Religion

[Vanessa Boysel]

Why is it the church or religious people believe in Saints, Guardians, and all the spirits that are in heaven. But let a person who can see,hear or feel the spirits go to the church because they are over whelmed with the gift and all of a sudden your considered a demon or possessed by one.

[celso vera]

well i have a reply to this and maybe this can and will answer your question u kno i am baptist catholic but raised going to a pentecostal church growing up listening to different stories about certain beliefs like this it is said by the pentecostal pastors or preachers that anyone who is and i quote " those who claim to have the gift of god or any gift at all "are said to have sold their souls to the devil and have turned their backs on god and are considered to be users of such witch crafts like voo doo wicca or the oujii board now as we all kno these can be used in various ways of course one bad story can make certain things jus seem demonic now i believe that people that are gifted are those chosen by god to lead this life thru his foot steps i hope thhis made sense if it didnt ill explain it better .....

[Vanessa Boysel]

Well how about that

[Tkay]

I believe that the bible was written to try to form a perfect society, you are to believe what is says and nothing else. If you do not believe then damnation you will suffer. Some people say the bible does not say anything about ghost, then what was the Holy Spirit, I believe it is the naming of a certain spirit, meaning there are others. I myself do not believe in demons. I believe what people call demons, are earthbounds who rebel in what they were taught by their religion, I also believe that if a person was mean person in life, I would think their personality would carry through. I find most religious people have closed their minds to anything paranormal because of the "threats" made by these pastors/preachers, again follow what I say or damnation you will find, for me it is nonsense. Fear is a very big word.

[Richard A. Duerr]

Wow Tkay, you pretty much hit the nail on the head on that one with me! That pretty much summed up my beliefs, both in the bible sense and in ghosts, word for word. Its almost freaky to hear it coming from someone else, since I have never heard my own opinions match another so equally. To the strictly religious, the Bible is to be obeyed, those who disobey the Bible are somehow associated with evil. Those who believe that a spirit, other than the Holy Spirit are merely duped by the devil, for the Bible only mentions the one spirit. In my opinion. spirits apparently exist, possibly for unfinished business, to look out for living relatives or friends, and/or possibly other reasons. Thats basically the way I see the whole thing.

[Stephen]

It's not that they think you are a demon or possessed, it has to do with most Christian theology. Most believe that when we die we go to one of two places, heaven or hell. That belief leaves no room for spirits "haunting" a location or communicating with the living. Their opinion is that any encounter with the paranormal is actually an encounter with a demon in disguise. The Catholic church holds a belief in a third after life destination called purgatory. The teaching is, and this is an oversimplified explanation, that the person is not going to hell but needs "cleansing" before moving on to heaven. Being a Catholic, that is my loophole. My faith does not agree with me being a paranormal investigator. They believe I am "playing with fire". To an extent I agree. Any time we try to make contact with the paranormal we are taking a risk. Personally I do believe demons will disguise themselves as spirits of the deceased in order to manipulate, confuse or scare us. BUT I also believe in the Catholic teaching of purgatory. My personal idea, not the church's, is that the souls in purgatory can communicate/manifest themselves to the living. Catholic teaching is that prayers and intercessions for those in purgatory will help "speed up" the process of going to heaven. That is not the best way to describe that but it will do. What if those souls are allowed to make contact with the living in order to obtain the help they need? Again this is my own idea and not that of the Catholic church. Keep in mind that as we work in the paranormal field we will encounter entities that are negative and dangerous. In my experience most but not all religions and their faithful are simply cautious and believe nothing positive can come from this type of work. There are people out there though who will gladly help you out. One of our members is a christian minister so not all "religious" hold the same opinions.