Science and the problem of demon-possession

Faith & Science Conversation
66
  • What you said was: “You’re welcome to bring a healer, demon possessed person, resurrectionist, real snake handler, witch or a demon as your evidence.”
    • I don’t have any in my closet or garage and I don’t know any.
    • Why do you think I should show you people that I don’t know or have at my command and never said that I do know?
  • I’m not as fortunate as you; I don’t know thousands and thousands and thousands of people. :laughing:

Gee, I’m sorry for suggesting that you were stereotyping fewer people than you actually were stereotyping.

1 Like
67

Not a bad thread. How does one bookmark? Ah! Posts only, not threads.

1 Like
68

So then we agree.

There is no evidence and we don’t know anyone who has witnessed these things themselves. We can’t even find evidence of it in this technological age where camera phones are everywhere.

So thanks for clarifying in your own way that no one seems to have any proof whatsoever of anyone on this entire planet.

Every time someone says “ oh it’s real but it’s not happening in the western world “ what they are really saying is that they are applying this exoticism to people in third world countries. They are mystifying them based on their ethnicity and environment in order to create this strangeness to those people and their land. Same thing that lead to Gypsies being called witches and ext… it’s the typical wild litter realms of civil action bordering the chaos of the unknown stereotype. That’s why it’s always “ out in the jungles “, “ a remote village in the mountainous regions of Asia “ or in the savage lion and tiger infested wild lands of blah blah”

It’s never “ the popular rich white girl “ unless it’s the poorest most fundamentalistic Bible readers trying to justify unhappiness in their life by saying well the rich has this and this problem but I’m happy here with my own life” and so on.

So in the same way we call out all these other things that just is not supported dry evidence the same can be said of this subject.

No your dad did not go to Asia and suddenly without any studying begin to talk and fluently speaking Chinese.

No your uncle whose a missionary did not see some black Haitian jump into the air and turn in a raven and fly off.

No your brother did not just break down on the side of the road and hear weeping from a cemetery and came upon a funeral and felt the Holy Spirit say open the casket and place your hands on the corpse’s face and then she arose from the grave and prophesied.

No your grandfather has not spent his life bare handling venomous snakes and dancing with them around his neck never to be bitten but always protected.

If you want to believe in it fine. That’s cool. But don’t get upset when I state I see no evidence for it anywhere in the entire world. So you believe by faith. Then don’t get upset when I believe that cessationism , preterism and so on all proves a theological rebuttal. I’ve already made a post on it and the final arguments were “ just believe them it’s not my job to not believe their stories” and for me that’s just not going to cut it.

I say this often. I feel like we both understand each other’s positions basically. We also know enough that the chances of either one of us changing our minds on this is unlikely. It does not bother me that you believe it. But I will speak up on why I don’t. There are tons of young Christians out there and their only struggle is not looking at the evidence for things like evolution, or reimagining how they interpret the Bible to be more progressive but many are also struggling because they hear these fantastic tales of all those powers of the holy spirit and they never see any evidence for it but are told again and again, it’s their fault , it’s their lack of faith, and blah blah. This subject has reasonable
People acting just like those who insist their is evidence to believe in a global flood. It’s important that these kids don’t place their faith in the snake charmers of their congregations who are frauds.

69

No, we don’t agree.

  • You have “…a virtual trashbox”; and into that trashbox, you have thrown tons and tons and tons of stuff that you’ve picked up–God knows where–and I object when you make unrealistic and unjustified claims like: “Not only are demons not found in the western world …”
    • Do you know how big “the western world” is?

Screenshot 2022-08-21 at 07-52-05 Western world - Wikipedia
Screenshot 2022-08-21 at 07-52-05 Western world - Wikipedia1012×480 154 KB

  • Do you know how many people there are in the world? Try 7.75 billion people, give or take a couple of thousand.
  • So Mr. Skov, because of your vast knowledge of and experience with “Supernatural Hoaxes”, our organization would like to hire you as an expert witness on “Christian Supernatural Phenomena” among the several billion people in the western world.
  • And you don’t stop there, you go on and say: “demonic possession is not found anywhere on earth.”
    • On earth? Have you been to every country in the world and met every person? 'Cause that’s you’re claiming; unless, of course, you’re B.S.-ing.
  • What makes your claims even more egregious is that you lump: demons, demonic possession, magic, laying on of hands, speaking in tongues, prophecies, Christians “grabbing a corpse by the hand and bringing it back to life”, instantaneous faith healings, and “snake handling” into the same trashbin, … without exception. And all on the basis of what? On the basis of your vast experience and knowledge?
  • Look! I get that you don’t buy into the fantastic claims of “allegedly-Christian” faith healers, and related scam-artists who are essentially “stage whores” hustling for dollars. I think they’re despicable too. But that’s what scam-artists do: hustle for dollars or glory or both. But that’s what Evil does: tries to convince us that there is no evil or that there’s a demon in every bush, when the truth is, "dscernment is a “fine art”, “a learned skill”, that requires humility and compassion, … the kind that our Lord had and demonstrated. Personally, I think that’s a clue: Where there is no humility or compassion, Jesus is not present. But where He is present, Grace flows like a river, and marvelous things happen.
1 Like
70

Tons??? I didn’t know Christians come by the lb.

