Demons - Is There Evidence They Exist?

[Dan From Smithville]

Yes, there are two different "explanation", and both cannot be right, since they are opposites.
Of course, both sides see problems with the other's.

There is a claim without detail or mechanisms and there is a conclusion based on the evidence. They are not two of a kind.

 

[Alien826]

Then you forgive me for not getting the 'joke', nor sharing in it.

Oh yeah. Colossians 3:13.

 

[lukethethird]

We all live our lives acting of faith. Even the atheists that claim they don't. It's not a mystery. In fact, it's how we live with the mystery.

No, you are confused, atheists remain skeptical of extraordinary unsupported claims, no faith involved, just good sense. Religious faith is an exploitation of everyday ordinary faith and trust that we all use, and as such it is not a virtue not to be skeptical as theists would like to have us believe.

 

[danieldemol]

Demons can be detected through the effects on what we can directly observe.
There it is. You didn't understand. Read the OP again.

Then *if* that were true it would make them indirectly detectable, which contradicts your saying they are not physically detectable

Is Dark Matter physically detectable. Or the effects?
Aren't you contradicting yourself?

No. Dark matter is indirectly physically detectable through its effects is what I'm saying.

You can see a cat directly. So your analogy flops.

It doesn't because we can see brain deformity, see the effects that restoring chemical balance to the brain has by the consumption of chemicals that we can see etc in my view.

I'm not claiming evidence. I presented evidence.
You can dismiss it or accept it. Or complain. That's your prerogative, Daniel.

Evidence falls into categories such as fabricated evidence, mistaken evidence etc. In my view the Bible falls into these categories and *not* into the category of *reliable* evidence.

If you are claiming to have unreliable evidence it is irrelevant and a waste of time. But if you are going to claim reliable evidence it is on you to demonstrate that the evidence is reliable. And that i believe you can never do in a million years.

 

[blü 2]

Oh yes it does. Thanks for that.
I've been unsuccessful in reaching anyone's sense of reason, with that. So, I now just ignore it.
You have no idea how many times I tried.

Well, as I said, some videos, maybe an interview, with a real demon, would be an excellent start.

I mean, without that, a lot of people, including me, will remain convinced that demons ─ and indeed all supernatural entities ─ exist only as concepts / things imagined, and aren't found in reality.

 

[Aupmanyav]

That would explain why there is that "good side", existing in humanity.

'Good side' exists because of demands of the society. Humans could not have survived if society did not exist. It was a necessity when we were smaller, weaker. Sabre-tooth tiger existed till 10,000 years ago and mammoths till 4,000 years ago. There were leopards, hyenas, wolves (and they were bigger than those which exist today) which could easily kill a human. One such hominin skeleton was found perched on a tree in Africa.

"American anthropologist Henry McHenry estimated body size by measuring the joint sizes of the leg bones and scaling down a human to meet that size. This yielded 151 cm (4 ft 11 in) for a presumed male (AL 333–3), whereas Lucy was 105 cm (3 ft 5 in)."

Australopithecus afarensis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"The dire wolf was about the same size as the largest modern gray wolves (Canis lupus): the Yukon wolf and the northwestern wolf. A. d. guildayi weighed on average 60 kilograms (132 lb) and A. d. dirus was on average 68 kg (150 lb). Its skull and dentition matched those of C. lupus, but its teeth were larger with greater shearing ability, and its bite force at the canine tooth was stronger than any known Canis species."

Dire wolf - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You'll need to give me some basis for the Bible being irrelevant, since I think it holds up fine as a foundation of knowledge to build on.

We have thousands of Gods and Goddesses to worship. I find the idea of one God abhorrent. We do not have any prophets/son/messenger/manifestation/Mahdi. When deities have something to tell us, they speak directly to us.

 

[Aupmanyav]

We developed from "lower" forms of life that were very good at surviving.

Credit societies for our survival, not just humans but Meercats too. Look how they constantly watch for predators, and if one observes any, the whole colony is warned. This is done by all animals, deer, monkeys and humans. That is what watch-towers were for.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

We have thousands of Gods and Goddesses to worship. I find the idea of one God abhorrent. We do not have any prophets/son/messenger/manifestation/Mahdi. When deities have something to tell us, they speak directly to us.

