Jeffro- the reason i questioned him following the jaguars is because they are dangerous animals and could have attacked him. There is no way i would walk down the road after 1, let alone 2. Also, i still do not agree with your interpretation of my experience, i have read about sleep paralysis etc., and still think it wasn`t that, or being under stress. It`s strange that everyone that has poo-pood these experiences hasn`t actually had one themselves. Maybe if they did they would have a different take on it.
Question: Demons
by ladybug25 113 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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freetosee
I must correct my last statement; one person I know did turn away from religion due to spirit attacks.
A very good friend of mine from Turkey, we went to school together, later got involved with an extreme Islamic sect. He was also studying micro-biology and was one semester way from his master degree.
He told me that he is having a lot of trouble with the spirit realm and one of the leaders, his man kept appearing to him, screaming at him and giving him hard physical pain. The leader was so powerful he could make my friend say and do things, giving him fits. I tried helping, but he was so convinced of what is happening to him believing it is gods doing so as to teach him humility. We had lengthy conversations, but to no avail, he could reason out for himself any argument I brought froth. His family witnessed his fits and possessed behavior.
Happily he did finally consult professional help and today with the aid of strong medication he is doing relatively fine. He was suffering from depression and schizophrenia. No longer does he believe in the spirit attacks he suffered from for a couple of years and acknowledges that it was due to his sickness.
fts
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magoo
...............just as entertainment......watch the movie "constantine" with keanu reeves...very entertaining,especially for ex-jw'smagoo
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rebel8
There are still people who have seen demon possession. How wlse would you explain the fact that jaguars, birds, and panthers went into an abandoned hut in Haiti and started speaking to one another in HUMAN language?
There are lots of possible explanations. Some examples:
- It's true.
- The guy is telling a tall tale for the same reasons people have been telling tall tales for all of human history.
- The guy suffers from delusions.
- The guy has had a brain injury.
- The guy uses hallucinogens.
- The guy misinterpreted what he saw and heard.
- A person played a trick on him.
- Some sort of forces we don't yet know about made him conclude it was demons....................
As for this being metaphorical, would you care to explain for what you think this is a metaphor? I do not beleive this is a metaphor because how can a demon entering into pigs be a metaphor? seemns pretty literal to me.
I'm not saying it is a metaphor; I'm saying it could be. There is no way to prove it or disprove it.
My mind is free of the need to be certain about things for which there is no proof. I am not uncomfortable admitting we do not have explanations for everything that happens in the universe.
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Jeffro
Jeffro- the reason i questioned him following the jaguars is because they are dangerous animals and could have attacked him. There is no way i would walk down the road after 1, let alone 2.
I am aware of the inherent danger of following jaguars. The third-hand account about the jaguars sounds like the experience of someone under the influence of drugs, the repetition of folklore, or a complete fabrication. But my point was to demonstrate that people who believe in some kind of paranormal activity will often still cast doubt on the actions of those reporting another kind.
Also, i still do not agree with your interpretation of my experience, i have read about sleep paralysis etc., and still think it wasn`t that, or being under stress.
The "etc." is a big place. Considering the complexity of human biochemistry, and the diverse array of things that can go wrong with it, it would be naive to say that there couldn't possibly be some rational explanation for your experiences.
It`s strange that everyone that has poo-pood these experiences hasn`t actually had one themselves. Maybe if they did they would have a different take on it.
I have seen what some would call a ghost after waking up in the middle of the night - a clear vivid image for several seconds, that then faded away. But there was a completely logical explanation for the experience. It's about neurotransmitters, not spirits. The thing is, some people want these experiences to be real, because it adds a thrill that something from the 'spirit world' is interested in them.
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funkyderek
By_Blood_Immortal:
There are still people who have seen demon possession. How wlse would you explain the fact that jaguars, birds, and panthers went into an abandoned hut in Haiti and started speaking to one another in HUMAN language?
The obvious explanation is that it didn't happen. In fact, unless you're a child, and a fairly impressionable one at that, why would you think it did? Imagine beings of such immense power and evil who can communicate across time and space. So what do they do? They enter the bodies of large cats and have a conversation in human language, the very one that can be understood by a human who happens to overhear it. What unimaginative, childish nonsense!
Alright, this is going to sound REALLY REALLY bad. Like one of those stories you see in the magazine in line at the grocery, "Jonah's Bones Found Inside of a Whale."
Yep, that's what it sounds like, alright.
But this is what really happened.
No, it isn't.
I am not positive about this next statement, but I think they are possessed by demons. but I know for certain that they are given powers by Satan.
You don't know any such thing. You believe that for reasons of your own, but you don't know it. Satan and the demons are imaginary beings, invented by superstitious people. They don't really exist, and therefore have no power except as symbols, or cover for charlatans.
My friend was in Haiti and he and some missionaries were driving around in a village. There were Haitians all over burning fires. Then a voodoo witch doctor came up and put a curse on one of the members. The person immediatly got sick and broke out in fever. The next day one of the veteran missionaries came and told the witch to take the curse off. She refused pledging her allegiance to Satan. The missionary cut off her head with a machete and the missionary on which the curse was placed was healed.
