Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: murphy@mips.com (Mike Murphy) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: demons and such Message-ID: Date: 7 Feb 90 08:20:07 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, CA Lines: 37 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In answer to the original question of books on demonology, a couple of fictional novels come to mind (despite being fictional they are thought-provoking): "Screwtape Letters", by C.S. Lewis "This Present Darkness", by Frank Perelli Another interesting book, this time from a psychologist's perspective, is "People Of The Lie", by Scott Peck None of these are rigorous Biblical studies, but they are interesting reading. In answer to Henry Troup's question of why believe in the Devil, I think one of the issues to be considered is that Jesus (and the Biblical writers) apparently believed in them. I don't have a concordance handy, but in at least two instances Jesus even mentioned the devil as being supposedly true: Matt 13:36-43, John 8:43-44. There is also the temptation of Jesus by the devil in the wilderness. Not only that, but Jesus apparently believed in demon-possession, e.g. Luke 8:26-39. In fact, when you read the gospels, there is a lot of supernatural stuff (demons, angels, healings, miracles) that sounds foreign to our modern minds. So how do we explain that? If we assume that the gospels are basically accurate (not necessarily inerrant but not fiction either), then either the writers were naively wrong, using the supernatural to explain what was really natural phenomenon that they could not understand, or they were actually right and we've become blinded to a broader spiritual reality. Or perhaps there is some middle ground here? I think the problem with suggesting that the Biblical writers were misguided is that it also indicts Jesus as being wrong. I agree that there are a lot of details about demons and such that we don't understand and are open to dispute, but (for me) I feel convinced of their existence, and am curious about what reasons there are for not believing in them (other than the fact that such supernatural stuff is weird and uncomfortable, which I sympathize with but am not convinced by). -- Mike Murphy -- UUCP: sun!decwrl!mips!murphy