The Last Odd Threads That Just Won't Go

[Manditag in AK]

Hi, I have had a pretty successful deconversion over the last 4 months or so now...and am slowing trying to fish around for where I feel most comfortable.

 

So while it makes a lot of sense to me how some people post about fears of hell, the second coming, and the 'big' doctrines keeping them from letting go, for me it is down to two, small little things. Things, that honestly, are rather disconnected from each other and on the outside seem rather random.

 

1) I used to be a new ageish christian. Then I read Stacie Speilman's online book, 'betrayed by her guardian angel', which basically is the story of this new aged psychic who was told by her guardian angel(s) that they were actually demons and she was right to pursue Christianity. I've looked up what I can on the internet, I can't find anything else to discredit her, and I'm not the type of person to hold someone automatically guilty. There's no charge for anything on the site, no links to anything that charges, so if it was a hoax what's she getting out of it?

 

It makes me want to research demon sightings or something, just to prove them all wrong or universal. The idea of researching demon sightings sort of bothers me, and I have no problems with any other demon stories I've come across, so I don't understand what it is in this ONE story that matters so much.

 

2) One of my particular favorite bible verses to throw around when I was christian was the one about it being okay to reject jesus and god, but blaspheming the holy spirit was unforgivable. So now, when I've discredited most all of Christianity otherwise, I keep on ACTING as though that ONE bible verse is literally, truly True.

 

My question then, is this: does anyone have any information or research that they're willing to share that might help eliminate these hang ups? Any logic to pierce

through the veil of unreasoning fear? Any humor to push the fear into a trash can in the corner?

 

One piece of info about myself that might help you to know, I do tend to believe in the spiritual, and I currently have been toying with the idea that if people from the beginning of time have all these very similar stories, (everything from world wide floods to seeing spiritual phenomena) that maybe, perhaps, these actually happened or are real, or at least some of them are. To be clear I don't think God is a necessary creation for these phenomena to be real, and people creating them from the natural processes in their brain still counts as real to me.

[Trev]

1) I used to be a new ageish christian. Then I read Stacie Speilman's online book, 'betrayed by her guardian angel', which basically is the story of this new aged psychic who was told by her guardian angel(s) that they were actually demons and she was right to pursue Christianity. I've looked up what I can on the internet, I can't find anything else to discredit her, and I'm not the type of person to hold someone automatically guilty. There's no charge for anything on the site, no links to anything that charges, so if it was a hoax what's she getting out of it?

 

It makes me want to research demon sightings or something, just to prove them all wrong or universal. The idea of researching demon sightings sort of bothers me, and I have no problems with any other demon stories I've come across, so I don't understand what it is in this ONE story that matters so much.

 

 

2) One of my particular favorite bible verses to throw around when I was christian was the one about it being okay to reject jesus and god, but blaspheming the holy spirit was unforgivable. So now, when I've discredited most all of Christianity otherwise, I keep on ACTING as though that ONE bible verse is literally, truly True.

 

Any logic to pierce through the veil of unreasoning fear? Any humor to push the fear into a trash can in the corner?

 

Hello and welcome . Okay in response to your post:

 

1. Have you, yourself personally had any direct experience with demons? If not, then why do you care, and does the fact you have not mean that demons don't exist? If they do exist, are humans in general at a level of consciousness to be able to 'experience' them? Could some humans have this ability to experience demons? If there is no God, does that mean there are no demons as well?

 

I'm a big fan of taming fear, and if I was you I'd do some reading on demon sightings.

 

* * *

 

2. The Holy Spirit can kiss my ass. If that sends me to hell, assuming there is one, so be it. I'm going to hell for who I am as a person anyway, again assuming hell exists, so he can kiss it again, again, and again.

 

Okay that was partly an attempt to be funny, and partly to draw a reaction, . . . I don't appear to have been zapped with lightning or anything, so could it be that the Holy Spirit doesn't exist?

 

It might also be useful to examine your attitude to speaking in tongues at this point, too, as that's pretty directly associated with the Holy Spirit. Why do these so-called manifestations only seem to happen at certain points in a gathering of Christians? Can you get away with speaking in Klingon or even another Earth language if you know it? What sort of reaction(s) would you get if you broke into tongues at a point in a church service where you are 'supposed' to be quiet?

 

* * *

 

Okay I hope you got something out of this, anyway.

[florduh]

Go here and look around:

 

 

http://www.skepticfriends.org/

[Skiergirl24]

1) I used to be a new ageish christian. Then I read Stacie Speilman's online book, 'betrayed by her guardian angel', which basically is the story of this new aged psychic who was told by her guardian angel(s) that they were actually demons and she was right to pursue Christianity. I've looked up what I can on the internet, I can't find anything else to discredit her, and I'm not the type of person to hold someone automatically guilty. There's no charge for anything on the site, no links to anything that charges, so if it was a hoax what's she getting out of it?

