What Are Demons?

What are demons? Scorned women!! :thumbs:

 

Willis, Willis....

....you may be hearing from some women, scorned and not! :laugh:

 

Do you have any Scripture to prove that demons are the souls of dead men?

 

Glad You Asked....

....while I'm certainly not an authority on this subject matter, I will list some references that I have come across that have been helpful in explaining this issue to others. These are not my opinions or views, just resources I've come across that seem to explain the Biblical view in layman terms.

From one study, I have this: What are familiar spirits? There is misunderstanding among some fellow Christians on what familiar spirits are, as defined in the Bible. Some assume familiar spirits are evil spirits that are familiar with a person’s ancestral past. They use their familiarity to bring the same curses and problems that a person’s parents or ancestors encountered. In other words familiar spirits are carriers of generational curses, passing the same afflictions from one generation to another.

However the bible’s version is far from this. Bamford’s Bible Dictionary says the term familiar spirits applies to the practice of communicating with the spirits of the dead.

As Easton's Bible Dictionary says, the practice involved sorcerers, mediums or necromancers, who professed to call up the dead to answer questions. These individuals were said to have a “familiar spirit” of another dead person.

In actual fact the different voice that came out of a person claiming to call the dead was not that of a dead person but that of a demon spirit. Any apparition was also the work of demons. A demon spirit can fake the voice or image of a dead person.

That is why God strictly forbade this heathen practice among the Israelites (Leviticus 19:31). The consequences God said would result in defilement and excommunication from the community (Leviticus 20:6, Deuteronomy 18:10-13). The one acting as a vessel or medium for a familiar spirit to talk through was to be stoned to death (Leviticus 20:27). That was the heavy hand of the law in the Old Testament (Old Covenant).

http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/familiarspirit.html

http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/ghosts.html

http://www.gotquestions.org/familiar-spirits.html

http://www.keyway.ca/htm2001/20010725.htm

http://worshippingchristian.org/talking_to_dead.html

Matt - As with everything else in the realm of theology and scripture, you have to draw your own conclusions. As always, I am not going to debate any of these issues with you or anyone else on the board, because like someone once said, "I already have my mind made up, as to what I believe!" :laugh:

I strongly believe, that with the continued rise in "ghost hunting" and the curiosity spiritualist things have among young people today, especially, we need some kind of answers to offer.

Again, thanks for asking, and I hope these can get you pointed in the direction of searching for your own answers regarding this subject.

In conclusion, I stand by what Paul said in Ephesians 6:10-24. We are not at war against flesh and blood, but rather the spiritual world. We need to have answers to what is going on in that realm.

BTW - I hope you and your family had a great Christmas...

 

I'm not asking you to debate (even though this is a debate forum), I'm simply asking for Scriptural proof that demons are the souls of dead men. Can you provide that?

 

Think that he was saying that demons can "fake" being the dead person, and delude others to thinking ghosts exist, can communicate with them etc!

 

No, his earlier post clearly communicated that demons are souls of dead men.

 

Hope not...

They seem to be fallen angels, not people!

 

I Said Tomatoes, You Read Tomatos!

I said...."familiar spirits are dead people whom demons inhabit taking on their persona (facade, personality, character)not their souls."

I do not believe that I said familiar spirits are the "souls" of dead people. It is quite clear, to me, that I said the persona of dead people can be taken on by demons, thus you have "familiar spirits!"

If you got more out of what I said (such as souls), then you may want to consider going into business squeezing blood out of a turnips! And, if I gave you the wrong impression, I apologize, as that was never my goal.

BTW - I hope you are not going to spend every waking minute of your life trying to read between the lines of what I say on the board? That could become a tedious, and frustrating task.

 

Earlier in the thread you you replied to a post that said:

with the answer:

I took that to mean that you believed that there were demons that fit in to each of the categories the post you replied to listed, including "Some say they are the souls of dead men."

As you can see, it would be easy for someone to think that you said that some demons were the souls of dead men.

I'm not looking to critique your posts specifically, but when I see what I believe to be an error on a thread (no matter who it is posted by), I will respond to the error.

 

Why Didn't You Just Ask That Right Out?

I can see where you would be confused! However, you should have been asking the other person (P4T.

If that was your concern (all along), why did you not just post that quote and point the concern out to me? Why did you have to go on a phishing exhibition?

I went back and searched, and do not see you questioning P4T, from whom the statement originated. This seems to be out of line with what you said above.

While I appreciate your concern (for errors), I would think you'd also be questioning P4T as well as myself. By foregoing P4T, whom I merely agreed with in "general terms" looks like you were trying to "catch me in an erroneous statement."

I hope you can see why I came to that conclusion???

 

Do I really need to explain this? I guess so...

P4T posed the OP. He gave some examples of what other people think. He did not claim to believe it. Why would I question him about something that he didn't profess to believe?

You then came along and said:

You agreed that demons included all of the types he listed, including being the souls of dead men. That is why I questioned you on it.

When you posted that, I directly quoted the statement in question and asked, "Do you have any Scripture to prove that demons are the souls of dead men?"

You claim that I did not "point the concern out to [you]". It's obvious I did. I asked for proof of your claim. How is that not pointing the concern out to you? Your response to my question didn't include anything about the souls of dead men.

It would have been rather simple at that point in time to simply say something like "I don't believe demons are the souls of dead men, so I have no Scripture" or "I'm sorry you must have misinterpreted what I said. I don't believe the souls of dead men are demons."

Instead, here we are (yet again!) going back and forth over a rather silly issue that could have been resolved very easily by you. I'm still not sure whether you believe that demons can be the souls of dead men, so could we just get back to the topic at hand and could you answer that question?

 

Short and Sweet...

....I did in #29! Now, "say goodnight, Gracie!" :wavey: And kindly move on, as the year is getting away from us!