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Do Demons Exist?

As alleged in allegedly divine revelation.
 
Paleocon said:
Nice dodge.
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There was nothing to dodge. Anyone can say anything about what god says. Watch:

God told me that demons don't exist.

Now prove me wrong that god didn't tell me that.
 
Dezaad said:
There was nothing to dodge. Anyone can say anything about what god says. Watch:

God told me that demons don't exist.

Now prove me wrong that god didn't tell me that.
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http://www.debatepolitics.com/relig...8-christian-secularists-5.html#post1063196439

In the link, I proved that the Catholic Church is the true religion. The Catholic Church teaches that demons exist. Thus it is proven.

Jayhawker30 said:
Anybody who rolls a necromancer character class and invests their skill points into the Raise Undead ability.
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What on Earth are you talking about?
 
I don't particularly believe in the supernatural involving humans, but I did have a weird nightmare once. I was in this dark hotel room (creepy) and there was this pounding on the door, so I ran to answer it. When I started to try and unlock it, this tall dark figure in a black hooded cape smashed the door open with sheer force, then knocked me down to the floor. He was squatting on my waist as I lay on the floor, (big 6'8"?) and trying to rip my heart out thru my chest with one hand. In the middle of this, when I woke up, my chest literally hurt right where he was clawing. Someone told me, I was probably doing the clawing myself while having the nightmare, but when I woke my hands were by my side.

It seemed very real, and all I could think of is that he was definitely a demon.
 
Paleocon said:
Can any but God raise the dead?
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Doctors do it with defibrillators all the time. It takes several minutes of cardiac arrest (the most commonly accepted definition of death), for brain damage to occur, preventing revival. Just imagine what we'll be able to do in another century.
 
Dezaad said:
LOL!! Ummm, no you didn't. You think you did, but you didn't. There are criticisms of the attempts at the 'proofs' you employed, and they have yet to be satisfactorily addressed.
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Such as?

Paschendale said:
Doctors do it with defibrillators all the time. It takes several minutes of cardiac arrest (the most commonly accepted definition of death), for brain damage to occur, preventing revival. Just imagine what we'll be able to do in another century.
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Have any doctors raised the dead after days?
 
Yes, they're very real.

You'll see.
 
Answer: No, I don't believe in demons and angels, heaven and hell. I also have no idea of why there is the Earth with life on it. My ONLY explanation is that mankind has some kind of purpose to expand beyond the borders of Earth. The reason I believe that is if Earth had only plants and animals what then would be the purpose of creating those types of life forms? The film 2001 A Space Odyssey said something about our destiny at the very conclusion. We are suppose to do something but what it is can only be found in the future as we continue to explore this thing we call a "universe".
 
Paleocon said:
Such as?
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I probably don't have time for all the various objections, but we can do some of them.

Prime Mover: There is no reason why the prime mover must be a god. Aquinas says that nothing can move without being moved by something else and also contradicts himself to say that there must be a prime mover. (He recognizes that there must be something that can move without being moved, and calls it a prime mover.) He then postulates that this prime mover must be a god, but there is absolutely no reason the exception to his requirement must be a god. It might just as well be something else. In fact, it might be something less fantastical than a god.

This argument is simply another 'god in the gaps' argument. We don't know what might have set existence in motion, so it must be a god. We didn't know what caused the rain, so it must have been a rain god, until we discovered the hydrology cycle. Since other 'god in the gaps' arguments have failed when science discovered an heretofore unimaginable explanation, there is no reason to assume that Aquinas' 'god in the gaps' argument will be an exception to this. This 'proof' fails as an appeal to incredulity logical fallacy.
 
Dezaad said:
I probably don't have time for all the various objections, but we can do some of them.

Prime Mover: There is no reason why the prime mover must be a god. Aquinas says that nothing can move without being moved by something else and also contradicts himself to say that there must be a prime mover. (He recognizes that there must be something that can move without being moved, and calls it a prime mover.) He then postulates that this prime mover must be a god, but there is absolutely no reason the exception to his requirement must be a god. It might just as well be something else. In fact, it might be something less fantastical than a god.

