Angels and demons

[SivartM]

I still wonder what this means for psychology. If bad thoughts come from demons and not from thought patterns and such, what's the point of studying how the mind works? It would be totally unpredictable.

[John317]

God hasn't given evil angels the power to read human minds. Good angels are able to because that's part of their assignment and work.

Satan is the highest created being God ever made-- as much like God as any creature can possibly be-- yet God hasn't given him certain powers that He's given to the lowliest angel. Satan and the evil angels can only do what God allows them to do.

[SivartM]

I don't think satan is very much like God at all.

[John317]

Humans are perfectly capable to coming up with bad and sinful thoughts on our own. We don't need evil angels to do that. If all the evil angels were to die today, humans would continue having evil thoughts. It is a part of our fallen nature.

[SivartM]

Then why should we blame all of our bad thoughts on them?

How do angels and demons communicate with us? Through words? Or maybe through our senses?

I'm also curious as to why good angels can supposedly read our minds while bad ones cannot.

[teresaq]

i dont think so, sivartm...again there is much misunderstanding about what ellen white meant regarding psychology...

for one thing psychology was radically different in her day than ours...there is helpful psychology and detrimental psychology today...the research done i think is very helpful, and has completely validated egws comments many times. much of her writing was "psychology"...

i think that psychoanalysis is not necessarily a good thing, but other threads can be helpful...

and then studying how the brain works is another field, which also is beneficial, and has validated egw...

the more thinking we do the more brain cells we create, but not thinking makes our brain just as flabby as our muscles if we dont exercise them...

[John317]

Who blames all their evil thoughts on evil angels?

That'd be a crazy thing to do.

[Tom Wetmore]

Perhaps that is part of the point. There are indeed a lot of religious folk that do try to pin their evil thoughts on the devil. And yes, it does come across as crazy talk to the secular mind. If we are going to be relevant and make any sense to the wider culture we need to have a paradigm shift to a more sophisticated way of expressing what we believe about the forces of evil that are involved in this world.

[abelisle]

If we admit that all humans are sinful and that all humans have what we call a "stream of consciousness" where all sorts of thoughts continously flow through our minds with and without our input, how did Jesus handle any evil thoughts that might have been in his stream of consciousness since he was all human, right?

If one responds by saying, "but he was all divine too" then maybe he was more divine than human if he never had any evil thoughts?

Alex (dealing with evil thoughts on a daily basis

[Aliensanctuary]

There are two wolves living inside each one of us. One wolf is good, the other is evil. Which wolf is the strongest? The strongest wolf inside of us is the one we feed.

Some characters in the Bible had "visions" and "dreams" from God concerning certain important events. We can claim these dreams and visions were "miracles", or, we can assume that there is a method of communication, via yet undiscovered forces, that enables transmission of video and audio directly to our brains, maybe from great distances.

Perhaps there's an undiscovered fabric to the universe that connects everything to everything. This can explain how Jesus used the Spirit of God's ability to heal defective humans from a distance. Likewise, Jesus, who had access to the Spirit of God, could read minds because of the information the Spirit gave him.

If evil spirits possessed humans, including hapless children in days of old, then we can assume evil beings are capable of telepathically accessing and controlling our minds, perhaps from a great distance, maybe millions of miles, or even light years.

Similarly, altruistic beings belonging to the Kingdom of God would be capable of transmitting communications from the LORD to human beings, including guidance to those of us who seek him earnestly.

I suspect that when Israel rules the whole world for a time, during, or just prior, to the Last Days, its chosen people or leaders will be given the power to control minds, suggest scary thoughts, and control animals and insects to use as weapons, much as the LORD did to their ancient enemies in the Scriptures. Had Israel been able to access this power in the days of Moses and Joshua, not one drop of blood would have fallen during their conquest of the Promised Land.

Israel will lose its peaceful dominion of the Earth after the nations discover countermeasures to neutralize the mind-control power that the tiny nation had on them.

[cardw]

In the NT they thought demons caused diseases. So even mental disease was seen as the work of a demon. In the OT they simply thought that god was responsible for both evil and good.

So demon possession is really a primitive explanation of natural events that can be traced from a cause and effect relationship.

I don't believe in a fallen nature because I haven't seen evidence for it. What I do see evidence for is people making poor decisions because of fear and bad information.

When people grow past the normal narcissistic stage of being a teen and develop empathy and a sense of who they are I have noticed that people become much more generous. There is a natural awareness of what brings true meaning to one's life.

What I have noticed about the Christian religion is that it teaches people shame. One of the results of shame is a focus on self. Instead of focusing on how one is great the focus is on how sinful one is. It is still narcissism because the focus is on self. And yet this focus on one's sinful self is considered a virtue within the practice of Christianity.

I see way too many very religious people acting out of fear and shame. Demons are simply another manifestation of fear because there is no rhyme or reason for possession. In the Christian mind and apparently within this discussion it is totally unpredictable because it can happen to innocent children and adults for no apparent reason. Where is the power of god in all of this?

It is simply another indication that there is no god power out there looking out for us. When I see people recover it's because THEY do the work. They have the courage to face their own humanity and stop lying to themselves and others. They have to courage to face their fears and tell the truth to themselves.

I see people all the time break through these self imposed prisons without using a belief in god or religion. The ability to shift is within all of us simply through the vehicle of telling the truth.

If I were to use the metaphor of demons I would say that demons only have power if you believe a lie. And one of the biggest woppers is that you are born evil.

[ChildofChrist]

To say that 'science' can not prove nor disprove that the dark angels do not plant thoughts in our minds is nearly like saying the world is flat.

