Existence of Demons (and Angels)

What I can't figure out is, if all these demons and angels exist, then why can't all the people who see them agree on who they are, what they're doing, what their goals are, what their powers are, etc.And why is it that nobody who has training in a rigourous field of knowledge acquisition ever sees them? Why aren't psychologists seeing them? Biologists? Physicists?Why aren't there any peer-reviewed journals on demonology? Schools of angel studies? Why is it that, as a field, angel/demonology gives equal creedence to literally everybody's half-baked ideas about these things?I'm not dismissing the idea of demons and angels right offhand. I don't know of any physical principle that would completely prevent their existence. And even if I did, and they turned out to exist anyway, it would mean that my understanding of physical principle wa wrong.But the whole thing - the community of people that claim to have seen them, the body of knowledge surrounding them - doesn't look like the kind of body of knowledge that develops from studying something that actually exists; it looks like the body of knowledge that develops when a community of people each make up a story, and then try to cram all those stories into one continuity.

Why would "cooperation" be necessary? We study animals pretty well and they aren't in the least bit interested in cooperating. C'mon. There has to be someone. After all plenty of other people come right out and say they've seen demons, and they get to write bestselling books. I think there's considerably greater acceptance of this than you predict with this ad-hoc theory of peer pressure.

Which is a point that, like I said, you angel people can't agree on. Some of you think that they're soldiers in a supernatural war for the souls of humanity. Some of you think that demons don't exist at all, and that angels are merely here as our benificent observers and protectors. There's actually none whatsoever, which was my point. There's only people's stories, and the stories contradict each other in precisely the way we would expect if all the stories were made up. In fact, it leaves no stories that are not made up, because "true to the individual" does not mean "it really happened." And how are we supposed to know who the liars are? Everybody with an angel story is saying that it really happened; in other words, they're just like you.We're in a situation where we can't tell the lies from the truth, if there even is any. The reasonable response to that situation is the conclusion that there's no truth in any of it.

Well, we might compare accounts of these experiences, and upon realizing that no two people who percieve this "spirit world" can actually agree on what they're seeing, we would come to the considerably more parsimonious conclusion that these are hypnagogic hallucinations.

They don't require the presumption of an extant, undetectable-by-science "spirit world", inhabited by spooks and spectres. It's more parsimonious because that's the definition of parsimony - the rejection of the model with the most new, untestable, unneeded entities. You're "unnecessarily multipyling entities." That's the exact opposite of parsimony. Sure it does. If we have two competing explanations that explain the same phenomenon, and one does so with nothing more than what we already know exists, and one can't do so without presuming the existence of a bunch of new stuff we've never seen and can't detect, why would we choose the second one? Why would we choose the model with the unneeded chocolate sprinkles? Yes, there is. It doesn't require the ad-hoc presumption of a "spirit world" from no other evidence. That's parsimony. In other words, instead of being hallucinations, it's all demons who are so cunning they want to make themselves look exactly like hallucinations. Uh-huh.You know what? It's not gravity that holds me in my chair. Gravity works for everybody else, but not me, because I'm special. What holds me in my chair are a million tiny invisible angels beating their wings and pushing down on my shoulders. When I jump off of something, they push me so hard that I accellerate at exactly 9.8 meters/sec^2, just like a normal falling object, because they don't want anyone to know that I'm special, and that normal gravity doesn't apply to me. (It's a secret. Try not to pass it around.)Hey, if you won't apply parsimony, you'll believe anything. You'll pretty much have to. The principle of parsimony is that grounds. You might know it as "Occam's Razor", and it cuts away unnecessary entities like "sprits" and "demons" when we can arrive at explanations that don't require their ad-hoc insertion. Man, what a world of fear you must live in, where spirits and demons lurk in every corner, waiting to plunder your immortal soul. Do you still have to have your dad check under you bed for boogymen, too? Nobody who does gets anywhere with that, because there's no consistency to any of the reports. Why do you suppose that is? Because people are making this shit up. If there really was a spirit world, or power in the occult or whatever flavor of the month baloney, you'd be able to head down to the corner franchise McSorcerer and order spells and a cheeseburger. Oil companies would hire dowsers instead of geologists. There'd be a Federal Bureau of Prescience telling the President what was going to happen tomorrow.Instead what we have are magnetic charm bracelets and shysters at county fairs. Failed CIA remote viewing programs and myths about "psychics" solving crimes. Supermarket tabloids and Miss Cleo "keepin it real." In other words the supernatural would be a revolutionary industry if it actualy existed, not the realm of con-artists, entertainers, and medical quackery.