1 Like
71

Yes, it sure was fun. And the junior moderator suggested that Raymond Brown didn’t understand bodies of water in ancient Israel.

72

So which one is it Terry?

You have evidence of these things or not?

We worthier agree that you don’t have any evidence, or worthier we disagree and you do have evidence. With billions of people, it should be easier and easier to get evidence of the supernatural. That argument works against you.

You don’t need to know thousands of people. You don’t even need to know one dude. You just need to be aware that with billions of people and hundreds of millions of cellphones and global networking sites like Facebook, instagram and YouTube there should be at least a few videos of evidence of the supernatural that blew enough peoples minds it went viral and was fact-checked. Or you can admit you’ve not seen, and I’ll agree with you, me neither.

73

Just use your merciful Holy Spirit driven discernment and pray for God to direct you towards the evidence Terry. Should be easy with God on your side.

Also, I don’t play text wars. It’s not anti Grace or mercy to say without evidence I don’t have to believe it. So you can text all you want. Same as the guys over on alien abductions forums, Bigfoot groups and ect… I don’t see a need in responding until actual evidence is presented. The burden is on you to present evidence of the supernatural. My evidence is the fact y’all can’t produce it. Same as my science that unicorns are not real is the fact y’all can’t produce evidence for it. My evidence that ghosts are not haunting people is the fact no one can prove they exist. It’s all based around faith. What you place your faith in. Best luck and I won’t hind my breath waiting for the proof.

74

Over 500 episodes showcasing well over 400 witnesses who have seen Bigfoot!!!’ Dun dun dun!! That’s hundreds hours of testimonies.

You can also check out their Facebook group.

Here is a private fb group of 24,000 people.

It’s managed by people who are part of the podcast series I believe. I’m not sure. I got kicked out for saying I don’t believe in it but am a big fan of folk horror and joined because I really liked the podcast. Even had a guy Facebook call me threatening me saying how dare I deny Bigfoot with all these testimonies from around the world and that one killed and ate his dog in front of him.

So how many of y’all believe in Bigfoot?
If not, then how do you dismiss this mountain of personal eyewitness testimony , tons of videos and photographs and there are even some “scientists” who believe there may be evidence for them. I mean we have foot plasters for yeti sakes.

So the same reason that some of y’all don’t believe in Bigfoot , despite all the “evidence” is why I also don’t believe in demonic possessions, speaking in tongues and ect….

That’s not me being a jerk. That’s not me being a bully. It’s not me lacking compassion and grace, or mercy. It’s not me being close minded. It’s me be critical, wanting evidence, and simply not seeing it, just like you don’t see the evidence for Bigfoot. ( of which I don’t believe either )

With that said, the podcast is extremely interesting to listen to if you enjoy folktales, campfire stories and ect… that often border the horror side of tall tales.

75

Ahhh! You’re going to double-down, are you?
Wait! Two messages to me. You’re tripling-down, aren’t you? LOL!
You don’t quit, do you?

  • For some strange reason, you want me to jump in your “virtual trashbin” or stand by your side and agree with you. Bite the bullet, kiddo. I ain’t a-gonna do either one.
    We don’t see eye to eye on much, and I can live with that. So you go right ahead, cite all the thousands and thousands and thousands of books you’ve read and all the evidence that you’ve never seen, and people you’ve met. But you don’t fool me, you don’t know everything about everything. In fact, you don’t know much about anything. Me neither. The difference between us is that I ain’t afraid to admit it. And that’s okay, because our Lord Jesus loves us anyway.
2 Likes
76

Another thing to think about. The prophets, such as Elisha with Naaman, often prescribe ritualistic cures for illness, taking the role of the Mesopotamian āšipu. These sorts of texts are exactly where we’d expect to find a mention of the “supernatural” cause behind disease. And yet we don’t. As far as the Israelites were concerned, this wasn’t necessary, since the one “supernatural” cause behind disease was already known.

(not saying I believe God gives innocent people disease, only that the OT writers believed God, and not demons, did this)

Blog post on this to come.

1 Like
77
78

We do know that God lets his children go through trials, and that he is sovereign over the when and where, the timing and placing of DNA mutations: my nephrectomy.

1 Like
79

So speaking of the devil……. the horror comedy movie, “ My Best Friend’s Exorcism” based off of the book by Grady Hendrix is coming out next month.