 

It makes me want to research demon sightings or something, just to prove them all wrong or universal. The idea of researching demon sightings sort of bothers me, and I have no problems with any other demon stories I've come across, so I don't understand what it is in this ONE story that matters so much.

My cousin believes in Vampires, Ghosts, Demons etc. I tried to have an intelligent conversation with her about Christianity and one of my points was that I do not believe in God because I don't believe in Vampires, Werewolves etc. She told me she had experienced evil on a supernatural level and did believe in all of the above. She smoked way too much weed in college....

[Guest eejay]

I guess I really don't believe demons exist, literally, that is. You'd think with all the technology we have today that if these things existed we'd certainly have some proven documentation of such a thing. Instead, we only have hearsay and stories from people who say they've seen or heard things. Ghosts....I don't know. Have yet to see or hear one myself. There was a pretty compelling story several years back that did catch my attention because is was a story that supposedly took place on an actual US airline. I'm sure many of you have seen the movie and maybe a few have read the book. The Ghost of Flight 401, is what I'm talking about. The movie didn't really delve into the story as much as the book. This story took place in the early 70's when I first got involved in aviation. Eastern was a fairly stable airline at the time, and many of their Boston based pilots lived in NH, and I knew some of them fairly well. Though none of the people I personally knew had an encounter with the 'ghosts' they seemed quick to acknowledge that it did happen. Of course the airline would never have admitted it, but it is fact that they removed the salvaged parts from the aircraft that had utilized them. It does seem strange that a woman who never knew the deceased flight crew was able to identify them. Hard to figure out, but I just leave it to knowing that there are things I don't understand or have an explanation for. Does that mean there is a x-tian god? Certainly doesn't prove it by me. I am not going to live this life fearing the x-tian god. If there is a god, it is god's responsibility to make him/her/itself known to all. Until then, who cares?

[florduh]

For some reason I just had the desire to listen to Jimmy Buffet's "Vampires, Mummies and the Holy Ghost."

[Manditag in AK]

Well, nothing visual, I've had weird things happen though, feeling like someone was in the room, my mom felt heavy and paralyzed once until her husband read from the bible, I once imagined myself healing my mom's sore leg and at that exact time it all disappeared. Some of my family members have sworn they saw recently deceased relatives. Mostly it's been really uncanny coincidences.

 

the problem is that I am a thinker. Just because I haven't experienced something personally, doesn't mean I'm automatically going to blow it off. Just because I have, doesn't mean I am going to attribute it to whatever people want me to. well if some humans have the ability to experience demons then does that mean only some people can see these real 'things' or that certain people have a different wiring in their brain and are just hallucinating these powerful experiences?

 

No, I think theoretically, because I don't know the makeup of a demon, they could easily exist outside of God, or without

God, or that they could just plain exist and it has nothing to do with what religion you're in.

I guess I'm a philosopher at heart.

 

I'm not sure about speaking in tongues, most of what I've heard lends me to believe that many people fake it. But to me, just because something IS faked doesn't mean it's Fake.

 

Maybe this is where my quandary exists:I'm unwilling to believe that EVERY emotional, physical experience attributed to...well, whatever it's attributed to, around the world, for the history of man, is purely fictional. I can go with the idea that the existence of all these phenomenon starts and ends in the human brain, at least mostly, but it seems so degrading to deny any sort of non-physical/provable/testable experience on the basis of untestability alone.

 

Florduh, thanks for the link.

 

To clarify, I guess that I can believe in certain tenets in a particular belief system without believing the whole thing-I'm not sure which point you're referring to, Eejay, but things like the golden rule, or other things that happen to be in the bible or other spiritual works can be true without the system being true. I certainly don't believe in the Christian view of God.

 

Although I'm not sure I agree with you 100%, depending on what views you hold God Isn't required to show itself to you, whoever said that? Sure, for Christianity and some other religions that's true, but I don't think its' the Truth.

 

Maybe my problem is my willingness to admit the arguments of both sides...in the end I'm in pursuit of the closest to the real, objective truth that I can get, and if that truth leads me somewhere unintended or unwanted then I would sacrifice my wants to pursue said truth. For example I'm interested in health, if I learn something that goes against what I knew to be healthy, even if it's inconvenient to start eating differently, I will do it. Just because I don't want to hear something doesn't mean it's false, in my book.

 

Thanks so much for responding, you guys. I appreciate it.