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.

Certainly he is. By children. Oh, they don't count, I guess, only the adults who are 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

Personally, I don't think you reach adulthood until you put childish foolishness like boogymen firmly in the past. The thing is, the adults who believe in demons have less evidence than the children who believe in Santa. Santa, after all, leaves evidence of his passing - why, I remember the Christmas that Santa left me the awesomest Transformer of them all, Jetfire. If there's no Santa, then where did I get all these presents? It's the exact same subject. Adulthood doesn't bestow on you amazing mental abilities to discern truth from lies, all you have to do is look around yourself at our society to see that. Children have exactly as much evidence - more so - for their belief in Santa as you do for demons. Now, of course you reply that everybody knows that Santa doesn't exist, but everybody knows that demons don't exist, too. Except for you. Why is that?

Since our conclusions from evidence are always tentative, isn't the question always left open? Isn't every question always left open when your conclusions are only held provisionally?

Is it? The testimony of adults here, trying to pass off make-believe as reality, causes me to doubt that. Maybe you haven't been here very long, but if you stick around, you'll see more than your share of adults that can't tell the difference between reality and illusion. In either case its a manifest failure to distinguish fantasy from reality. And you don't really have a basis to assert that children have trouble with the reality thing. I'll get to that. Adults believe in demons and angels and that their dead relatives (but only the good ones) watch over them. I don't really see the difference. Unless those imaginary friends are called "gods", and that pretend play occurs inside a church. Adults don't play make-believe any differently than children do; they just change the names and playgrounds. You don't really have a basis for coming to that conclusion beyond the a priori assumption that the "supernatural" experiences of children are fantasy. Then you turn around and assert that children simply can't tell the difference, even though you're not in a position to actually know they can't. But we can hand-wave it away when its children we're talking about? To conclude that the reports of children are without merit, we need to conclude that they're bad at distinguishing reality from fantasy. But in order to make that conclusion, we have to assume that the reports of children are without merit.What basis is there to refuse to extend the same logic to adults? Apparently, adults play as much pretend as children, and have the same trouble, for the most part, distinguishing fantasy from reality. (I don't really see how this can be refuted given the prevalence of religion, superstition, and voting Republican.) It's inconsistent to reject children's testimony of Santa Claus on a basis of confusion of fantasy and reality, and not extend that same rejection to adults, given that the same confusion applies to them.

Exactly 50% of the Earth's population is of below-average intelligence. If that doesn't fill you with distrust of the ability of most people to accurately assess their own experiences - and I certainly place myself in that category - then it is your position which is stupid and destructive.When we took everybody's word for everything, that time was called the Dark Ages. Now that we're a little less credulous, people are living longer, easier lives. Destructive? Apparently its been the saving of the human race.

Which is exactly what you would say if you were trying to get adults to swallow fairy tales that wouldn't convince a child. "Oh, this doesn't make sense to you? Oh, that's because you don't believe in it yet."Personally I've never been too impressed by a system of belief that only holds up so long as you never actually put it to the test.

That is, one that could accurately distinguish between outcomes.

No, you have. But like pretty much every discussion with you, we've hit the point where you're convinced that any test in which there's even a possibility that your religious dogma wouldn't pass is hopelessly biased against Christianity.Well, great. I mean, that's exactly how someone who would want you to believe a foolish fairy tale would want you to think. What you have is a position called "unassailiable ignorance." You've successfully closed your mind, via circular reasoning (and here's a hint, any time you're saying that "it won't make sense to you until you believe in it", you're reasoning circularly), to any possibility that you might be wrong.Congratulations. There's absolutely no reasoning with you because you've set your position absolutely beyond reason.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 04-18-2005 02:10 PM

Oh? Well, then you should have no trouble answering this question: What evidence would convince you that your faith was misplaced, and that what you believed is wrong?You ask me that about evolution, or even atheism, and I'll give you an answer. Because I hold those positions rationally, I hold them tentatively, and therefore I have falsifiability conditions.Do you? If there's no evidence I could show you that would convince you your faith was misplaced, then the answer is "no", and your position is not rational. You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't arrive at reasonably. "I know you are but what am I" may have cut it in the 3rd grade, Faith, but it doesn't constitute much of an argument around here.