I believed in the God of the Bible for the majority of my life (40 years), but once I learned about polytheism and became a Wiccan, my eyes were opened to a vast array of gods and goddesses. It has been an equally illuminating experience since I began to practice Druidry as well. My current spiritual journey has been quite liberating and fascinating, as well as a positive experience for me since I left Christianity. Honestly, I wish I had done this a long time ago.

 

[Aupmanyav]

So we still have the old selfishness and greed, with co-operation added on top of it. Whether we will eventually "breed out" these primitive features remains to be seen. I have my doubts.

Your doubts are correct. Selfishness and greed cannot be breeded out. It is indoctrination in childhood which lessens it. What is sown is what is reaped. The Christians, Muslims, are instructed to hate those who do not have the same view as theirs, and that is the biggest cause of hate in the world. They forget that their own ancestors were pagans.
Beleivers are the progeny of pagans who have been fooled by shamans (call them anything, prophets/sons/messengers/manifestations/Mahdis)

 

[Aupmanyav]

We can talk about this via PM, if that's okay with you,
It's also a question that requires more than a straightforward answer.
However, I'll answer later, since I have to take a break.

Why the PM? Why can't you discuss it here? Are you not able to give a straight forward answer?
And then you want a break. That is OK. Have your break. But are you trying to hide something?

 

[YmirGF]

Dark matter is a hypothesis created to answer a gravitational problem that could be answered by a type of matter that does not interact with EM but does interact with gravity.

There was a need for an explanation.
There is NO NEED to use demons as any explanation. Bad things happen, disease, bad weather and so on. They happen at predictable rates and are already explained. Adding on a supernatural agent isn't needed. The only thing it does is give you a conspiracy theory vibe as if you know something others don't.
Demons are only in fiction. Like Orcs.




That is called a pandemic. During the black death 60 million people died. All of those things you listed happened, but much worse. During the spanish flu 25 million were killed, same things happened. Viruses are real. A new virus enters the ecosystem and a pandemic happens.
We do not need childish fantasy add-ons to actual grown up problems.

WW2 saw a huge rise in world wide crime. Russia invading Ukraine involves many crimes. Any local crime rise has local factors at play, increased poverty, less police. Again, demons are not needed as an explanation. Matter that doesn't interact with EM is already something we have seen, or weakly acting particles, like neutrinos. Demons, never. Except in fiction.





No, the world has been at constant war from the first city of Sumer to the 1900s. The recent century is the most peaceful the Earth has ever been. So to push your agenda forward you need mis-information. What does that tell you? It's wrong.







The wild West was lawless. The Revolutionary and Civil war were brutal and relentless for human life and rights.
Now things are far far better. You need to make up false narratives to push your end-of -the-world narrative.





Demons are in all sorts of fiction. Always based on imagination.
Revelation is a Persian myth Jewish thinkers took in and slowly over centuries said "God has given me a revelation"......"We too are having a final war with the devil and will resurrect at the end and live forever in paradise".
Uh, no, it's fiction when Persians thought it up and fiction when Jewish thinkers made it a Jewish story.





Persian Revelations
but Zoroaster taught that the blessed must wait for this culmination till Frashegird and the 'future body' (Pahlavi 'tan i pasen'), when the earth will give up the bones of the dead (Y 30.7). This general resurrection will be followed by the Last Judgment, which will divide all the righteous from the wicked, both those who have lived until that time and those who have been judged already. Then Airyaman, Yazata of friendship and healing, together with Atar, Fire, will melt all the metal in the mountains, and this will flow in a glowing river over the earth. All mankind must pass through this river, and, as it is said in a Pahlavi text, 'for him who is righteous it will seem like warm milk, and for him who is wicked, it will seem as if he is walking in the • flesh through molten metal' (GBd XXXIV. r 8-r 9). In this great apocalyptic vision Zoroaster perhaps fused, unconsciously, tales of volcanic eruptions and streams of burning lava with his own experience of Iranian ordeals by molten metal; and according to his stern original teaching, strict justice will prevail then, as at each individual j udgment on earth by a fiery ordeal. So at this last ordeal of all the wicked will suffer a second death, and will perish off the face of the earth. The Daevas and legions of darkness will already have been annihilated in a last great battle with the Yazatas; and the river of metal will flow down into hell, slaying Angra Mainyu and burning up the last vestige of wickedness in the universe.


