Who? anyway yes there are people who think they are giving their life to God, while they are really not. And yes, it’s the fruit of the Spirit that reveals us.
In a way yes, as we can’t make it in the flesh, but we ourselves can’t conqure the flesh, we need God to do that for us.
Interesting, isn’t this expressed in freedom of speech. You are free to listen or not, God willing that is. The part that ‘I know I have the truth’, when the Holy Spirit is working through us, it is God who is talking, not the person - and that will be the truth, but from God, not the person.
We are all created by God, but we are given the option as our starting point to be our own gods.
I would disagree with this, the way we reach others is to give our life away.
I’d agree with this.
Man does place great importance on such labels. God to has such labels, the seal of God and the mark of the beast come to mind.
If such a nation was established as God as Christian, that nation has greatly fallen IMHO
Yes, I don’t see that as contradictory however. If you know Jesus you will have such works.
Just because the term demonology wasn’t used does not mean that there were not theories about these entities.
Many cultures, perhaps most, if not all have theories, or myths about some sort of evil spirit. Evil spirit is assumes to be the same as demon in Christian demonology, and evil spirit is used in several places, why even use the word demon if evil spirit would be more accurate? (and think about your statement that God (Jesus) didn’t know Greek)
kanicbird has also provided a scriptural cite of a evil spirit cast out by Paul, that seems very much like the daemon that indwelled Socrates - with no comment.
The word, as used by Socrates, did not mean “evil spirit,” and that’s all there is to it.
Whether or not you think Jesus was God (I obviously don’t and your assertion that he was is nothing but an usupported religious belief), What I said was that Jesus did not SPEAK Greek. Even if he was a magical, omnipotent sky god who KNEW Greek, that still wasn’t the language that he used when he SPOKE. He spoke ARAMAIC. Virtually all the words attributed to him in the gospels are ostensibly Greek translations from Aramaic (at least the stuff that wasn’t directly fabricated in Greek by the authors themselves).
If by “very much like,” you mean “nothing at all like,” then I agree with you.
Let me put it another way, the way the word was used and conceptualized in Attic Greek in the time of Socrates (and the way it was used by Socrates himself) had no relationship to the entities which were translated into that word in Koine from a different cultural context 400 years later. Your contention that any of these entities really exist or that they are all the same thing unbeknownst to Socrates is, in my opinion, too silly to be worth discussing. At best, it’s an unfalsifiable, personal religious belief with no debatable content. At worst it comes close to crackpottery. I’m telling you that Socrates did not think he was possessed by a demon and did not think of that word the way you do and the fact that he used a Greek word which has an etymological relationship to the English word “demon” is not evidence that he was possessed (or even thought he was possessed) in the Linda Blair sense.
DtC even at the time of Socrates trade between Greece and the homeland of Jesus was well established. Daemons seem to be intelligent entities capable of movement especially with people. If we accept that Socrates had a daemon, and we make a estimation that this daemon is not a singular entity but a category of beings, I think it is safe to assume that they very easyally would have made it to every part of the world that the Greek empire reached. And this assumes that the daemonic species started in Greece. If we take the Greek theory that daemons guided human destiny it seems like these daemons were world wide.
Now if you want to deny the existance of daemons/demons, then you can define them however you wish. But if you accept that they are real, it is very obvious that they are the same, and don’t always appear evil (as I pointed out in scripture).
As for demons being evil, remember that Satan and his kingdom was condemned at the time of Jesus, before this it seemed like though God didn’t like what Satan did, it was technically within the rules, so not all Satanic forces were evil.
I’m not certain your cite works. Certainly the demon didn’t force the girl to do anything bad (depending on your view, of course). But she was possessed. Her free will was either taken or subsumed. That is in and of itself evil; if I could somehow control your actions, and make you do only good and nice things, i’ve still comitted the evil act of removing your free will, a gift from God. Socrates’ daemon (assuming DtC’s view is valid) seems to have provided advice, but never forced him to do anything.
