Precisely.
It’s one thing to assert that a nefarious entity is at the root of temptations or emotions or “wrong” reasonings inside man’s mind and/or soul, and that said entity therefore influences human society through nebulous, never quite enumerated much less testable ways ; it’s another to state that this entity (or supernatural entities allied with it) can directly do Bad Shit in the physical realm ; and it’s yet *another *to state that Jane Doe the Seamstress can a) contact this entity directly b) make deals with it and c) acquire supernatural abilities of her own through such deals or rent the services of demons to do her supernatural bidding.
cite that demons can be redeemed.
Because if they can, then why isn’t there more of an effort to do so?
Demon is probably just a generic term being used for spiritual being.
Djinn are mentioned in he Quran and there they are portrayed as being as bound to this world ad reality as humans. They have free will unlike the angels and one of the most powerful among them is referred to as Satan. And while they may get assigned to particular people, they don’t follow those people through reincarnation. Indeed Islam (and all the Abhrahamic religions) reject the theory of reincarnation.
Ghosts and faerie are both unlikely to have the ability to track a soul through several lives. I could be wrong but ghosts and faerie seem unlikely to be powerful enough to track people through reincarnation AND be interested in show so much interest in some random person.
Kami are familiar with the karmic cycle of reincarnation so they might have the ability and the inclination to track a soul through several reincarnations. This would be especially true if the Kami was a family Kami and the reincarnation was occurring within a single clan that the Kami was associated with.
With the right coupon, they’re worth 30 cents each at Kroger.
I can’t cite it, but there are some universalists who hold that even Satan will make his peace with God before the end of all things.
Most obvious problem is difficulty in communication. Tell me how to talk to a demon, and I’ll readily make an effort to get him to reform.
You have to get Mercedes McCambridge to be a go-between. It’s been really tough since she died in 2004…
Oh yeah? :dubious:
What about the angel in the centerfold, huh?
It’s notable that the witchcraft hysteria of the Early Modern period was more concentrated in northern European, Protestant countries. The Catholic Inquisitions were more concerned with heresy, as has been pointed out. Pure idle speculation, but I wonder if the Catholic countries were slightly more resistant to witchcraft-panic, because they’d maintained a tradition of a feminine spirituality in the cult of the Virgin Mary.
I think your problem stems from what you thought was witchcraft, as you have mentioned demons I think your involvement was with black magic/Satanism.
You do not have to be a Christian but a good start would be to contact a Roman Catholic Priest who will be able to guide you and pray for you (stay away from sect’s as they can have a hidden agenda) Michael’s advice to you is to remove your love from the demon and use it to help people in need, another reason for contacting your local Catholic church is they always need volunteers
I am a Christian but not a Roman Catholic, I am guiding you towards them because I think that they will have a better understanding of your situation also they are a established church
The end of all things?
If we take the bible at its word, revelations makes it pretty clear that Satan and those in league with him are damned to hell for all eternity.
Is there some period after eternity when reconciliation occurs? Or are you saying that we are accepting revelations as one of many possible eventualities? Or that revelations were misinterpreted somewhere along the line?
If God had omniscience, then wouldn’t revelations be a forecast of the future?
The same way that we communicate with angels. Through prayer. We may not understand angels and demons under normal circumstances (the gift of tongues?) but they can understand us and make themselves understood to us.
Lutherans and Anglicans (and maybe a few other early offshoots of Catholicism) worship the Virgin Mary as the most virtuous of all saints.
The lack of witch trials in catholic countries is probably the result of a great folk tradition of witchcraft (or what was mistaken for witchcraft) in some parts of Europe and not others OR a sanguine attitude towards what might have appeared to be witchcraft in the Catholic church which seemed ready to adopt local customs and folklore to make Catholicism an easier sell to the locals.
I think it’s more that the catholic church had established channels and procedures to deal with claims of witchcraft. Compared to vigilante style, more ad hoc measures by self-appointed experts among the protestants.
Nitpick: venerate, not worship. Veneration translates Greek “Doulia”, worship translates “Latreia”.
It would be fairer to say some Anglicans venerate the Virgin Mary similarly to Catholics, and possibly also some Lutherans too (not sure about them). Anglicans vary quite a bit in this as among other things. (And the Catholic critique of Anglicanism is to this degree correct, that 16th century Anglicanism was much more “Protestant” than it is today, and that the Anglo-Catholic movement that reintroduced things like Marian doctrines was largely a 19th century revival).
Dictionary says that “worship” and “venerate” are synonyms.
In the case of Spain and her domains, the biggest witch trials took place in locations where the inquisitors were civilians, not depending on the Church. Apparently it is much more offensive to be a woman living without a man if your property will be split among your accusers. Said locations were Navarre (specifically, a small village called Zugarramurdi) and Catalonia.
The people in charge of the Zugarramurdi museum must have fallen asleep in History class, as they think 1610 was the Middle Ages.
Warning: PDF. This article about the witchhunts in Catalonia begins with an interesting paragraph:
In the context of catholic Christian (RCC, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, etc) theology, though, veneration/doulia and worship/latreia do refer to distinct notions.
And those two distinct notions are…? A lot of us aren’t learned Biblical scholars.
Veneration is a human level of reverence while worship is a level left to god.
And while one is supposed to treat the images with care (even if only because they are delicate), in the end they’re objects. Dressing them up is an adult-acceptable version of playing with dolls; a Spanish expression to indicate that an unmarried woman is too old to be marrigeable is se ha quedado para vestir santos, all she’s going to be clothing is (images of) saints.