Ahura Mazda and the six Amesha Spentas will then solemnize a lt, spiritual yasna, offering up the last sacrifice (after which death wW be no more), and making a preparation of the mystical 'white haoma', which will confer immortality on the resurrected bodies of all the blessed, who will partake of it. Thereafter men will beome like the Immortals themselves, of one thought, word and deed, unaging, free from sickness, without corruption, forever joyful in the kingdom of God upon earth. For it is in this familiar and beloved world, restored to its original perfection, that, according to Zoroaster, eternity will be passed in bliss, and not in a remote insubstantial Paradise. So the time of Separation is a renewal of the time of Creation, except that no return is prophesied to the original uniqueness of living things. Mountain and valley will give place once more to level plain; but whereas in the beginning there was one plant, one animal, one man, the rich variety and number that have since issued from these will remain forever. Similarly the many divinities who were brought into being by Ahura Mazda will continue to have their separate existences. There is no prophecy of their re-absorption into the Godhead. As a Pahlavi text puts it, after Frashegird 'Ohrmaid and the Amahraspands and all Yazads and men will be together. .. ; every place will resemble a garden in spring, in which
there are all kinds of trees and flowers ... and it will be entirely the creation of Ohrrnazd' (Pahl.Riv.Dd. XLVIII, 99, lOO, l07).

Mary Boyce
Zoroastrians-Their-Religious-Beliefs-and-Practices


Wow, sounds familiar. Written 1700 BC, read by Jewish people during the occupation 600 BC - 300 BC.

It's all folk tales.

Got to hand it to you @joelr I cannot imagine putting this much effort into a rebuttal. Well done.

 

[HonestJoe]

I was referencing someone all alone. The webpage I linked uses the same exact references I used. It's mine.
Those words are my words... word for word.

Fair enough. It still doesn't seem to address my question though. Is there anything on that website that directly provides evidence for the existence of demons, which is the purported topic of your thread?

 

[PureX]

No, you are confused, atheists remain skeptical of extraordinary unsupported claims, no faith involved, just good sense. Religious faith is an exploitation of everyday ordinary faith and trust that we all use, and as such it is not a virtue not to be skeptical as theists would like to have us believe.

Most of the atheists on here are so blinded by their own bias that they can't even admit to what faith actually IS, let alone that they engage in it all the time.

 

[viole]

You haven't told me what evidence is. So since you don't seem to know, or you just don't want to admit to what evidence is, I conclude you just want to distract, and use up space.
When you are ready to discuss what evidence is, and show that I haven't provided any, I would consider talking to you further.
As it stands, currently, you aren't saying anything you actually want a response to.

Let's take then definition from dictionary.com as a start:
That which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof

So, what have you got?

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

Ok. What about spirits of the dead that some people here claim to contact? Do you think they really exist, or do you think they are only in the minds of those who say they contact them but don't really exist?

There is no evidence of any spirit, nor spiritual world whatsoever. Therefore, there is no rational warrant to believe in any of those things.

Ciao

- viole

 

[PureX]

Let's take then definition from dictionary.com as a start:
That which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof

So, what have you got?

Ciao

- viole

"Tends (to)" ... "Indicates", "inclines toward", "points to", "suggests" ...

Ev·i·dence

noun

• 1. the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid:

NOT PROOF ... but evidence.

 

[viole]

"Tends (to)" ... "Indicates", "inclines toward", "points to", "suggests" ...

Ev·i·dence

noun

• 1. the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid:

NOT PROOF ... but evidence.

Fine,

what have you got?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Alien826]

Credit societies for our survival, not just humans but Meercats too. Look how they constantly watch for predators, and if one observes any, the whole colony is warned. This is done by all animals, deer, monkeys and humans. That is what watch-towers were for.

Agreed. I was talking about human behavior though.

 

[PureX]

Fine,

what have you got?

Ciao

- viole

The entire theological history of humanity.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I have trouble with the idea that a history of people believing in things is evidence for what is believed or is evidence that something exists to be believed. It seems like an extension of the argumentum ad populum fallacy.

I'm not arguing that there isn't something to believe in, just that the illustrated route offered as evidence isn't evidence for the existence of the divine. Rather it is evidence about the nature of people and our interest to believe. As evidence for demons or the Divine, it falls short.