Is there a newspaper report of this brutal unprovoked murder by a (presumably Christian) missionary? Was the murderer caught? Would your friend be able to identify him/her? What organisation did the missionary represent? Most modern churches would frown upon one of their members going to a foreign country and assassinating the religious leaders there.
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LittleToe
Derek:
What unimaginative, childish nonsense!
I take issue with this comment. It shows imagination of the highest order! Roald Dahl, eat your heart out!
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Dansk
I've got to be careful here otherwise I'm likely to get curry thrown all over me by dido (why do I always think of 'dildo' when I see her name?)! Don't tell Crumpet, she already thinks I'm a deviant!
Anyway, since leaving the borg nearly four years ago I have literally thrown myself into researching as much as I could about the Bible and have come to the conclusion that it is nothing but a collection of superstitious fables - and in this I am in good company, i.e. eminent atheists. YHWH was an evil character of the greatest magnitude and bears no resemblance at all to the god of the New Testament, the scriptures of which, in my opinion, are equally delusional.
Ridding myself of this creation of a superstitious mind it seems only logical, therefore, to treat Satan and demons in the same light: they are the products of a frightened and superstitious mind - which basically includes many of us. Only the truly enlightened, and I haven't noticed any of those on JWD (though they could be here but, then, why would they bother?), have rid themselves of the mind's creations!
That, my friends, is where all our delusions emanate from - our minds! That isn't to say what we see, hear or experience isn't real (i.e. real in the sense that in our ignorance we mask the truth) because our delusional minds make us think that something supernatural is occurring, such as in the case of demons smothering us, touching us, moving us and, basically, frightening the inners out of us!
There is much in world religious and, if we include Buddhism, philosophical literature about demons. The difference is that, at least in Buddhism, and particularly in Tibetan works, there are methods for realising these apparitions, demons and supernatural events are all mind-related - and I daresay a good psychologist could help one dispel many of these sightings and experiences, too!
So, do I take demons seriously? Of course! But their originality is where I would not be in agreement with many here.
Ian
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Schism
Ok, I don't want to sound like a lunatic conspiracy theorist or anything, but this is just something to think about:
My SO recently told me about some rumor that scientists have figured out a way to use a shield/veil of light to hide an object, such as a body or a vehicle. In other words, they want to make something invisible (probably for war). Whether they have actually been successful with it or not, I don't know. But if humans have even been able to come close to imagining that this is possible, it makes me wonder how more advanced life forms could have already come up with it. It might seem like a stretch, but aliens might not be "demons" as the JWs would have it, but maybe their demons are actually "aliens".
On that note, I'd like to add that I've had a few experiences, including the successful use of a Ouiji board. I don't believe that my mind was moving the eye on the board, but I don't believe it was some demon either. Believing in aliens is way easier than believing in demons because it doesn't require faith to believe in such. In fact, it's easy to be an atheist if you believe in aliens. So, maybe earth is a big terrarium and aliens are having fun on it? Wouldn't you think that an alien who studies humans might be more interested in us than an ex-angel who already "knows" all there is to know about us because he watched us being created from the beginning? To me, a demon would be bored with us. To an alien, we could be college credit.
The Bible is a poor excuse for any sort of paranormal activity because the people who wrote it were just trying to explain unknown things that had been bothering them for a long time.
I also believe that nothing is in black and white. My SO suffers from sleep paralysis on a regular basis. So, many accounts could be that. Others could be energy, and some could be aliens. I'm comfortable believing in a little bit of everything and a lot of uncertainty because we might never have all of the answers. And BTW, it was barely 2 months ago when I firmly believed that aliens were tricks up Satan's sleeve, but now that I've allowed myself to think on my own, their actual existance would explain so much more than the Bible ever could.
I've had terrariums before, and sometimes little beings would just pop up out of nowhere, such as snails (from eggs in the soil I hadn't known about), and I thought it was pretty cool. If I had the power to invent life forms who were microscopic and who would worship me from the confines of their little glass tank, I would have....because it sounds like fun. If there are aliens, and they are advanced, why couldn't they have hobbies on other planets? That's every hobbiest's dream come true! LOL.
Like I said, don't believe me. But do try not to elevate the Bible writers to some other-worldly wisdom. They didn't know any more about the invisible realm than you and I do today. They were desperate to figure out the unknown, and they wrote about it.
And to those of you who have had experiences, I do believe many of them are true. I also believe that some can be the sleep paralysis deal (my SO has experienced "demons" and "aliens" with it, and he believes it was just his subconscious imagining certain things that he was afraid of and thinking of at the time), as for those of you who are mentally stable and were wide awake when things happened, I wouldn't go to the Bible for the answers because the guys who wrote it were just as confused as were are :)
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Schism
PS.
The jaguar story sounds like the head-cutting-off story.......made up. I should have mentioned the possibility that a few experiences sound fabricated from time to time.
...............just as entertainment......watch the movie "constantine" with keanu reeves...very entertaining,especially for ex-jw's