The story actually ties into a lot of this discussion over what’s real and what’s not real, mass hysteria and how traumatized people will relate their tale in a hyperbolic way and be accepted as reality by the others. Assuming it follows the book closely. It also highlights some of the amusing things many of us as kids may have seen such as those bodybuilding power lifting Christian’s that came around to schools ripping phone books in half and stuff. Mocking a sort of patriarchal push in the exorcism movements in churches.

1 Like
80

i regularly find myself dumbfounded by Dr Walton’s erudite-sounding but demonstrably and flatly wrong claims, and here is yet another prime example to me…

I’ll give the benefit of the doubt if anyone wants to clarify, but i can only assume he is speaking of the passage (Job 39:16) that states…

“She deals cruelly with her young, as if they were not hers.”

Well, it took me but a few seconds to find the video below (to my knowledge, hardly some kind of AIG video trying to defend the Bible or something), that describes (and captured on video) ostrich chicks being trampled by their parent(s)…

Plus, National Wilfelife Federation (hardly known for creationist sympathies to my knowledge) even quotes that very Bible passage approvingly as reflective of ostrich behavior:

“After a year, when the mother is again in breeding condition, she chases off her young. It sounds rather callous, as even the Book of Job remarked (“She deals cruelly with her young, as if they were not hers.”). However, it’s worth noting that the children at that point are usually about 8 feet tall and fast as a rocket. They can take care of themselves.”

I hate to sound hyper-critical, but i have come to take any claim of Dr. Walton worth a grain of salt… there are just too many claims i have read of his and bothered to fact-check which have come up wanting- he seems to me not to be properly critical of his sources and all too quick to embrace any factoid which fits his narrative without doing due diligence or fact-checking, and thus it seems to me he ends up all too often crafting erudite-sounding narratives at the expense of actual facts or other common-sense observations.

I’d be very cautious and skeptical about his perspective then, about Scripture’s take on demonology, for what it is worth. I suspect that Scripture may well give more actual details or information about demons than Dr. Walton might recognize.

81

Hi,
I agree with your skepticism. I’m a professional ornithologist and never would interpret ostrich behaviour as being “bad parents”. Individual ostriches are simply behaving in the way that maximizes the average number of their surviving offspring (i.e. reproductive fitness). Just like any other organism. The piece you have in italics is simply “weaning behaviour” which is common in birds and mammals—a process where parents stop investing in offspring that have reached maturity and can fend for themselves. Sometimes, there may be a period of parent-offspring conflict because juveniles may want more resources than parents can provide without endangering themselves. But that’s not bad parenting!

1 Like
82

There’s any other examples, however of the Bible getting things wrong. See the passages which seem to speak of the sun moving.

83

Okay, then where are these passages with demonic affliction in the OT? They simply aren’t there, in mine and many other’s opinions.

1 Like
84

i generally plead with people to refrain from using that example… unless one also insists on claiming that the weather channel “getting it wrong” for talking about the times the sun “rises” and “sets”… otherwise, speaking about how things appear from our perspective is so common among both us moderns and among the ancients, that it appears pedantic to claim such observations as being “wrong”.

?

Well, “So Satan went our from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores…” comes to mind…? Satan also incited David, a harmful spirit afflicted Saul, those come to mind. there’s other OT aspects of demons that are beyond the “afflicting” people, also.

But even if we pass over those examples, and if I were to hypothetically grant your perspective that the OT is devoid of any discussion of demons, i’m not sure what that would prove? there are other aspects of theology that are scant in the OT that we embrace… for example, resurrection to eternal life. While i disagree with those who think this idea is entirely absent from the OT, i would grant of course that it is far, far, less discussed or addressed in the OT as compared with the new.

But i fail to see the point? Would you suggest that the church abandon any belief or understanding of, say, the second coming of Christ, his final judgment, the eternal resurrection, or the like, because these doctrines are only (essentially) found in the New Testament, and largely or generally absent from the old?

85

The demonic is not really in the OT. We see spirits , angels and what becomes fallen angels, and whatever the spirits were being used by Yahweh to carry out judgement and testing.

Versus in the NT we see this sudden development of demonic hordes descending on humanity. We see possessions and so on at ends with the plans of God.

I personally believe Satan fell sometime after trying to kill Jesus as a baby. That through Herod Satan tried to wipe out the messiah or Mary while she was pregnant and it failed and sparkled the war and he was cast down and Jesus saw him fall like lightening and because Satan knew his time was short, terror sparked up within the Roman empire against Christian’s and Jews and the temple was destroyed, and eventually, the events in revelation came to pass and now Satan and his demons are dead and we are in a new world free of them and now the only evil we have is the evil we choose to carry out on our own but that through love, eventually these things will be overcome. As social justices are fought, as more earthly heroes arise and fall, emotional intelligence will continue to grow. We see a growing concern for the environment. We see a growing concern for other humans. We see a growing concern for animals. So many love based movements are growing and growing.