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Author | Topic: Existence of Demons (and Angels) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Demons are acknowledged throughout history by all peoples. Santa is known to be an invention. Hah! In other words "everybody knows I'm right and you're wrong, so nanny-nanny-poo-poo-head." At any rate, you don't quite have it right. Demons are acknowledged throughout history by all peoples and are known to be an invention. Santa is acknowledged throughout history by all peoples and is known to be an invention. At least in Santa's case, you get presents. So there's some physical evidence, there.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
quote: Well, you don't know for sure that those hallucinations aren't real experiences of spiritual beings, or even visions created by spiritual beings, you simply assume they are created by the person's mind. That can't be proved by any test that I know of. Some MAY be merely hallucinations, some not. Some tests may actually open a person to the spirit realm. I can certainly believe that possible. Some hypnagogic states may be nothing but mental phenomena or they may in fact involve spirit influence. How could you tell?
quote: And I don't doubt the reality of mental events such as hallucinations but telling them from other phenomena may not be so easy.
quote: Well as I just posted to someone else here, I've had hypnagogic experiences and these I describe above were not hypnagogic. Even the one with the apparition didn't have these characteristics although it did occur when I wasn't yet fully asleep, in the hypnagogic pre-sleep state. There was no paralysis, there was no pressure on the chest, I had no feeling of inability to speak or anything else, this was not a "feeling of an intruder" it was an actual apparition I actually saw, and this was not just a feeling of dread without an object, it had a clear object. It was the same with the strangling experience -- no paralysis and none of the rest of it, simply the sensation of something gripping my throat, even a sensation of fingers digging in, but no paralysis, and no dread either, just the sudden fear of something real that had to be dealt with. I've had that "nameless dread" feeling and the paralysis of the hypnagogic state too but NONE of these experiences had that quality to them. The times I heard voices I was awake and using my mind, not even half asleep, and none of those experiences listed were part of it. I do think however that the twilight state is more open to such experiences. If we are spiritual beings, why wouldn't it make sense that some states would be more open to such influences than others? How could you possibly test to know for sure which was which -- a purely mental creation or something external?
quote: Sure there is, to those who are certain of their reality. It's not to you because you dismiss all the claims. Hallucinations are real to you so you consider that theory parsimonious. I think hallucinations are real too, but that not all "hallucinations" are hallucinations.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
quote: Not by the peoples who acknowledge them, only by "modern" people who consider themselves above all that. The way I said it the first time was the truth. Santa is not considered by anyone ever to be real. You really don't stop to think very often I'm afraid.
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nator Member (Idle past 2190 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: We can create them in people's minds on purpose. Why would that be possible if such hallucinations weren't creations of people's own minds? Yes, everything that happens could be caused by demons. In fact, I could actually be possessed by a demon right now, except that the demon doesn't want to be detected, so it maintains my behavior and thoughts to be exactly what would be normal for me to do. Which is more parsimonious; 1) That I am not possessed by a demon and am functioning as I generally do, or 2) that I am possessed by a demon which is making me function as I normally do? Which explanation assumes the most unneeded factors?
quote: No, it can't be proved, just like nothing in science can prove anything. However, you asked about parsimony, not 100% proof. Please stick with parsimony instead of changing the subject.
quote: How do you know if they aren't hallucinations?
quote: That's nice. What's your evidence that a "spirit realm" exists?
quote: You can't, that's the point. We can induce such states on purpose. We know that taking acid doesn't actually make the walls melt; the people under acid's influence are having a hallucination. So, which is more parsimonious: 1) That people taking acid are having hallucinations because they are messing around with their brain chemistry, or 2) they are really seeing the walls melt, or angels, or demons, or shimmering bubbles everywhaere, or whatever people on acid see?
quote: Right. It was associated with sleep.
quote: Sometimes the presence is experienced as friendly, or at least not malevolent.
quote: Uh, I would consider a feeling of "sudden fear of something real that had to be dealt with" very similar to "dread". Also, you say you had this feeling of being choked. Did you sit up, struggle, try to remove the fingers from your neck with your own hands, or try to get away, or did you just lie there? If you just lay there, perhaps it was because you couldn't move? Did you wake up with bruises on your neck from the fingers "digging in"?
quote: Well, then I would say that you have a propensity to have these hallucinations in many different flavors. My husband had these kinds of experiences fairly frequently in his twenties, and some were frightening and some were fun.
quote: But you were in bed, right? It's pretty difficult to self judge one's stage of awakeness if you've been in bed for any length of time.
