@qon, falconer02 and falcon9,
Based on your recent replies to this thread, it seems as though none of you can tell the difference between "God and His Heavenly Angels" and "Satan and the fallen angels". (from falcon9's quote "these spirits not those spirits"...).
From the content of your reply, I'm going to have to infer that you misunderstood the full intent of that "spirits" remark. If there are such "spirits", (and I'm not contending that there are since that's your position), dividing them up into "good or bad"/"malevolent or benevolent" is largely arbitrarily-dependent upon either preconceived notions or, 'learned' ones. The comparison between being being "possessed by the 'holy' spirit" and being "possessed by a demon" regards both as alleged "spirit possessions", (the former being generally approved of by most xtians and the latter, not so much).
I don't think I've ever heard of anyone claiming to be "possessed by the 'holy' spirit" before. They can receive the gift of the holy spirit or be filled with the holy spirit. At any rate, of those that have been filled with the Holy Spirit-
Same packaging, different labels on the packages. Regardless, being "filled with the 'holy spirit'" is precisely like "possession by an evil" one. Some would contend that that "holy spirit" isn't so "holy" after all and is just another hypothesized "spirit" going around possessing
far more hapless victims than so-called "demonic" ones are.
I've never heard anyone complain about it, they are quite joyful about it and can manage to function like a normal human being...believe it or not.
Oh, they may put on sort of a convincing facade or 'normality' however, a seething froth of irrationality often awaits just below the surface of such an outer facade. Of course, that's not exclusive to xtians either.
For a child to own a Carebear probably isn't going to send them to hell...right away. Let the child build their imagination and entertainment around satanic influences. Let them grow to their teens and continue to build their imagination on satanic musical lyrics, role-playing and drugs.
Simply designating "Carebears", unspecified music and roleplaying games as "satanic" doesn't confer satanism upon them. Is there substantive evidence or, merely unsupported opinion for these claims?
Seriously? The voo-doo origins of the CareBears can be found using your search bar.
I mentioned 'substantive evidence', not speculation based upon religious bias, (which never, ever qualifies as
substantive evidence).
The instances mentioned in previous posts of "friending friendly spirits" has nothing to do with making friends with "angels". Having spirit guides, spirit "friends" are popular with New Age and one can also find the difference between New Age and Chrisitanity by using their search bar.
Conversely, a 'net search reveals a substantial amount of referential
similarities between xtianity and "new age" stuff, (beyond some overt differences between new age polytheism and old age xtian monotheism, even after judaism stole the one g-d concept from the pre-existing Aegyptian concept of "Ra").
But when role-playing starts screwing up a kids mind, when the kid no longer can distinguish between the real world and their role-playing character and "fantasyland" and thy need psychiatric help, that should surely be a sign that that particular role-playing is not a good thing.
If so, then such xtian role-playing games extant should be avoided and condemned for the
exactly the same "reasons":
http://www.ehow.com/list_5910351_christian-computer-role_playing-games.htmlWhat starts out innocent enough has the capacity to end badly ...
If you mean that indoctrinating "innocent" children with religious proselytizing has the potential to end badly, I agree. If I can realize that wasn't your intent, you can realize what my intent there was, (if not, we could argue that religious fundamentalism being instilled at any age has just as much potential to end badly, no matter what that religion is - xtianity or satanism ... yes 'Virginia', satanism is a religion).
No that wasn't my intent and yes,I understand your intent. However, Christians are "stewards" and responsible for all things given to them...including their children. A Christian parent can only teach their children about God, at some point that child has to determine for themself to accept Jesus, or reject.
How is a young child, just learning to develop their reasoning abilities and heavily-influenced by such parental authority as
imposes religious indoctrination upon their impressionable young minds,
not being propagandized by any early religious proselytization?
For fun, you each should take a piece of paper and write "GOD" at the top. Use your search bar and write down as many Biblical qualities you can find about God. Then write "satan" at the top of a second column and since satan is God's opposition ("opposite") write down the opposite of God's qualities under satan's column.
That's not exactly my idea of "fun" however, comparing the arbitrary attributions of hypothetical entities serves as much purpose as comparing "Zeus & Hades", "Horus & Set", "Ahriman & Ahura Mazda" and so on.
Oh, well...I thought that perhaps since you probably had a "CareBear" in your youth and had all that "imagination" working at full speed, that you have no problem getting a little "creative".
Nope, I was active duty military in 1981, (when "carebears" were put on the market), and well beyond that degree of "youth". Back to the moot parallels; you did catch the part about comparing biased attributes of different supernatural entities from different cultures, nyet?
You know, I really do not "enjoy" discussing matters of God with you, qon or falconer02 because I know it is a subject of easy ridicule.
If such occurs, it has regarded the unsupported
religious beliefs themselves and not necessarily the "believer". I've tried, with limited success, to draw this distinction before. A
'believer' is
not their
"belief", (even in such instances of extreme fundamentalism, a "believer" is one who "believes" something and this inherently separates a belief from believer).
What I hate worse though, what bothers me more is to read many of the posts (by all three of you)and see just how badly deceived by satan you all are.
Say what? If someone does not believe in the concept of "satan", (a disbelief), how can something someone
else 'believes' be applicable
outside of the believer's belief system? That not only seems presumptuous, it
Is presumptuous since "satanism" is largely 'inverted' xtianity.
I'm not saying that to be "mean" because it is heartbreaking to me. I like you guys, I want better for you.
Okay however, this isn't an open-ended 'license' to proselytize. Sure, you can still do it but, it's unlikely to go over well.