Welcome, NowImFree.
I am not attempting to answer for Carmel, but rather expressing my feelings - which are in a similar vein - on reading your posts.
There is a primitive superstitious way of viewing the world that is, sadly, extremely common. This view, or mind generated interpretation of things, incorporates invisible deities and demons to explain certain baffling aspects of nature.
It's likely that the originators of these tribal stories and characters were attempting to point to something too vast for the mind to grasp, and they clearly knew that the personalities portrayed were mythical, not real, but rather the minds very creative way with allegory and metaphor. In other words you may notice that the gods and demons within the Bible are very familiar and mirror much of humanity, much like all the gods, goddesses and demons portrayed throughout human history. This is because they were modeled after humanity and sometimes familiar animals.
As time went on, people lost touch with the facts and began to believe the stories as real, the anthropomorphic characters as true, and totally lost sight of anything vaster that they may be feebly pointing to. So, as long as we equate reality with false gods, ideas and stories, we are not at all free, but rather imprisoned within fantasy. Kind of like the movie: Matrix.
For some people this is obvious. For others who are still deeply lost in the charade, mention of this is often unintelligible. It's like someone telling a person who has only known the concept of a flat earth, that it is actually round like a ball. At one time, people were killed for this.
If anyone is offended, it may be wise to honestly and openly examine ones sacred cows. Truth, is not a mere belief that can come to offence, but rather that which is pristinely actual and real.
j