Hang on. If i’m understanding you correctly, you’re saying that the Satanic forces couldn’t all be evil yet, because they hadn’t yet been condemned by God for their evilness (please correct me if i’m wrong). But surely there must have been a time between the point where they weren’t all evil and the point where they were condemned in which they were all evil, otherwise condemning them all wouldn’t make sense.
They were not evil in the sense that they did no wrong, or at least no major wrong that a curse from God couldn’t equalize. My take on this is when the Father allowed His Son to be subject to Satanic forces, due to the hatred in their heart, the lust for a unjust murder, they all condemned themselves.
You do make a good point, but it is normally understood in Christian demonlogy that the person must willingly yield control to the demon, it is a act of free will. Compare to the modern day (demon possessed) medium or fortune teller. That person willingly enters a trance allowing the demon to take control.
One theory is Jesus was protected by God until near the time of His death, Satan could not hurt Him, though he could temp Him. Once that protection was removed all the forces of Satan were released on Him.
And there was only one unjust murder (not wanting to get into the abortion debate please) that of Jesus, everyine else had sinned and deserves death.
Ah, that would make sense. Is it possible however for the invitation to be revoked mid-trance? Let’s say the Acts girl actually only wanted the visions of the future; the demon decides actually it’s going to go follow Paul et al this time. Does she get to force the demon out at that point, or is she stuck until it relenquished control or is forced to?
For the three days until the resurrection, I would guess? But thanks, this does make sense.
Well, how can you say that when you pro-lifers are just huge hyp-
Kidding.
That makes sense also. In light of the upper information, though, I do have a question; Jesus was protected from the Satanic forces until he died (perhaps). If he had sinned (yes, I know, a Jesus who sinned would not be Jesus; it’s very much theoretical), what would have happened? If he’s been successfully tempted into doing something evil, would God have released his protection and made him vulnerable?
Each demon is different, and it seems like it depends on the person and their strength of will also. It seems like once one yields control to a demon it is much harder to regain control, as the demon will ‘feed’ that person some reward, so it goes against human nature (the flesh) to stop a demon mid-possession, but I beleive it is possible.
Also remember the oppression the slave girl must have been under, she would likely be punished if she stopped telling the future, so that is incentive to allow the demon to control her.
The actual verse, something along the lines of ‘the prince of this world now stands condemned’ happen at the approach of Jesus’ death, not at that time. The theory is that the protection was removed and Satan’s plans were set into unstoppable (except for God’s intervention, which didn’t happen) motion. This condemned Satan and his kingdom as his plan for man was no longer righteous.
My WAG is that Jesus’ death would have been justified, as the wages of sin are death, Jesus would righteously fall under the control of Satan.
IMHO it wouldn’t matter, Jesus would eventually die, even of old age, and that death would condemn Him.
Ok, let’s go with this. Paul manages to drive the demon out of her, for the reason (at least to my eyes) of getting her to stop following them about and shouting what she shouted. Logically, then, if she acted that way with the demon and not when it was removed, it couldn’t be a case of simple advice-giving (as with Socrates), since she would have continued to do what she did if that was so. It seems to me that since driving the demon out of her changed her behaviour, that demon must have been controlling her behaviour to some extent. And also since she changed her behaviour, I think it is reasonable to assume the possibility that what she gave up her free will for wasn’t her following-Paul actions. I would say it’s reasonable to suggest the most likely action was that she gave up her free will in order to have those visions; the demon then took advantage of its possession to then follow Paul. Thus it did evil, by “breaking” the deal they had.
Definetly not a certainty, but it does seem to leave open a (pretty big) doubt that the demon did not appear to do evil. As such I don’t think you can really use it as a good cite of a demon who doesn’t appear to do evil.
Yes, but perhaps more then annoyance, as that girl shouting may have opened up Paul to arrest, or may have lead others to the demon instead of God.
