The origin of demon influence

Demonisation is the uncanny ability to identify God and hate Him and everything to do with Him. The Bible describes it:

• Mark1:24, “Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out, ‘What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.’” 
• Mark 1:34 (and Mark 3:12), ‘…Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who He was.’ 
• Mark 5:7-8, “He shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won’t torture me!’” 

The demons recognised Jesus as the Son of God. They knew that He had authority over them and they hated Him for it.

The Bible describes the future eternal Kingdom of God. It motivates the devil (who will spend eternity in hell) to oppose God.  This life has to do with one’s eternal destination after death, and the devil wants people in hell with him. The demons, his workers, influence people against everything that has to do with the Bible. The beginning of human demonisation is explained in the Bible:

# 1. The origin of demonisation. In the Garden of Eden the devil intruded upon the God fearing  life of Adam and Eve. As a consequence of their disobedience towards God, the devil gained a foothold in the human race. Cain, the eldest son of Adam and Eve, was their first offspring to give allegiance to the devil: ‘Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother.’ ¹  Cain was the first demonised person. God tried to convince Cain to retreat from the devil’s influence, but to no avail. ²

# 2. Cain hated his brother without reason. He murdered his God loving brother, Abel.  The hatred of unbelievers towards believers has never stopped since then. Demonisation is all around us, even if the people appear quite ‘normal,’ like Cain. He had no outside signs that he belonged to the devil. We witness it regularly in atheists, evolutionists, and skeptics.  It is people like Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sam Harris, Michael Shermer and others. They are normal, law abiding citizens, with one difference: they hate God passionately. That hatred has its origin in the demons, the workers of the devil.

Conclusion: The Bible is about real life. It is a book of truth. The demons influence people to attack the only reliable guide to eternal life with God. The Bible, God’s special revelation of life after death, is the only book that accurately describes what we see today in society: the war against an invisible God because of the influence of demons.

References

1. 1 John 3:12
2. Genesis 4:3-16

Jerry Coyne and biology

Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, said in the praise section of Coyne’s book on evolution,

‘An indispensable book: the single, accessible volume that makes the case for evolution. Jerry Coyne has given us an utterly fascinating, lucid and beautifully written account of our place in the natural world. If you want to better understand your kinship with the rest of life, this book is the place to start.’

Christopher Hitchens wrote,

“Its ignorant opponents like to say that the process of evolution by natural selection is ‘only a theory.’ (That’s how they prove their ignorance). Jerry Coyne shows with elegance and rigour that it is hypothesis that meets and withstands all tests, and strengthens itself as a theory thereby. One could almost say that it had the distinct merit of being true.”

In his introduction, Coyne wrote,

‘Among the wonders that science has uncovered about the universe in which we dwell, no subject has caused more fascination and fury than evolution…..It shows us our place in the whole splendid and extraordinary panoply of life. It unites us with every living thing on the Earth today and with myriads of creature long dead. Evolution gives us the true account of our origins, replacing the myths that satisfied us for thousands of years. Some find this deeply frightening, others ineffably thrilling.’ ¹ We can safely assume  that the ‘myths‘ he refers to is the Bible. He might be referring to other accounts of creation also, but we are not discussing them, for reasons we will explain later.

The problem is whether he correctly defines Darwinian evolution, which is:

‘The general theory of evolution is the theory that all living forms in the world would have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic [non-living] form,’ ²

We know it as the ‘molecules to man’ idea of evolution. Has Coyne proved that is true in his book? Has he proved how first life began and how all life evolved on the earth? Has he proved that the genetic code, the DNA, evolved? Did he give prominence to the origin of the cell, since it is the basic building block of living organisms? No, he does not give much attention to those things in his book.

What we want to know is if there is any scientific evidence for the origin of life on earth, or for the millions of species, any compelling reason to trash the Bible’s account of supernatural creation?

We want ‘hard facts,’ not general statements. Coyne believes that the changes in the beak size of finches on the Galapagos is evidence of evolutionary change, but that doesn’t accord with Kerkut’s definition of evolution.³ Does Coyne tell the public that he uses the word ‘evolution’ in different ways?

These are some of the things we want to discuss in this big issue of the ‘myth,’ the Bible, versus the ‘science’ of evolution.

References

Jerry A Coyne, Why Evolution is True, Oxford University Press, 2010, paperback issue, p xvi.

G A Kerkut, Implications of Evolution, Oxford, UK, Pergamon, 1960, p 157, cited by J Sarfati, Refuting Evolution 2, Master Books, 2002, p 55.

Reference 1, p 145.