quote: We can induce these hallucinations. You can't show us any spirits. Therefore, the most likely explanation is that they are a product of the brain and there is no need to invoke any kind of superstitious or magical explanations at all. This message has been edited by schrafinator, 04-17-2005 02:10 PM This message has been edited by schrafinator, 04-17-2005 02:11 PM
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nator Member (Idle past 2190 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: I used to think that Santa was 100% real when I was 5 years old. I even tried to stay up late on Christmas Eve to hear the reindeer on the roof, but I always fell asleep.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Santa is not considered by anyone ever to be real. Certainly he is. By children. Oh, they don't count, I guess, only the adults who are
"modern" people who consider themselves above all that. You really don't stop to think very often I'm afraid. That's all I do, Faith. I never stop thinking about the hilarious double standards that pervert your thinking. I realize that you have nothing but contempt for the children who think Santa Claus is real; you're convinced that they are ignorant and immature. Then, you turn around and tell me your childhood boogymen are real. What do you suppose I think about you? Oh, and you failed to address the physical evidence of Santa Claus. If Santa Claus doesn't exist, where did I get all these presents? This message has been edited by crashfrog, 04-17-2005 03:35 PM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
quote: I am very sure that you cannot create anything in anybody's mind like what I'm describing.
quote: You no doubt can elicit hallucinations that are products of the mind. But it is also possible that in the process of stimulating the brain you could cause the kind of state that makes a person receptive to spirit input and you'd have no way to know the difference. Or you might, but since you wouldn't be open to such phenomena you wouldn't be prepared to recognize the difference.
quote: I wouldn't suspect demon possession unless there were symptoms that suggested it, such as the rages of the mentally disturbed man I was talking about.
quote: As long as "functioning as you normally do" doesn't involve channeling spirit messages or having psychic powers or reading oracles or having frequent homicidal rages or other similar behavior I wouldn't suspect you of being demon possessed. I don't think demons MAKE a person do things anyway. I think they influence moods and ideas, give visions etc.
quote: There's no need to seek any explanation for normal behavior. It's the unusual experiences that are the subject of this thread that make demonic activity a reasonable explanation.
quote: I disagree. Science developed precisely because it was able to prove many things. That's what empirical observation, experimentation, replication and the test of falsification are all about. But it only applies reliably to physical events that are predictable, measurable, continuously observable in the present. When we get into spiritual things, mental things, unreplicable events and the like, then we have a problem with proof, as we are no longer dealing with observable predictable physical phenomena.
quote: Sorry if I did but I'm not sure I did. I think I was introducing the subject of proof myself as I'm also considering how tests might be constructed for these phenomena, not only considering the idea of parsimony.
quote: That's the question, isn't it? -- how COULD one know for sure. I think there are cases where you couldn't.
quote: Oh, many many accounts of such occurrences over the centuries. Jesus dealt with demons, and the people certainly knew they were demons when they brought their children to Him to cast them out. In fact there were Jewish exorcists of the time. The phenomena have been recognized everywhere until relatively recently. Up until recently I believe the parsimonious interpretation of certain kinds of phenomena would have been demonic activity rather than hallucinations because they were taken for granted. Now they are denied so hallucinations have become the parsimonious explanation. Back in the days when I didn't believe any of this and thought every odd thing of this type was hallucinations and other mental phenomena as most here do, I was very startled to run across in a journal of literary criticism a quote of the German critic Erich Heller (authored books on Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Goethe, Nietzsche) to the effect that he wasn't at all sure that what we think of as psychological phenomena were not demonic activity as used to be believed. I remember I had to reread that sentence many times before I actually understood that he was saying that demons might be the explanation for some phenomena and that psychology is barking up the wrong tree. That's all he said. He said it in passing, in the middle of discussing some literary production or other, I don't remember what. Or actually, it may have been somebody else quoting him, too bad I can't remember better. Very very startling. First time I ever heard a Modern Man say such a thing. I'm still surprised that he could have had such a thought and I wonder where it came from in his own experience. No effort was made to PROVE such a thing. How could you? We prefer the psychological paradigm, that's all, but there's no way to show that it is REALLY "all there is to" some phenomena.
quote: Yes, and I took acid a couple times and the walls melted and the lights exploded into crystalline patterns and I knew it was a hallucination. HOWEVER, SOME people took acid and believed that they had found "God" and a "higher consciousness." And that is a real possibility it seems to me, that drugs can connect a person to a spiritual reality that is ordinarily not experienced. My own experience was just my own mind's being affected by the chemical. But people of a New Age persuasion think of drugs as a gateway to spiritual realms, and I'm sure they are right, only unfortunately they don't grasp that if so, they are playing with demons.