Again each demon is different. Socrates showed a amount of knowledge and wisdom that was ‘almost’ not human, it appears like such a demon gave Socrates such knowledge and wisdom.
Theory is that demons either take control or give special abilities (or remove certain natural abilities). It is possible that the demon in her just gave her the future (as demons guide human destiny, so they should know), and she was so oppressed by her master that she just was conditioned to go with it.
Please remember she was a slave, as as such really had limited free will to begin with.
Possible, though it could be oppression from her master that broke her free will - we don’t know. Also we don’t know if she knew she was actually yielding free will (deception of the satanic side and all)
You expect a demon to play fair?
I have no doubt that the demon was doing evil, just it was not doing so in a obvious sense.
I didn’t mean to suggest it may have been just through annoyance.
My point with this was if the demon had just given the girl the knowledge that she then shouted, her actions of following were then of her own accord, and after the demon was removed she would have continued to follow, as she still has the knowledge.
But she continued to be oppressed. Before, she was following Paul and shouting. Afterwards (it is assumed) she stopped doing that. She didn’t become a free person during that time. Her level of oppression did not change. The difference between the two states was that in one she was possessed by a demon and in the other she was not. Thus, we can say that the difference is due to the demon, not her will, nor the will of her master.
Which would make what the demon did even more obviously worse.
We can know, actually, because as said she stopped following Paul because she was de-possessed. She wasn’t set free from her master, and there are no suggestions that he brought her under control somehow. All it’s said is that the demon was removed. To assume that it could be her master that broke her free will is to accept that there are potentially vital things involving demons which are not cleared up within the Bible.
If she did not in fact yield free will, then again the demon is in the wrong.
Nope, not really. The demon sounds like a nasty piece of work to me. But my whole point in bringing this up was that you were using it as an analogy to Socrates’ daemon - suggesting that they were both the same type of creature because, although demons do evil, they do not have to appear to be evil. Thus Socrates’ daemon could actually be secretly (or non-apparently) evil because the Acts girl’s demon also seemed to be doing good (or at least not evil). I’m just trying to show that the girl’s demon was acting evilly (or at least arguably so), and thus you can’t make that comparison between the two. Feel free to say that Socrates’ daemon was the Christian-style demon (and really I believe either as much as the other), but this particular argument is not one that works.
I put it to you that the demon was clearly doing evil - it made the girl do something which, upon its removal, she stopped doing; no other change is mentioned to her condition. Seems like an obvious type of free will removal to me.
You’re kidding with the who right? IMO this is a difficult contradiction for Christian dogma. The fruits of the spirit reveals us, rather than just who or what we profess to believe in, verbally. That being true Christianity must consider the many loving people who exhibit the fruits of the spirit but are not Christian and figure out how that undeniable fact fits in with their doctrine.
What does freedom of speech have to do with it? I said it bothers me. I didn’t try to deny your right to say it. It bothers me because many people claim to have the one and only, holy God inspired, and spirit moved truth to share and yet they don’t agree with each other about what that truth is. IMO it is more wise and more honest to say, “this is what I believe right now but I am still learning and growing so I may be wrong. I don’t insist that the path I have chosen is the correct path for all people”
Concerning God speaking when we are moved by the HS. Do you have any biblical passages to indicate that doctrine is correct? There is a major difference between thinking we are* influenced* by inspiration and believing we are God’s puppets when he wants to speak.
Meaningless nitpicking. Service to others can easily be part of the example we set.
This has nothing to do with what I commented on, but that’s a familiar type of response from you. You suggested perhaps God created a Christian nation. If God sees the hearts of men rather than man made labels then there is no need to create a nation with the label of Christianity. This is especially true when history shows us the great inconsistency and extremely un Christ like behavior of some who claim that title.
What about those who have those works and don’t believe in Jesus in the way traditional protestant demands?
