The Power/Reality Of Demons And Supernatural Evil.

I guess that I will jump in on this one! My motive is not to try and prove or disprove anything, but merely to recount a firsthand experience. About five years ago, I and my friends were active in fellowship and communion with other Christian Believers. We were praying together in agreement, and we were becoming at peace with our relationships to each other, the world in general, and God as we knew Him. One night, I was asleep. My roomie came home with two friends. At 2 a.m. they were praying in the other room. I then heard a commotion and shouting! I observed that an electrical feeling was present in the air and that my hair on my arms was standing on end. I also became very restless and an inner unction to pray was felt.
Afterward, going out to see what the commotion was, I saw one of the guys with deep blood red eyes biting himself and emitting deep growls.
Several explanations came to my mind for why this was happening.
1) Bad acid.
2) Trying to get attention
3) mentally ill. Or...my last explanation? Perhaps supernatural.
Mind you, I was still a skeptic. One of the others spoke to him and said that "we plead the blood of Jesus over you!" Out of this guy came what may have been several different voices at once. There were no tricks. No wires. I am certain of the authenticity of this moment.
These voices cryed out "The Blood! No! No!" Now I know that you all think that I was fooled, and I cannot claim that I wanted to believe that this was true at that time either. I WAS scared! Scared because I felt not in control. Yet I knew that what I heard was a real event and it sounded very otherworldly! Everyone was genuinely shook up. This was one event among several in my life that has caused me to wonder about the supernatural and the possibilities of such as reality.

Sidelined....I am not professionally qualified to make a judgement, but at the time of this event, I felt that I was personally qualified due to the familiarity with which I knew these people. Thus, the value judgement was mine alone and can not be substantiated for anyones satisfaction. Perhaps if you knew me better, you would trust my account. Then again, perhaps not!

SIDELINED==as to how I eliminated the possibilities of the three alternative explanations, I might add that I and two other people clearly heard the voices come out of the guy. Besides the fact that the air was static and that all of us were truly scared, it was no hoax. We knew the guy well, and there were no hidden wires or speakers, which leaves the option that the voices did in fact come from him. No one could have made these sounds! I suppose that a true skeptic could assert that we were fooled, but even if that could have been so, no one has fessed up to it, and what is the point of fooling someone and never admitting it? I honestly did not find any sort of physical or character evidence that we had been hoodwinked. Alas....to me it was very real, but as a scientific proof, I have none. One footnote: Supernatural phenomena have been documented before, as have UFO encounters. Personally, I think that most UFO documentation has actually been demonic manifestation. Is the Supernatural real? I will agree with one point...it has never been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Either it is all fake and people have been deluded, or it is real and the entities do not wish documentation. A devil or evil entity, if real, would not want all of you guys to be believers if that would, in fact, change theology and expose this entity for what he/she/it is.

Just so ya know, I checked out both of your sites. Personally, I think that the entire Bible Code thing is not realistic, and someone sold a lot of books. Why would God speak to us in code? Does He not say that one must think like a child(full of innocence and wonder) to enter the kingdom of heaven? Not like some Gnostic who seeks to initiate DEEP meaning out of nothing!
Not to disrespect you, Stephen. Perhaps we could surmise that God foreknew that only in this modern era would the technology and wisdom exist to crack the codes. Still, I am skeptical.[This message has been edited by Phatboy, 01-05-2004]

OK Stephen, i made myself read the article. I guess that the reson that I skimmed over it at first was because I am unimpressed with logical persuasions...I prefer emotional persuasions, even though logic is usually more valid. Why would such coding exist, unless God or some superior intelligence knew that it would take humanities own bright minds to sift through the information and literature to find the codes and decipher them. Perhaps we could deduce that some form of superior intelligence is giving some elaborate puzzle problems to some of the bright minds on earth. Maybe this superior intelligence knew just what "Bait" was needed to hook their interest.

Ok...lemme let all ya'lls wisdom sink in....the "Moby Dick" analogy is being touted primarily to suggest that the Bible, rather than being an inerrent book, is just another storybook with some cool philosophy. At least for those of us who ascribe to human wisdom as the final judge of validity.(The relativist truth seekers) On the other hand, the Biblical inerrency believers would say that either the codes are a means for an omnipotant "commander in chief" to speak wisdom to His children who are caught up in a supernatural battle on earth, or proof of a deeper mystery within a deep book. Personally, I DO believe that there is a form of "spiritual warfare" on earth...that is, within the arena that we all live, breathe, and think in.
Rrhain, you talk about mathematical necessity. Do you theorize, then, that all prophecy is nothing more than a manifestation of mathematical chance? (sooner or later, someone will fullfill that specific combination of words and will attach a meaning to them) Rrhain..I will agree with your approach in a scientific way. Biblical inerrency and reality are very implausible. Demonic supernatural activity is implausible. It is unprovable to observers. Oftentimes, though, the easy explanations are the wrong ones. It was easy to think that the earth was flat. It was easy to imagine that the Sun rotated around the earth. My good friend Stuart, who works at Ball Aerospace, is comfortable thinking about Jesus as an alien, since to him this is more plausible than thinking of an Omnipotant Creator, a Virgin Birth, and a great war with supernatural entities. I, on the other hand, have a strong belief in God manifested through human flesh and experienced with the Holy Spirit because when I "got saved", I received that Holy Spirit. I cannot prove this fact to any observers, but while I am unafraid to question the validity of it, I am a believer. To a relativist, being a believer is a term subject to modification or revision. To an absolutist, however, being a believer is a done deal, unchangeable and unbending. A limitation to progressive thought, perhaps, but we may ask where the thought process is taking us. Truth is not "out there" for us. Truth is "in here." To a scientist, wisdom is "in here" rather than "up there"( with God). To an absolutist, wisdom is both "up there", "in here" and "out there". We think too little and stick to our Faith perhaps too much. You guys think too much, and are awaiting a "provable" measureable faith when, perhaps, you should take a leap into it.[This message has been edited by Phatboy, 01-11-2004]