This argument is simply another 'god in the gaps' argument. We don't know what might have set existence in motion, so it must be a god. We didn't know what caused the rain, so it must have been a rain god, until we discovered the hydrology cycle. Since other 'god in the gaps' arguments have failed when science discovered an heretofore unimaginable explanation, there is no reason to assume that Aquinas' 'god in the gaps' argument will be an exception to this. This 'proof' fails as an appeal to incredulity logical fallacy.
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First it shouldn't encores that when Aquinas and other medieval philosophers use the word motion, they mean what we would mean by change.

On the contrary, the point of the first mover is that he is unmoved, the unmoved mover. Now since going from non-existence to existence is a change, we know that this being must have always existed. Also, this being must have power over all other beings, since he put them in motion. Furthermore the being must be essentially unchanging. Now it's simply a matter of efficient terminology that we refer to an eternal unchanging being with power over the whole universe as "God".
 
Paleocon said:
First it shouldn't encores that when Aquinas and other medieval philosophers use the word motion, they mean what we would mean by change.

On the contrary, the point of the first mover is that he is unmoved, the unmoved mover. Now since going from non-existence to existence is a change, we know that this being must have always existed. Also, this being must have power over all other beings, since he put them in motion. Furthermore the being must be essentially unchanging. Now it's simply a matter of efficient terminology that we refer to an eternal unchanging being with power over the whole universe as "God".
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What the 'movement' happens to be is irrelevant. You have merely reiterated his argument, and my criticism still stands. You have no reason whatsoever to postulate that the unmoved mover is a being at all. As an aside, your unchanging being who initiates anything has changed to the extent that he has altered his beingness in order to initiate.
 
Do Demons Exist? Only if you're married to my Ex-Wife!
 
Paleocon said:
In the link, I proved that the Catholic Church is the true religion.
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In that discussion you claimed that the Catholic Church was the true religion based upon the "evidence" of alleged eyewitness testimony.

That fails on two points.

First, you have never proven that the alleged eyewitness testimony was not wholly a work of fiction.

Second, even if you were able to prove the first point, which you're not, it is a fact that eyewitness testimony is an especially unreliable form of evidence.

You'd need a whole hell of a lot more than what you've already provide to even begin approaching the point of proof.
 
Dezaad said:
What the 'movement' happens to be is irrelevant. You have merely reiterated his argument, and my criticism still stands. You have no reason whatsoever to postulate that the unmoved mover is a being at all. As an aside, your unchanging being who initiates anything has changed to the extent that he has altered his beingness in order to initiate.
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Your criticism was refuted.

Is there anything which does something other than a being?

Such does not require a change in his existence.

soot said:
In that discussion you claimed that the Catholic Church was the true religion based upon the "evidence" of alleged eyewitness testimony.

That fails on two points.

First, you have never proven that the alleged eyewitness testimony was not wholly a work of fiction.

Second, even if you were able to prove the first point, which you're not, it is a fact that eyewitness testimony is an especially unreliable form of evidence.

You'd need a whole hell of a lot more than what you've already provide to even begin approaching the point of proof.
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Are there any cases where ten people have all remained steadfast in a lie to the point of death, even though they all knew it to be a lie?

Eyewitness testimony is unreliable as regards specific details. Absent lying or hallucination, it cannot be wrong about clear matters such as whether or not an event happened.

If this level of evidence is not proof, then we need to overturn every criminal conviction ever rendered.
 
Paleocon said:
Your criticism was refuted.

Is there anything which does something other than a being?

Such does not require a change in his existence.
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You cannot refute a criticism by merely reiterating the argument that was criticized. You have not refuted anything.

There may be things that 'do' things other than beings. You do not know that 'all things that are causes are things that are beings'. You have assumed this. There may be things that are not beings that are eternal and capable of causing other things.

You have also assumed a 'prime mover'. Infinite regression is not an impossibility, you have assumed that it is.
 
Dezaad said:
You cannot refute a criticism by merely reiterating the argument that was criticized. You have not refuted anything.

There may be things that 'do' things other than beings. You do not know that 'all things that are causes are things that are beings'. You have assumed this. There may be things that are not beings that are eternal and capable of causing other things.

You have also assumed a 'prime mover'. Infinite regression is not an impossibility, you have assumed that it is.
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I did, as can be plainly seen.

An example?

Countable infinities do not exist in reality. For time to have existed forever, would have required a countable infinity of whatever unit of time you wish to use.
 
