Are demons real?

Before I started this blog, or the Righteous Metal blog, I did a series of video-blogs on YouTube called "Personal Proofs". The series is an honest outpouring of events that have happened in my life that lead me to where I stand in my ever-evolving beliefs. I plan to post them on here, so I'll start with this one. This is my most popular video I've posted in the series, over 1000 views. It's about an experience I had, at an early age, with a Ouija board and possible demon possession. I titled it, "Proof Of Demons", because I consider it a life experience that showed me that demons, or at least evil, was something real. Instead of providing a transcription, I'd rather people watch the video. Of course, comments are open and unrestricted, as usual. I would be interested to hear anyone's perspective.

I honestly do not know what it is that makes these pieces of wood with letters written on them such a portal for evil, or the small, heart shaped window piece. But I can say that since that experience, I have never touched another Ouija board again. I know there will be skeptics out there that have played with them and had no negative effects, and those who do not believe demons exist. Many times when we believe things that seem unordinary, we believe them because we have experienced something others have not. I know, because of my experience, that something else took over my babysitter's body that night, and the only way I have to purvey to others what that thing was that took him over, is to say that it was a demon. When there is the argument of the existence of evil, this is one thing that I can refer to within myself that shows me that there is a definite 'force of evil'. It is not the only thing in my life I have felt this kind of opposition toward, but it could be among the most common and accessible of all the dangers that could attack one's spiritual being.

Is there a hell?

As I have mentioned before, I was fortunate enough to go to some good churches when I was young. Most of my younger years that I spent in the church I was taught about God's love and grace, and about Jesus and his teachings. I did have an experience at a "hell-fire and brimstone" type revival, an interesting story which I shall save for another post. But probably the biggest culprit for introducing the doctrine of eternal hell fire into my belief system was TBN, The Trinity Broadcasting Network. 'Scare tactic' type preaching was fairly common on the Christian television station. All the talk about witches blessing rock-n-roll records to make them sell, demons sitting on a pile of Dungeons and Dragons books, and other sensationalism it seemed to center around, had me so afraid of hell and demons and sin than I lost concern about treating those around me as Jesus taught us to do. Its influence on my faith was pretty much all negative, and I may have never left behind all of my beliefs at one point like I did, had my opposition to evil and fear of hell not been acerbated by tele-evangelist media.

In the view of many of these types of TV evangelists, the effort to witness is all about saving the non-believers soul from eternal hell, and oddly does not emphasize the light that following Jesus sheds upon your life. I often feel that tracts and sermons sometimes emphasize the wrong reasons to follow Jesus, and that preachers give too much emphasis to "sin". It sometimes makes me wonder how different our views might be if our ambition to follow Jesus was centered around loving our neighbors, instead of the center being mans struggle to figure out every little thing that could be sin, and then training oneself not to do those things in order to avoid hell.
 
I was fortunate to have a very nice older Bible that included Hebrew and Greek word meanings in the sidebar. Something I noticed once while studying it really surprised me. I raised my eyes quite a bit when I saw the word "hell" translated from the original Hebrew word as "the grave", and in one place I remember it said "death of the spirit" for a certain passage. After seeing this I began to read the Bible differently, and used its provided tools to see a different picture of this faith. I later discovered the Christian group known as the 'Christian Universalists', and felt closer to their doctrines than I did any other branch of the religion. This group does an excellent job of extracting the real meanings of words used in The Bible that were translated into "hell", and they do not believe a place of eternal punishment exists. Because of my inquisitive personality, this sparked me to do some deep research of my own, from my own perspective, with my chosen resources. I have came up with some facts and ideas about what hell could or couldn't be that I will discuss here.

It is interesting to note that the Hebrew word translated into "hell" most often in the Old Testament is the word "Sheol", which is the land of the dead. The Greek word "Hades" is used in the Greek Old Testament translation for that term.

the Greek term "ᾅδης" (Hades) is used to translate the Hebrew term "שׁאול" (Sheol)(wiki)

However, the word "Hades" has a Greek mythology meaning too...

Hades (pron.: /ˈheɪdiːz/; from Greek ᾍδης (older form Ἀϝίδης), Hadēs, originally Ἅιδης, Haidēs or Άΐδης, Aidēs (Doric Ἀΐδας Aidas), meaning "the unseen") was the ancient Greek god of the underworld. The genitive ᾍδου, Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades". Eventually, the nominative came to designate the abode of the dead. (wiki)

It would seem from the translations that hell really should be "the grave" in many instances. But what about the burning "lake of fire" that non-believers must suffer in for eternity. Well, in Revelations, the Bible talks quite a bit about a "lake of fire". However, Rev 20:14 points out that "death and hell were cast into the lake of fire". So it would seem that the lake of fire and hell are not synonymous. There are also verses in Matthew I have heard preachers use that refer to casting into the outer darkness, where there will be "weeping and gnashing of teeth". But neither of those verses in context have anything to say about a place of eternal punishment. The passages in The Bible that say "hell" do not seem to represent a place of punishment, but still there are other passages that may.

There are quite a few passages about judgement, and in one judgement Christ divides all the people of all the nations and divides them into two groups. The group on the left, according to the KJV, depart into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. Now, first of all the greek word aionios translated to everlasting actually means an "age" of time, an indefinite amount, but not eternal because it does have a beginning and an end. Even still, here the passage is definitely stating that some people go with the devil and his angels into the "fire", and for an "age", or a certain amount of time. I think there could be plenty of discussion about what the "fire" is, but what I find most interesting about this is how the people are to be separated. Those on the right, which go into God's kingdom, are those who clothed and fed the poor and needy. Those on the left, which go with the devil and his angels, are those who rejected the poor and did not clothe or feed them, because if they did it unto the least of them, they have done it unto the Lord! It would seem this judgement is not so much about "sin", but about how those being judged treated the people around them, especially the poor and the sick.

Personal experience plays a big role in my belief system, and I do have some quite solid experience in this department. There are only two creditable witnesses that I know of or have heard of (from extremely creditable sources) who died and went to a "hell". Both atheists, both began to be surrounded and sucked down into a thick darkness, and then were pulled from it by Jesus, and then allowed to live a bit longer and straighten out their lives. It is interesting to me that, even though they didn't believe in him, he pulled them out of the darkness and gave them another chance. Fortunately, most of the afterlife experiences that I find creditable are not about darkness, they are about the light and love of God. Maybe it is a truth that the grace of God extends farther than we often think.

My conclusions about hell and afterlife, in retrospect, may not be so different than what is yelled about on some television shows. But I do hold to a belief that Jesus loves everyone, and will be there for us when we die. We may have a lot of answering to do, but I don't think that "the whole world is going to hell" necessarily. I often see much hope in the world, amidst all of the corruption of our leaders in politics and religion as well. I think the greatest witness one can make is to do good works, clothing the poor and feeding the hungry, all of those things that Jesus taught us to do. And by those works hopefully one can be a positive, living witness of what it means to "follow Jesus".