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Let's talk about Demons.

Thor 2 said:
Well here's another thing about demons that niggles away at me. Well it is about all the soul possessing man like creations God has made if we look at Christian belief.

OK, we start of with God who was there from the start. He was always the three part guy according to Catholicism as I have read, so we can't look at Jesus as one of his creations.

God makes some angels first I guess. He makes them all perfect of course, (as this is the only way he can do things), but one of them turns out not perfect and jumps ship.

Yes it's the Devil I'm talking about here who sets up shop in Hell and then gets some demons to help him out. Now where did the demons come from? Did the Devil make them or were they also failed creations by God?

God's strike rate is not looking good as he goes on the make man, (again perfect and in his own image), who rebels also and from that time on all the new souls are tainted. Well not quite because God gets his act together when he creates Mary. After Mary he throws away the mould, and goes back to creating defective souls again.

All of this doesn't look good on God's record.:confused:
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Mainly this confusion is down to the hodge-podge of xian canon. Much of it is lifted wholesale from old Jewish material which pre-dates the establishment of the doctrine of Yahweh as the One God, from the time the Jews were henotheistic. Hence the problem with satan and god dealing with each other as equals.=, the interbreeding between angels and humans et cetera.
 
catsmate said:
Mainly this confusion is down to the hodge-podge of xian canon. Much of it is lifted wholesale from old Jewish material which pre-dates the establishment of the doctrine of Yahweh as the One God, from the time the Jews were henotheistic. Hence the problem with satan and god dealing with each other as equals.=, the interbreeding between angels and humans et cetera.
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Additionally, much of Satan's story isn't from the Bible at all. I remember asking my pastor where I could find that information, and he couldn't tell me. Much, much later I found that what I was asking for was Paradise Lost by John Milton.

A lot of what today seems canonical about the Devil and about Hell was made up by either Milton or Dante.
 
catsmate said:
Mainly this confusion is down to the hodge-podge of xian canon. Much of it is lifted wholesale from old Jewish material which pre-dates the establishment of the doctrine of Yahweh as the One God, from the time the Jews were henotheistic. Hence the problem with satan and god dealing with each other as equals.=, the interbreeding between angels and humans et cetera.
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Oh yes no argument with that, but what I am questioning is what Christians today believe in. The source of that knowledge can be from a multitude of places, many well after the time Jesus supposedly came down, and did his thing. As arthwollipot and others have indicated, belief in the Devil and his demon helpers, is pretty well mainstream among Christians, as is belief in the good angels also. I am just looking at the whole picture and showing how nonsensical it looks.
 
Many (most?) Christians, as I was at great pains to explain in another thread, just don't consider some of these things worth thinking about, so they've never felt the need to come to firm conclusions about them.
 
arthwollipot said:
Additionally, much of Satan's story isn't from the Bible at all. I remember asking my pastor where I could find that information, and he couldn't tell me. Much, much later I found that what I was asking for was Paradise Lost by John Milton.

A lot of what today seems canonical about the Devil and about Hell was made up by either Milton or Dante.
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Thor 2 said:
Oh yes no argument with that, but what I am questioning is what Christians today believe in. The source of that knowledge can be from a multitude of places, many well after the time Jesus supposedly came down, and did his thing. As arthwollipot and others have indicated, belief in the Devil and his demon helpers, is pretty well mainstream among Christians, as is belief in the good angels also. I am just looking at the whole picture and showing how nonsensical it looks.
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Exactly. As arthwollipot says, the perception most xians have of satan is purely from "fan fiction" sources like the Inferno and Paradise Lost, even for supposed biblical literalists.
The habit amongst some sects of filtering the exposure of their believers to the bible through the clergy is another factor.
 
catsmate said:
Exactly. As arthwollipot says, the perception most xians have of satan is purely from "fan fiction" sources like the Inferno and Paradise Lost, even for supposed biblical literalists.
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I think calling them "fan fiction" is doing them a bit of a disservice - they are great pieces of religious-inspired literature, and hardly the calibre of most fan fiction.

catsmate said:
The habit amongst some sects of filtering the exposure of their believers to the bible through the clergy is another factor.
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By "some sects" I assume you mean "Catholic", since one of the principles of Protestantism is that the laity have a "personal relationship" with God - that was one of the principles for which the schism occurred.
 
arthwollipot said:
I think calling them "fan fiction" is doing them a bit of a disservice - they are great pieces of religious-inspired literature, and hardly the calibre of most fan fiction.