Paleocon said:
Are there any cases where ten people have all remained steadfast in a lie to the point of death, even though they all knew it to be a lie?
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Certainly.

It happens all the time.

Think of Dutch and German civilians hiding Jews in attics/basements during WWII.

We've all read The Diary of Anne Frank and that's just a single example.

Likewise, think of Afghan non-combatants defying al Qaeda/Taliban "insurgents" in the act of aiding Coalition forces.

There are literally too many different types of instances where groups of people lie under threat of death to name them all.

Eyewitness testimony is unreliable as regards specific details. Absent lying or hallucination, it cannot be wrong about clear matters such as whether or not an event happened.
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That's not true.

Group hallucinations happen, though they're not very well studies.

A more likely explanation would be the coercive forces of group dynamics. If sufficient pressure to conform to a group exists it’s entirely possible for a group of people to legitimately believe the are experiencing a non-real experience.

An even more likely explanation would be a confluence of the above two factors.

If this level of evidence is not proof, then we need to overturn every criminal conviction ever rendered.
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Many have been for just such reasons.

I also note that you failed to defend against the possibility that some or all of this stuff was just made up - purely fictional.

Likewise, you fail to account for the fact that the Canon literature was specifically chosen because it supports a given message. For every Canonical document that supports the Christian party line there may very well have been dozens or hundreds that were weeded because they contradicted it either directly or obliquely.

There may very well have existed at one time personal, eyewitness, accounts of observers who said, "That Resurrection stuff? Yeah, that was all made up. I was in the meeting where the Disciples came up with the plan to claim Jesus was resurrected and they spent hours talking it over and all getting themselves on the same page so their story would hold up under scrutiny".

I'm not saying that any such thing did happen, just suggesting that it is certainly possible that it did.

And look, I'm not saying you're wrong here about any of this.

I'm agnostic, so you won't catch me arguing that the things the Bible claimed happened just straight out could never happen.

But neither you, nor anyone else, has ever proven beyond any reasonable doubt that such occurrences absolutely did happen.
 
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soot said:
Certainly.

It happens all the time.

Think of Dutch and German civilians hiding Jews in attics/basements during WWII.

We've all read The Diary of Anne Frank and that's just a single example.

Likewise, think of Afghan non-combatants defying al Qaeda/Taliban "insurgents" in the act of aiding Coalition forces.

There are literally too many different types of instances where groups of people lie under threat of death to name them all.



That's not true.

Group hallucinations happen, though they're not very well studies.

A more likely explanation would be the coercive forces of group dynamics. If sufficient pressure to conform to a group exists it’s entirely possible for a group of people to legitimately believe the are experiencing a non-real experience.

An even more likely explanation would be a confluence of the above two factors.



Many have been for just such reasons.

I also note that you failed to defend against the possibility that some or all of this stuff was just made up - purely fictional.

Likewise, you fail to account for the fact that the Canon literature was specifically chosen because it supports a given message. For every Canonical document that supports the Christian party line there may very well have been dozens or hundreds that were weeded because they contradicted it either directly or obliquely.

There may very well have existed at one time personal, eyewitness, accounts of observers who said, "That Resurrection stuff? Yeah, that was all made up. I was in the meeting where the Disciples came up with the plan to claim Jesus was resurrected and they spent hours talking it over and all getting themselves on the same page so their story would hold up under scrutiny".

I'm not saying that any such thing did happen, just suggesting that it is certainly possible that it did.

And look, I'm not saying you're wrong here about any of this.

I'm agnostic, so you won't catch me arguing that the things the Bible claimed happened just straight out could never happen.

But neither you, nor anyone else, has ever proven beyond any reasonable doubt that such occurrences absolutely did happen.
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Surely you're not so intellectually dishonest as to actually think that people dying to conceal information is the same as people dying to persuade another person that they're beliefs are wrong.

Are there any instances where ten people died to persuade another that their belief was true, even when they knew it to be false?

Examples?

Purported pieces of scripture were dismissed because they were fraudulently authored.

And George Bush could be a reptilian shape shifting alien who feasts on the blood of humans and who is involved is an Illuminati pedophile ring (yes there are people who actually believe that). These baseless speculations are just that, speculations, unless there is some evidence to back them up.

Please prove that the civil war happened, and I'll show you the problem with your concept of proof.
 
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