quote: Well the second idea is silly as NOBODY claims any of it is going on in the real physical world. But if someone described seeing an angel or demon under LSD I personally would consider the possibility of its being a real angel or demon, depending on the description given.
quote:Yes, two of them. One deep sleep, the other drifting off. quote: Yes, but you were the one who used the term "malevolent" as if that defined the state. I don't recall in past hypnagogic experiences anything except the paralysis and the scary frustration of not being able to move. But in none of these experiences was any of that a part of it.
quote: I was making a point of the distinction. The dread feeling has no object, it is a state of mind, a pure feeling without anything you can say you're afraid OF unless it's the feeling of paralysis that goes with those states. But this fear was like normal fear, of something actually happening, something sudden and startling, something you have to respond to.
quote: That could be but that's not how I recall it. I knew there was nobody there soon as I opened my eyes. I simply prayed. If I moved I don't remember, but I also don't remember feeling like I couldn't. I do remember trying to say the words about the blood of Christ out loud but not being able to get them out and being very relieved that I could think them clearly and that stopped the strangling sensation. But again, I've had the experience of hypnagogic paralysis at other times in my life and in itself it's rather scary, but it was never accompanied by any of this phenomena I am describing here and this phenomena wasn't accompanied by any of the usual hypnagogic stuff or at least I didn't notice it. However, I would still interpret it as a state in which one is unusually open to experiencing spiritual phenomena. I really do NOT believe, however, that one can hallucinate voices with such clarity or see apparitions with such clarity and they not be real. Hallucinations have something about them that you can tell is not real. Like hearing voices in the running water of a shower -- that's just the mind organizing the sound of the water into voices, and it's pretty obvious, like seeing faces in blotches on the wall and that sort of thing. Add LSD and a blotch-face may move around and even appear to say something, but that's still your mind. But actually hearing a distinct voice in a quiet room speak a clear sentence and be able to describe it as I have? Have the tests you talk about ever made that happen?
quote: No, although I have heard that such things do happen with demon spirits sometimes.
quote: Well I never did until I got involved in the occult. Kind of hard to avoid that connection. I was INTENSELY into oracles and psychic phenomena and the like.
quote: Sure, but again I would simply interpret that state of mind as openness to spiritual contact. But one of the times I wasn't in bed, was up praying for that woman when I heard her voice so loudly. Not at all asleep, not in bed, etc.
quote: I seriously doubt you can induce anything like what I am describing.
quote: I can't show you something that is by its nature invisible, I can't make the invisible visible, therefore we must conclude that there are no invisible beings, right? Ain't that called begging the question? Thinking in a circle? This message has been edited by Faith, 04-17-2005 04:17 PM
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CK Member (Idle past 4148 days) Posts: 3221 Joined: |
quote: No we conclude that there is no evidence for those invisible beings. As for your experience - Maybe you are mentally ill? This message has been edited by General Krull, 17-Apr-2005 04:17 PM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
quote: That would be fine except that you DO take the next step of concluding that there are none from this lack of evidence. If you simply recognized that there is no way to have any physical evidence then the question would remain open, but it doesn't appear to. However, again, there's a ton of historical evidence, witness evidence. Just no physical evidence. Historical evidence is messy and needs careful sorting, but it's nevertheless evidence.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
quote: Sure, why not? If you think so.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
quote: Well, the point was that ADULTS have believed in demons going way back. Children believe in Santa but adults don't, and children believe because they are told Santa is real, not because they have experienced Santa, but the adults who believe in demons have experienced demons or what they consider to be demons. It really is a whole nother subject.
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Brad McFall Member (Idle past 5053 days) Posts: 3428 From: Ithaca,NY, USA Joined: |
without experience we can not tell the difference between vanity on purpose (say in art) and blind chance. In otherwords blind chance can be the only reality of the experience if vanity of vanities are assumed. Only the rich say things like that or those who are fly fishing, or really deceptive painters etc. LOL.
Krull can take his lumps. This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 04-17-2005 04:33 PM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Santa is not considered by anyone ever to be real. I used to think that Santa was 100% real when I was 5 years old. I even tried to stay up late on Christmas Eve to hear the reindeer on the roof, but I always fell asleep. Excuse me for not taking children into account. I was thinking of adult belief only.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I wish I knew what you were saying but it's going over my head. Sounds intriguing.
This message has been edited by Faith, 04-17-2005 04:38 PM
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Trump won  Suspended Member (Idle past 1260 days) Posts: 1928 Joined: |
quote: Don't down someones openness to experience because you deny the experience.
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