God, not because it makes any sense, no, of course not, but only because I have been given the gift of faith, though I did nothing to deserve such a gift.

  So you did nothing to deserve such a gift, but you received it while others did not? Doesn't sound exactly fair.

  But you make a fine point. Faith in the spirit realm in general is necessary to interact with them, whether yahweh, jesus, satan, demons, zeus, allah, ra, thor, etc....

  If you are skeptical, they don't want anything to do with you.
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  IsaacJ22

  There are many in my family who believe in ghosts/demons and who believe they've had direct personal experiences. Many of their experiences happened in conditions where they were asleep or could have fallen asleep. Those experiences were very consistent with hypnogogic delusions. This doesn't explain all of their experiences, but -- once I realized this -- it was enough to make me look at those experiences more skeptically and to realize that I had not had any direct experiences of my own. Though I did manage to scare myself into thinking I had several times.

  Now, as a skeptic/atheist, I won't say it's impossible. I certainly won't say that people who claim to have experiences are lying or crazy. But I suspect that it's a combination of many things. None of which includes real ghosts or demons. Still, if proof existed, I would love to know about it. The proof always vanishes in the presence of a skeptic, somehow...

  One thing to consider: if there are objects flying around your house or weird things happening, why does it have to be a demon? Maybe it's an alien wearing an invisibility suit. Maybe it's a new species of animal that no one knows about that's also invisible and likes messing around with your things. There are pleny of outlandish explanations we can imagine. In fact, when I think about it, the two I just suggested seem more likely than a ghose or demon. At least we have reason to think aliens might exist and unknown species of animals we can't see might exist. But a ghost? A demon? We have no clue what they even are.

  If the explanations I created seem too ridiculous, then how ridiculous is the idea of a ghost or demon compared to them?
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  ziddina

  "...They'll not appear, scare, make noises, and nothing at all in the presence of a skeptic/atheist...." John_Mann

  Ah, hate to burst your bubble there, Mann, but....

  I once worked in what was considered a "haunted" office building....

  And it was a BORING building!!! Fairly new; built in the 1980's on a low butte in Orange County, California... Boring, boring, boring....

  And the work was boring, too... Accounting....

  Well, according to my co-workers, there was something funny going on in that office building. Chairs would move by themselves, scraping noises - 2nd floor, new building - no rats; and so on...

  I laughed my head off at them.

  BUT... There was something weird about the way the vertical window vanes behaved in the conference room, when we were having meetings - oh, those BORING meetings...

  The vanes would occasionally move sequentially, as though someone had just walked past them. But no one had walked into the room.

  I ignored it - and the ghost stories - until one bright SUNNY day, around 1:30 in the afternoon, I was walking past the conference room, and I noticed ONE vane, sticking out at a 45-degree angle, suspended in the air, and shaking...

  Weird...

  I snuck into the empty conference room, was stalking this weird shaking vane, was ALMOST up to it, when one of my co-workers opened the door the rest of the way, hollered, "ZID!! Meeting in 10 minutes!", and shut the door.

  I watched the damn vane fall back into position - but there was NO - absolutely NO - residual motion. No swinging like a pendulum, no motion - it was as though the vane was precisely placed back into position.

  So, that incident broke the laws of physics - at least twice. The vane defying the law of gravity by being suspended by itself at approx. 45-degree angle, and the vane going back into place with no residual movement.

  And every time my Wiccan friend and I discuss this story, I repeat that I still don't believe in ghosts, and she laughs her head off at me...

  But I still don't believe in ghosts. I'd have to have better evidence than that weird stuff in that office building, to believe in ghosts.

  I've often wondered if it had something to do with the air conditioning, but the air ducts were in the ceiling, not in the floor, and weren't operating that spring day...

  So, yes, atheists CAN see weird things... One doesn't have to "believe", to see the stuff.

  Now, the explanation that one comes UP with, though - can be a different situation all together...
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  unshackled

  Zid, so if it was a ghost their effort on you was all in vane?
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  Wizard of Oz

  LOL........the only DEEMENZ are the one in your own head. It's name PARANOIA
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  ballistic

  Not as the witnesses believe - and their beliefs I think are quite damaging to chioldren brought up in it. BUT they could exist on two other ways.

  Firstly, for all their ills and severe problems, I think the scientologists could be right about mental engrams which are like "demons" which can play and replay in your mind and even make you act in certain ways.

  Secondly, I believe it's possible we are surrounded by an ether, which is like white noise all around us, and things can manifest themselves as if in other dimensions, history replaying or even entities. Our eyes aren't trained to see just like we don't see all the quantum physics going on in this ether around us. It's possible.