Demons, is there any evidence they even exist?

[SkepticThinker]

Decadence and debauchery is - desserts, as in unhealthy and unnecessary foods, which when indulging in them often lead to gluttony or obesity, etc
But, the point is man's bad judgement - we live in a n oversize me culture - no one asks for a double serving of carrot sticks or broccoli.
Cigarettes serve no purpose but decay, and yet, it's one of the most coveted commodities in the world, as is alcohol, etc...

Point is, McDonald's sells to billions each year, as do other foods that are no good for us (desserts) - despite man's prevalent health issues.

All this to say that man is fighting demons in his life continuously, and the demons are winning.

Okay, so you're talking about metaphorical demons .... ?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Take your blinders off, and open your ears.

They're off and open. Where is your evidence already?

 

[SkepticThinker]

I'm on this forum, aren't I?

Aw shucks, ain't you sweet.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I've been a member for over a year, and to be honest, the only humans on this forum that I regard as unpleasant in nature are a few pompous Christians.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I'm on this forum, aren't I?

For crying out loud ST, a demon by definition is an incorporeal being - what are you trying to quantify or circumscribe?
The evidence that I offered is demonic in nature - man's malevolence.

Didn't you like, just say that demons are tangible? Make up your mind.

 

[Trailblazer]

There is zero reason to add undemonstrable, unverifiable and / or unfalsifiable entities to explain human atrocities.

The devil made me do it is just an excuse, a way to abdicate personal responsibility.
There is no devil, only people who are evil.

 

[DNB]

It seems to me that you're the one who's being confused concerning the source.

There is zero reason to add undemonstrable, unverifiable and / or unfalsifiable entities to explain human atrocities.
Just like there is no reason to add such to explain the opposite human behavior.

You can't explain it otherwise - why would someone drink so much until they lose their health, their job, their wife, their family, and then their life?
You cannot keep ascribing this prevalent and antithetical phenomenon to an out-of-character indiscretion.

 

[DNB]

So by definition, an invented definition.
It must be, since the thing you are describing could never be observed and / or studied.
So how could you possibly know that it is real, first of all, and what its properties, attributes and behavior are like?



I don't know. That's just it with these unfalsifiable undetectable beings... there's no way to distinguish them from things that don't exist.
It's not our fault that you present unfalsifiable claims which can't have any evidence by definition.

All we can do is point it out and how such claims are potentially infinite in number. All you can do with an unfalsifiable claim is raise an eyebrow, shrug and walk away.



No. Those are the facts that you are trying to explain with "demonic" stuff.
They aren't evidence of demonic stuff any more then rainbows are evidence of leprechauns hiding pots of gold at their base.

There's demons all around us, the world is evil, and you, for the life of yourself, wouldn't know a righteous act from one of pure, unmitigated evil.
You close your eyes and ignore what truly compels man to act in the manner that he does. For you, wicked perversions are not evil, but rather just a malfunction in one's wiring, either temporal or permanent.

 

[DNB]

That is the utopian picture. Real man is an evolved creature with emotions and at bottom has a tribalistic psych, which is beneficial for the group (s)he belongs to but will lead to conflict with other groups and / or act as a feeding ground for intolerance to certain other groups.

We rise above tribalism by continuously expanding the group we belong to ourselves, although there will always be sub-groups (social circles, family, ...) where the same primitive, almost instinctive, behavior will be triggered also at times.



That is really not the case.
In fact proportionally, in other social species, we see the exact same type of "social" stuff going on. Individuals trying to trick the group for their own benefit, the group punishing those individuals when caught, competition with other groups, protection of territory / hunting grounds (leading to conflict with other groups), hierarchy / mutiny / power struggles,...

Wolves, chimps, gorilla's,... all of them are faced with the same kind of social dilemma's as humans. "Me and / vs the group" as well as "the group and / vs other groups".



I already told you.
Pride, passion, power hunger, intolerance, hate, greed,...

These are all things that underpin the atrocities of the past, the present and, unfortunately, the future.

Humans have the capacity of rational reasoning, yes.
And they are very good at using rational reasoning to find out how stuff works.
However, humans are NOT very good actually using it on a daily basis.
Most of the time, humans don't use it at all (or very limited or just wrong) and they act emotionally instead.

Proper rational reasoning is actually quite hard. You have to be able to keep your emotions and your a priori beliefs out of it.
Humans have tough time in doing that.

Then there's also narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths who's brains are "miss-wired" and who literally aren't capable of empathic reasoning etc.

Again, there is no need to introduce any kind of undetectable, unfalsifiable, undemonstrable, unverifiable "force" here to explain immoral conduct.
No need at all. Humans are emotional social animals who, despite excellent capacity of rational reasoning, acts emotionally most of the time. Who is subject to evolutionary instinctive psychology like tribalism and the constant balance between what is good for you vs what is good for the group.

This is why I always add "and unfortunately the future".
Because considering the psychological profile of your average human, bad decisions are inevitable.

We are not evolving - there is still irrational racism, unprovoked violence, misguided ostentation, intolerable sex-trade trafficking, decadent drug-abuse, apathetic crimes and violence, etc. And, these are, and have been, committed continuously on a daily, weekly, yearly, millennial basis.
There's no justification to these acts, no extenuating reasons, and no ascription to a physical or chemical deformity - these are spiritually derived phenomena, prevalent in every human (to different degrees), from the beginning of history.

Non-humans are not spiritual creatures - they have no bearing on this argument. Man has a conscience, and has spent centuries in analyzing, articulating and documenting the virtues and inconsequence of righteousness and morality, and the inherently subversive and depraved aspects of iniquity and injustice.
Man is clearly a spiritual creature, and there are spiritual forces acting upon him continuously.