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About five years ago, I and my friends were active in fellowship and communion with other Christian Believers. We were praying together in agreement, and we were becoming at peace with our relationships to each other, the world in general, and God as we knew Him. One night, I was asleep. My roomie came home with two friends. At 2 a.m. they were praying in the other room. I then heard a commotion and shouting! I observed that an electrical feeling was present in the air and that my hair on my arms was standing on end. I also became very restless and an inner unction to pray was felt.
Afterward, going out to see what the commotion was, I saw one of the guys with deep blood red eyes biting himself and emitting deep growls.
Several explanations came to my mind for why this was happening.
1) Bad acid.
2) Trying to get attention
3) mentally ill. Or...my last explanation? Perhaps supernatural.
Mind you, I was still a skeptic. One of the others spoke to him and said that "we plead the blood of Jesus over you!" Out of this guy came what may have been several different voices at once. There were no tricks. No wires. I am certain of the authenticity of this moment.
These voices cryed out "The Blood! No! No!" Now I know that you all think that I was fooled, and I cannot claim that I wanted to believe that this was true at that time either. I WAS scared! Scared because I felt not in control. Yet I knew that what I heard was a real event and it sounded very otherworldly! Everyone was genuinely shook up. This was one event among several in my life that has caused me to wonder about the supernatural and the possibilities of such as reality.

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Should I dismiss this past event as a mistake in perception, only because evidence is lacking?

Even though this happened nearly twenty years ago, I remember the day as if it happened last week.I can understand that at that time---and probably even now, I would be quick to jump to the idea that the event was demons/angels. Even if I were more critical, I couldn't explain the voices heard. I am about 95% sure that I was not tricked.My hair on my arms stood on end, but that can be explained many ways.There were three of us who witnessed the event and we all remember the same things.

It could be possible, but how to explain the other two who reported hearing the same thing?

I suppose there is no way I could challenge that statement.

I suppose had we been skeptical questioners we never would have had such an experience then?Im not trying to paint a picture of friends who never went through things, though back then we had limited experience compared to now. It was myself, Mike, and Eddie. In the twenty or so years since then, Mike has had cancer, went through a divorce, and raised 6 kids. He battled alcoholism while I battled compulsive gambling. Eddie saw many peers lost to gang violence and a tragic auto accident. I can't speak for them, but I myself have questioned God and have thrown religion away, basically....but I have no doubt that God is real. Am I being dishonest in such an assertion?Is it better to question and doubt my previous experience...continually and persistently? Is a true and honest believer an oxymoron?

I am the narrator. It happened in my apartment. It was not a prayer meeting. And, yes, ask me any questions and feel free to interpret my conclusions and/or challenge me. Im not trying to prove anything to anyone at this point---just got bored and ran across this old topic.

Jason was the one who was biting himself. He was a youth at the church we attended at the time.(around 17, IIRC) Eddie and Mike were around 19) I was around 36 at the time. The church was in fact very charismatic. There had been instances of alleged demon casting a couple of times in services, though none as dramatic as this.(no voices, etc) I was skeptical of the accuracy of such events---most seemed hyper emotional and had people acting weird...the teens were streetwise and far from naive, but had you asked any of us at that time before this event happened, I suppose you could conclude that we were predisposed towards belief in the possibility of such an event being possible....though with as yet no actual experience which verified or demonstrated such a thing. also...from an earlier post: Edited by Phat, : added

My original post in 2005: You always have made sense, Stile. The reason that I can respect you and get along with you is that you never dismiss me as a quack like so many others here do. Respect is earned. My intelligence is likely as high as many of the college graduates here at EvC. The one thing that disqualifies me from serious acceptance is my propensity towards belief.Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.

It's too bad that we have become ideological adversaries. You and your like-minded friends threaten me as well. You are a secular law unto yourselves. You will fulfill prophecy when you unite and force the Christians into a box.The fact you never will get(nor understand) is that one day you will bow before the God whom you thought a myth.AddByEdit: I know that leaving this post alone will cause a reaction from you. The hate will spew out of you directed at me...when the reality is that the zeitgeist of your intelligence hates the God Who is.That all being said, I apologize if I have offended you or your family in any way. I don't believe that you don't have the right to believe exactly what you choose to believe. Don't blame me, however, when the world goes nuts. It will happen, I believe.Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.