Jesse Galef does ask an extremely valid question: “…how would you know the voice in your head is God and not a tricky demon?”

I’ll take that question one step further based on your original post here and ask: If you abdicate all reason to faith alone, how do you protect yourself from faulty belief and superstition?

But it’s most important just to write, and to write, and to write some more. And then edit. And then write.

It’s also important to read, and to read, and to read some more, too. Even if you are sticking strictly to prose, I highly recommend reading poetry. A good starting place is: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/

Did I already mention the writing part?

Why tie belief in demons in any way to belief in God?

It is amazing what people will and can do when they are afraid — and when extreme fear penetrates their lives, they don’t think rationally. For example, because of this fear, a parent really can believe that their own flesh-and-blood child is a witch and actually justify their own child’s torture.

Another example is the Voodoo death curse. It is not a witch’s curse in and of itself that kills a person, it is the belief that the witch’s curse will kill them. Because they can’t run or hide from it, they essentially die of adrenaline poisoning. Is the curse real or imaginary? It is absolutely, deadly real to the person who believes.

And it is the fundamental nature of this belief in the boogyman that means it can’t be disproved — because it is a belief without reason (dare I say a belief of faith only, a blind faith) that encourages or outright demands a physical kill-or-be-killed mentality.

You may feel I asked ineloquently before, but how *would* you protect yourself from such superstition? Put yourself in the place of an accused witch who is said to cavort with demons and the Devil himself. If the community belief in the supernatural trumps all reason, then you have no recourse.

And this is precisely the attitude you are presenting in your post. Boil it down to: the Devil may use your mind against you, so don’t use your mind; especially since faith is more important than reason anyway.

This abject refusal to embrace the natural world and instead insist on supernatural answers even when presented with evidence is offensive. I mean really. I know it is the fad in American Christianity today to tie the acceptance/rejection of science into some litmus test of God belief…but what cheap arguments! And then to imply that a belief in God is related to a belief in demons, witches, aliens, ghosts…how can any rational adult take this seriously?

It denigrates belief in God by binding such belief to ignorance and superstition. And it denigrates God further by insisting the natural world should somehow prove such existence and by fearing the natural world could disprove it.

To use the words of my grandparents — God gave you a brain, don’t be afraid to use it.

You can say to your son/daughter “Hey kid! I raised you, I loved you… I fed you for 18 years… now you love and respect me and know I’m your father”.

Being a father, all you want is for your son/daughter to love and respect you. You put so much of your time and your emotions into that little person, that his/her love makes all it more than worth all of your effort.

If life, was living with the need faith (no God, no choice; everything was given to you) then the kid would LOVE you, not by choice, but just because he was told and he knew he had to, so he does. But so does everyone.

It means nothing to you, you don’t care if someone loves if they are told to love you! I want to be loved because they truly choose to love me! It has to be choice! If it’s not a choice, it means nothing!
——

God loves everyone. He really does, if you believe anything in the Bible, you know we are his children. All He wants, more than anything in the world is for us to love him and acknowledge him. We have to choose Him. Choose to love Him. If He gives us proof, if he says here is your scientific proof that I am who I say I am, I am father God, creator of Heaven and the Earth. There is no reason, no nothing for you to have to ever doubt, then He is getting rid of our choice.

Like me, He’s a father; He doesn’t want to force us to love Him.

And I’m on no witch hunts. I’m not out to kill anyone and don’t think anybody else is justified in doing so.

I was simply saying that what some call easily explainable others see as supernatural. The only difference between the two is it’s easier for you to believe in the former because the latter is much more difficult.

Also, this is not my whole argument for God. I really don’t feel a need to argue for God. I’m just sharing my thoughts on things and never claimed to think that my answer is the only answer or even the best answer. It’s just what it is….the sharing of thoughts.

That said, I do appreciate your taking the time to comment.

But attributing such experiences to ghosts, demons, witches, aliens, or whatnot does not make it so. And such superstitious thinking does not always stay in the benign world of spine-tingling stories — it can lead to tragic results that are all too real. I point to the Salem witch trials and the fates of the “witch children” of Africa today as two disastrous examples.
http://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/drugged-salem-witchtrial2.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/18/african-children-denounce_n_324943.html
Don’t be so arrogant to think you would be immune to these situations given the right environment. (How would you prove your innocence?)

But I’m also struck by the unbelievably poor argument you’ve made here — to base your belief in God on a belief in demons or conversely, to base your belief in demons on your belief in God. How degrading.

Tried emailing you despite being pretty certain “camera@video.com” wasn’t a real email address. Since I haven’t heard back from you, I’m going to just assume I was right, and reply here.

My email, below:

Do you really need someone to explain to you the difference between heterosexual sex and homosexual sex? Or are you just trying to put me down with a condescending question?

Bart, if you need an in-depth explanation, feel free to email me. From a real email address. To which I may respond. Thank you.

I do. That was my point of writing it. A historical Yeshua may have existed, but not necessarily resemble the Biblical Jesus in anything other than name and profession.

“but what’s your reason for not believing the Bible to be historically accurate?”

The Bible is accurate about some things. However, when there is the combination of the Bible making a claim significantly after it was supposed to have taken place, and there being no physical or contemporary claims to back it up, that claim must be taken with a MASSIVE grain of salt.

From all I’ve read, the Gospels in particular were written years after Jesus was supposed to have died. That calls into question his existence.

As far as the supernatural claims, written testimony is just not good enough to confirm them. Nowadays we realize that anecdotes, even first-hand, aren’t good evidence. Just look at people who claim to have been abducted by aliens.

“It’s also very likely that much evidence we’d consider reliable today was likely destroyed by the fires of around 70 A.D.”

We can’t base beliefs on something that may have or may not have existed.

“there still exists plenty of evidence of Christ’s existence.”

Unless you’re going to come up with something that no other Christian has yet presented, I doubt it.

Also, is the Bible not history? I know you want to qualify the answer as beyond the Bible, but what’s your reason for not believing the Bible to be historically accurate?

It’s also very likely that much evidence we’d consider reliable today was likely destroyed by the fires of around 70 A.D., when the Romans invaded Israel and destroyed much of Jerusalem.

Even so, there still exists plenty of evidence of Christ’s existence. I’ll address it in a future post for you.

Really? Where? Because I’ve never had it presented to me.

To be clear, when we say ‘his’ we mean the Jesus of the Bible…supernatural miracle-making Jesus.

There’s a little bit of evidence to support an itinerant preacher named Yeshua who was put to death. But no contemporary reports.

If the headline and story were “pastor convicted of child sex charges,” would I be angry? Certainly. But he hasn’t been convicted yet, so I’m not going to look at him like he’s actually done it.

It’s “Icky”, that’s the best you can do?

That might satisfy the average 9 year old, Adults expect more of a reason.