It would stand to reason that there is another level of conciousness or demensions that we are unable examine, to prode and investigate due to lack of means/equipment that does not mean that it doesn't exist. Our senses are able to 'feel' that there might be something there...we just can't see because out eyes have been clouded or there is a veil provided so we are spared the experience.

Dogs hear whistles and elephants talk over distance and without aid...we would never know that such things might even occur. So...is it not possible that the evil ones are able to drop thoughts into our minds and we perceive them as our own? IMO, that makes them even more dangerous. Like someone mentioned earlier, humans can think up enough horrid things on their own.

[teresaq]

re post #376824

i think thats why its called "possession". we indulge the whisperings of either the good angels or the bad moment by moment til we are under the control of one or the other.

hence the term "demon possession". a person accepts the thoughts whispered by satan and rejects any deliverance until s/he is completely controlled by him at will. sometimes, they will then accept deliverance, and sometimes they reject til their death.

it makes sense to me, because i think we need to remember that we are not on a "free" planet. we are in a "war zone" where both are fighting a live or die battle over each one of us.

i have often wondered where "me" was in all of this...im thinking i wont know til i see heaven...if i continue to surrender/submit to God as He convicts me in my studies of the bible/sop.

[skyblue888]

It was the same with Jesus. He was kept by the power of God through faith and the statement quoted above is exactly what He experienced.

So even though we are surrounded by corruption, the enemy can tempt us with evil thoughts but if we abide in Christ and the love of God dwells in our hearts, we are made more than conquerors. (See Rom.5:5)

So God has made it possible for us to overcome as Jesus did.

If we do not believe this, it will never happen but if we do, the Lord says to us, Be it done unto you according to your faith!

All who come to God just as they are, sinful, helpless, dependent, trusting wholly in the merits of a crucified and risen Saviour for their salvation are made to abide in Christ and Him in them according to the commandment and they are kept by the power of God (Holy Spirit) which is ready to be revealed in the last time. (SeeJohn 15:4; 1 Peter 1:5)

sky :)

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

I don't believe demons or Satan can put thoughts into our heads. They can manipulate the circumstances and environment that people find themselves in, but people are always free to choose what they will do. Satan knows the weaknesses of everyone and will *work* on those in as many ways and forms as he can.

[Gail]

Warning- If the quotes are not removed I can pretty much predict that either they or the post will be removed by the moderator.

You betcha...

Done... and done... and done! - TW

[skyblue888]

Honestly though, Gail, I was under the impression that the two first threads, which are now locked, were the place to share what is called "orignal thoughts" but now I see that this whole section is only interested in "original thoughts."

sorry I will remove my posts then if i can, the ones I can.

sky

[Gail]

No problem, sky! It took us a couple tries to get it right, too!

[skyblue888]

Oh okay, thanks Gail. Somehow that makes feel better! hehe

[Tom Wetmore]

sky,

I took care of it for you.

If there is a Bible text or passage from a favorite author, give us the reference or summarize the thought of it briefly in your own words to make your own point.

I have actually found the exercise of paraphrasing a quote in my own words actually helps me understand it better. It tends to force me to actually think the idea through more carefully in order to express the idea in other words.

OK

Tom

As moderator

[cardw]

I think what sounds looney is the consideration that other beings are doing this whispering thing without any evidence that it would be other beings.

I think we can recognize that we have a subconscious that filters a lot of sensory input and summarizes it for our conscious mind. The weakness of the conscious mind is that it can only pay attention to one thing at a time, while the subconscious processes things in parallel.

There is an interesting physical model of the universe that is being explored that sees the world as being holographic in nature. The unique property of a hologram is that it can be sliced in half and you still have the whole hologram. If this is true of reality then all the information that makes up reality is redundantly available locally for the conscious mind to access.

We simply can't process all that information at the same time, so the conscious mind passes this through our perception in a linear fashion so that we experience life as if time is passing.

One of the goals of many types of meditation is not to check out, but to find a state where the chatter of fear stops and we can have our whole attention available to listen more closely and thereby become more conscious. This idea that the devil is just around every corner waiting to enter into our minds is simply another fear that can become a major distraction for some people.

There are a number of studies of people who master their art and professions. The thing they generally have in common is the ability to focus all their attention on their art.

When we study what it means to be loved the idea of attention is very important. The two things that define love for most people is being seen and being heard. If one is engaged in the fear based focus on Satan being on the prowl the ability to love is severely hampered and the focus is on oneself.

This is why any belief system that focuses on fears tends to be self centered and reduces a person's ability to love and empathize. Fear also tends to keep a person immature.

In community, when people can really hear and see each other deep bonds form and life feels like it is meaningful. This provides the foundation for joy our most sublime experience. Fear destroys all of this and most times fear is based on illusions.

So if there is a Satan I would say it is simply fear.

[Tom Wetmore]

That sort of confirms the framing of the great cosmic battle of God vs. Satan if God = love and perfect love casting out fear. In the end love wins. Fear loses the battle for the hearts and minds of the people. What's that song that really was inadvertently a deep spiritual/ philosophical truth - The Power of Love...

[cardw]

I was thinking along those lines as well.

I think humans are afraid of the unknown so we tend to anthropomorphize these powerful influences on our experience.

In a way we project ourselves onto our gods so we can make the unknown more predictable. I think that is why god looks so much like an iron age ruler in the Bible because the Bible writers are projecting humanity onto their god.

I think Carl Jung describes this well as our tendency to draw on archetypes to help explain the great collective consciousness. Joseph Campbell does a great job of tracing these archetypes among different religions and traditions in his books on mythology.