OK what do we think about ghosts?

artybloke · #21 19th September 2011, 06:43 AM

Originally Posted by Matariki

Who was Jesus speaking to when he encountered the possessed?

Jesus lived in a time when people believed that mental illness was demon possession. So he was speaking to the mentally ill person in the language both they and he would have understood.

artybloke · #22 19th September 2011, 06:45 AM

Yes, and something came out of the tombs when the veil of the temple was split.

Poetic description does not count as evidence of the supernatural.

Amber the Duskbringer · #23 19th September 2011, 06:50 AM

So if we are going to discount it as mental illness, would that also discount the witnessing of angels too? Or other paranormal phenomena in the bible?

artybloke · #24 19th September 2011, 07:01 AM

Why should we accept something as factual just because it's in the Bible?

Amber the Duskbringer · #25 19th September 2011, 07:04 AM

I am just going under the assumption most here would believe just that

However I am not calling ya out personally, just askin a question to keep this thread alive ^__^

Matariki · #26 19th September 2011, 07:39 AM

Originally Posted by artybloke

Jesus lived in a time when people believed that mental illness was demon possession. So he was speaking to the mentally ill person in the language both they and he would have understood.

If believe that Jesus was more than capable of telling the differences between the demonically possessed and the mentally ill.

Mark 5:1-20
Jesus Heals a Man with a Demon

They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. And crying out with a loud voice, he said, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me." For he was saying to him, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!" And Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" He replied, "My name is Legion, for we are many." And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him, saying, "Send us to the pigs; let us enter them." So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out, and entered the pigs, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and were drowned in the sea. The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. And he did not permit him but said to him, "Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.

I don't know about you, but from reading this it doesn't sound like a case of multiple personality disorder or schizophrenia. In cases of demon possession, individuals were given attributes not natural to their being, the bible is clear to mention that.

artybloke · #27 20th September 2011, 05:32 AM

I don't know about you, but from reading this it doesn't sound like a case of multiple personality disorder or schizophrenia.

Well it wouldn't, would it? The account in Mark was written 30 years at least after any possible event that it might refer to, if indeed it was an event rather than a legend that Mark picked up on.

woodpecker · #28 22nd September 2011, 09:24 AM

there are many people who have witnessed demonic activity,and had more than one witness, were they all mentally ill?

The supernatural is very real, if you believe in Jesus, you believe in the supernatural, or are all Christians mentally ill?

My grandfather came to me in my dream, I was mourning the death of my grandparents, it was so real, ...my grandfather told me to rejoice, be happy for he and my grandmother were extremely happy.

My father in-law had a visit from his aunt after her death, who raised him, saying the same.

artybloke · #29 22nd September 2011, 09:30 AM

there are many people who have witnessed demonic activity,and had more than one witness, were they all mentally ill?

No, they saw what they're religion programmed them to see.

artybloke · #30 22nd September 2011, 09:47 AM

And believing in the possibility of the supernatural shouldn't give you the license to believe in any old crock that passes itself off as - whoooo! supernatural! ghostly!!!