By "some sects" I assume you mean "Catholic", since one of the principles of Protestantism is that the laity have a "personal relationship" with God - that was one of the principles for which the schism occurred.
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As a practical reality, despite the "individual priesthood of the believer" rhetoric, and the Biblidolatry, the vast majority of protestant congregations have "read" only the parts of their scriptures to which they have been led; thus the pushback when a realist asks about the less savoury (or flatly contradictory) bits...
 
Slowvehicle said:
As a practical reality, despite the "individual priesthood of the believer" rhetoric, and the Biblidolatry, the vast majority of protestant congregations have "read" only the parts of their scriptures to which they have been led; thus the pushback when a realist asks about the less savoury (or flatly contradictory) bits...
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Well, yes, but that in no way contradicts what I said.
 
arthwollipot said:
I think calling them "fan fiction" is doing them a bit of a disservice - they are great pieces of religious-inspired literature, and hardly the calibre of most fan fiction.
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:D Well there is good fan-fic, albeit rather rare.

arthwollipot said:
By "some sects" I assume you mean "Catholic", since one of the principles of Protestantism is that the laity have a "personal relationship" with God - that was one of the principles for which the schism occurred.
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Not entirely. While this was always common practice within the RCC the practice did change in the 1980s and 'directed' bible reading is common in many protestant groups, where the pastor basically controls what bits the laity read.
 
catsmate said:
:D Well there is good fan-fic, albeit rather rare.
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"Great literature" is not a phrase that is commonly associated with fanfic.

catsmate said:
Not entirely. While this was always common practice within the RCC the practice did change in the 1980s and 'directed' bible reading is common in many protestant groups, where the pastor basically controls what bits the laity read.
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Was that Vatican 2? I sometimes lose track of what is and isn't part of that. I know that this was when it became permissible to celebrate Mass in the vernacular. Prior to that it was always in Latin. Latin, in fact, was one of the methods used to insulate the laity from the clergy, as they would only teach it to the clergy.
 
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arthwollipot said:
"Great literature" is not a phrase that is commonly associated with fanfic.
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Agreed, but "great literature" is rather subjective. IMO it doesn't include (for example) Joyce.

arthwollipot said:
Was that Vatican 2? I sometimes lose track of what is and isn't part of that. I know that this was when it became permissible to celebrate Mass in the vernacular. Prior to that it was always in Latin. Latin, in fact, was one of the methods used to insulate the laity from the clergy, as they would only teach it to the clergy.
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No it wasn't a formal process, more of a response to the loss of authority due to the numerous RCC scandals of the 1980s, the decline of Marianism (the LoM experienced a plummeting membership) and the second round of scandals of the 1990s (Casey, Cleary, Smyth et al). This would be followed by a number of books that reinforced the effect of the dimunition of church authority; Nothing to Say, The God Squad, and Fear of the Collar about the institutional abuses but especially Dunn's "No Lions in the Hierarchy" who dissipated much of the church's mystique.




Also the laity have been learning Latin for many centuries, the use of the language to preserve the mystery died out long ago, basically towards the end of the Reformation
 
arthwollipot said:
Not in their point of view it isn't.
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Originally Posted by arthwollipot View Post
Many (most?) Christians, as I was at great pains to explain in another thread, just don't consider some of these things worth thinking about, so they've never felt the need to come to firm conclusions about them.
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Tell me what other things do Christians think are not worth thinking about?
 
Darat said:
As you quoted I never claimed that there were 1.2 billion ordained exorcists, that only exists in your imagination, like demons and gods.
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Then why did you mention that 1.2 billion was a huge number, in support of this:

The RCC - considered by some to be progressive, has a huge number of ordained exorcists.
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The implication is clearly that you were supporting the "huge number of ordained exorcists" with that number.
 
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