[Amethyst]

Well, nothing visual, I've had weird things happen though, feeling like someone was in the room, my mom felt heavy and paralyzed once until her husband read from the bible, I once imagined myself healing my mom's sore leg and at that exact time it all disappeared. Some of my family members have sworn they saw recently deceased relatives. Mostly it's been really uncanny coincidences.

 

At least some of these things can be explained by science. Check out http://www.skepdic.com, look up things like ghosts and out of body experiences. Also keep in mind that just because there may not be a scientific explanation for something, that does NOT mean that something HAS to be "supernatural" -- our technology is limited. Not to mention, your mom's sore leg was also probably a minor injury like a Charlie horse and just because it went away at the time you imagined it, does not mean you have some kind of magical healing ability. Not that that wouldn't be cool, but human beings do NOT have super powers.

 

That having been said, I think there are a lot of things that science has yet to explain, but just because they haven't explained things yet doesn't mean that Goddidit. Thinking "Goddidit" may be easier than finding a rational explanation through science, but it doesn't prove that anyone's God actually did anything. Also I used to be like you and *want* there to be a supernatural explanation for things, but then I realized that *wanting* something to be supernatural does not mean it actually *is*. If you know what I mean.

[mwc]

1) I used to be a new ageish christian. Then I read Stacie Speilman's online book, 'betrayed by her guardian angel', which basically is the story of this new aged psychic who was told by her guardian angel(s) that they were actually demons and she was right to pursue Christianity. I've looked up what I can on the internet, I can't find anything else to discredit her, and I'm not the type of person to hold someone automatically guilty. There's no charge for anything on the site, no links to anything that charges, so if it was a hoax what's she getting out of it?

Let me get this straight. Demons. The things that are supposed to HELP SATAN DRAW PEOPLE TO HELL instead did a 180 and fessed up to this person that xianity was the RIGHT THING TO DO???

 

How many ways could this be wrong? I don't even want to think about the possibilities. But for someone to take a "demons" word as to what the "right path" is seems a little strange to me. But that's just me I guess.

 

Her one e-book is $8. Her old website had a number of things for sale. Seems her stories weren't so compelling so she tried the "true story" route (at a discount rate). She's also available on Amazon. So it's only free if you want it to be free (and since xians won't even sit through a "free" church service without tossing money in the bucket I wonder how many are "moved by the spirit" to throw money into her pockets?).

 

It makes me want to research demon sightings or something, just to prove them all wrong or universal. The idea of researching demon sightings sort of bothers me, and I have no problems with any other demon stories I've come across, so I don't understand what it is in this ONE story that matters so much.

Houdini tried and failed. Not that he failed at his research but he failed to bring it to light. Just like the modern day debunkers like Randi or Penn and Teller. They have a following to be sure (myself included) but the people that buy into the "spirit realm" far in a way exceed them. I mean look at P&T doing their act at the Rio in Vegas compared to Criss Angel doing his Mindfreak over at the Luxor. There's no comparison. The "believers" flock to be "freaked" and are disappointed when the illusion is ruined by P&T (although I enjoy the fact that they know I know it's all an illusion).

 

2) One of my particular favorite bible verses to throw around when I was christian was the one about it being okay to reject jesus and god, but blaspheming the holy spirit was unforgivable. So now, when I've discredited most all of Christianity otherwise, I keep on ACTING as though that ONE bible verse is literally, truly True.

So what does that one verse mean? Really, really mean if none of the rest is true?

 

everything from world wide floods

World wide floods never happened. These stories aren't universal. Not in the way I'm sure you've been told. Local floods. Shifting climates. Coastal floods possibly resulting from the melting of the last ice age. Things like that. Nothing global.

 

mwc

[Manditag in AK]

Amethyst, I agree with you, as far as things not having to be supernatural. But just cause it doesn't mean they are, doesn't mean they aren't, IYKWIM. But I will look at that site, thanks.

 

MWC, actually after writing this thread I checked out the site and am really disappointed, I don't know what to make of her now. Okay, I think you're right, I didn't think about that. IF that was true at the least I think all those demons would have had their butts fried.

 

I know, in a lot of ways just writing this crazy stuff out helped me to let it go, I think. So that bible verse thing doesn't bother me much anymore.

 

The world wide flood example, was just that, an example, I guess the point I had is that all the common stories of long ago began from a common experience, that some of these things really did happen everywhere. not enough to indicate a world wide flood, but floods world wide.

 

The last thing I don't understand is why demon stories are all tied to crosses and christianity. I read all these stories about demon sightings, and most of them say the demon didn't go away until the bible was invoked. I think if I could find even ONE story that said something else did the same thing, I could let it go. But since I'm not going to automaticallysummarily dismiss every story I've ever heard, I can't. Do any of you know of that type of story in other cultures where something ELSE was invoked successfully?

 

Thanks all for putting up with my craziness.