 

[DNB]

Okay, so you're talking about metaphorical demons .... ?

No, metaphorical demons would be a figment of one's imagination. The forces are real, causing conflict within a man's heart and mind - always leading to regret and consequence. This is not a dream.

 

[Trailblazer]

You can't explain it otherwise - why would someone drink so much until they lose their health, their job, their wife, their family, and then their life?

Because they choose to do those things. I don't know what the Bible says about drinking but drinking alcohol is prohibited in the Baha'i Faith.

 

[DNB]

The devil made me do it is just an excuse, a way to abdicate personal responsibility.
There is no devil, only people who are evil.

No one's making excuses - we chose who we obey, and this is where the responsibility lies. There will be no mercy to those who, for one, refuse to acknowledge God's power, wisdom and holiness. And two, for those who embrace the utter depravity and wickedness of God's adversary.
Man has free will, and God has offered everyone the choice of good and evil, and life and death.

My efforts on this thread is not to mitigate on man's behalf, but for all of us to acknowledge that we are slaves and advocates to whom we obey. We should be repulsed by this notion: that when we sin, we are paying honour to the most depraved and malevolent creature on the planet. And woe to them who refuse to resist and denounce the devil.

 

[Trailblazer]

No, metaphorical demons would be a figment of one's imagination. The forces are real, causing conflict within a man's heart and mind - always leading to regret and consequence. This is not a dream.

Man has two natures, a higher spiritual nature and a lower material nature. Those forces are man's lower material nature, the evil ego within that he always has to fight against. It is not an evil entity outside of man. In the following verse, Jesus was taking to His lower material nature which He was struggling to ward off. Jesus was not talking to an evil entity called Satan.

Matthew 16:23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

In Verse 23, the things that are not of God, but are rather of men, are the things that cause us to sin, our selfish desires (things of the flesh which men savor), such as sex and alcohol.

Then in verse 24 Jesus said to His disciples to deny their selfish desires and instead follow Him.

Matthew 16:24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

 

[Trailblazer]

No one's making excuses - we chose who we obey, and this is where the responsibility lies. There will be no mercy to those who, for one, refuse to acknowledge God's power, wisdom and holiness. And two, for those who embrace the utter depravity and wickedness of God's adversary.
Man has free will, and God has offered everyone the choice of good and evil, and life and death.

My efforts on this thread is not to mitigate on man's behalf, but for all of us to acknowledge that we are slaves and advocates to whom we obey. We should be repulsed by this notion: that when we sin, we are paying honour to the most depraved and malevolent creature on the planet. And woe to them who refuse to resist and denounce the devil.

I agree with you about sin and obeying God being our responsibility but I do not believe the devil has any objective existence, so I don't believe that there is anything to resist except our own lower selfish depraved nature. I just explained what I believe about that above this post.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You can't explain it otherwise

First, that is a blatant argument from ignorance. A logical fallacy.

Second, I DID explain it otherwise. Multiple times now.



Your handwaving notwithstanding.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

There's demons all around us,

So you keep claiming. But you can't manage to tell us how to distinguish a real "demon" from an imaginary one.

the world is evil, and you, for the life of yourself, wouldn't know a righteous act from one of pure, unmitigated evil.

I'm going to consider this one an attempt at insult.

You close your eyes and ignore what truly compels man to act in the manner that he does.

Says the guy who completely ignores aspects of the human psych like anger, hate, passion, intolerance, division, tribalism,.....................

For you, wicked perversions are not evil, but rather just a malfunction in one's wiring, either temporal or permanent.

No, that's just your strawman and inability to comprehend simple ideas that don't agree with your magical thinking.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

We are not evolving - there is still irrational racism, unprovoked violence, misguided ostentation, intolerable sex-trade trafficking, decadent drug-abuse, apathetic crimes and violence, etc.

Gratz, you completely missed (or ignored...) the points I made.
It's like talking to a wall.

And, these are, and have been, committed continuously on a daily, weekly, yearly, millennial basis.
There's no justification to these acts, no extenuating reasons, and no ascription to a physical or chemical deformity - these are spiritually derived phenomena, prevalent in every human (to different degrees), from the beginning of history.

Non-humans are not spiritual creatures - they have no bearing on this argument. Man has a conscience, and has spent centuries in analyzing, articulating and documenting the virtues and inconsequence of righteousness and morality, and the inherently subversive and depraved aspects of iniquity and injustice.
Man is clearly a spiritual creature, and there are spiritual forces acting upon him continuously.

And those "spiritual forces" are man's own psych.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I'm on this forum, aren't I?

For crying out loud ST, a demon by definition is an incorporeal being - what are you trying to quantify or circumscribe?
The evidence that I offered is demonic in nature - man's malevolence.

Which is it? Tangible or incorporeal? You're claiming both. If it is tangible, show me the evidence and not ice cream or donuts. If it isn't how can you show anyone anything?

 

[SkepticThinker]

You can't explain it otherwise - why would someone drink so much until they lose their health, their job, their wife, their family, and then their life?
You cannot keep ascribing this prevalent and antithetical phenomenon to an out-of-character indiscretion.

First of all, "you can't explain it otherwise" isn't an argument for anything. It's just a logical fallacy.

Secondly, we actually do have explanations for why people have addictions, how those addictions are triggered and reinforced, the brain chemistry involved, etc., etc. There's an entire field of study dedicated to it. None of those explanations include "demons" because they simply aren't necessary.

 

[SkepticThinker]

There's demons all around us, the world is evil, and you, for the life of yourself, wouldn't know a righteous act from one of pure, unmitigated evil.
You close your eyes and ignore what truly compels man to act in the manner that he does. For you, wicked perversions are not evil, but rather just a malfunction in one's wiring, either temporal or permanent.

More claims (and judgment), still no evidence.