Such are the words of Father Jeremy Davies, exorcist and author, coincidentally his new book talks all about the "Atheist hatred of God" paving the way for demonic forces in todays world. Now, I don't know whether his supposed definition of Atheism is indicative of how informative his book will be, but from the little discussed and excerpts of his thoughts in this article I'm sure you'll be able to form your own opinion...

Unfortunately it is pretty clear (though I won't totally assume it) that Father Davies is not of the informed camp of religious types (read: his book is 56 pages wise), he asserts that all such 'problems' (such as homosexuality and the need for infertile couples to look to invitro fertilization) can be assuaged by embracing Christ and the church...

I won't go on about religious zealots at this juncture, as they paint a fine picture themselves (and I'm sure will)...

"Did you know that atheism is becoming a key cause of demonic influence in the world? Well, that is the claim of the personal exorcist to Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, leader of Catholics in England and Wales.

Father Jeremy Davies, official evil spirit remover in the Diocese of Westminster, says that the “spirits inspiring atheism� were those who “hate God.� In a new 56-page book called Exorcism: Understanding Exorcism in Scripture and Practice, published by the Catholic Truth Society, Father Davies writes that Satan has blinded secular humanists from seeing the “dehumanising effects of contraception and abortion and IVF (in vitro fertilisation), of homosexual ‘marriages,’ of human cloning and the vivisection of human embryos in scientific research.�

The result, he said, was that Europe was drifting into a dangerous state of apostasy whereby “only (through) a genuine personal decision for Christ and the church can someone separate himself from it.�

Father Davies also said atheism was largely to blame for entrapping people in states of “perversion� (by which he means not only homosexuality – which goes without saying, him being a Catholic and everything – but also heterosexual sex outside of marriage). The book raised concerns about “some very unpleasant things� that endanger young people especially, and the priest said, “We must do what we can to protect and warn them.� I wonder what Father Davies thinks possessed Cardinal Murphy O’Connor to repeatedly conspire in the cover-up of a known paedophile priest?. Perhaps this is what he meant when he talked about the “very unpleasant things� endangering young people?

Father Davies also had warnings about the practice of yoga and massage, which he equates with astrology and séances on the scale of demonic importance. He said fortune tellers and those spiritualists who attempted to contact the spirits of the dead were issuing “direct invitations to the devil which he readily accepts.� He said such practices involve the abandonment of self-control, making them as corrupting an influence as hard drugs, demonic music and pornography."

Full Article: http://www.secularism.org.uk/96863.html

Thats the sort of clear thinking the Church needs today

I like a priest that knows his own mind and speaks out about that he believes.

Of course he may be possessed by a demon who drives him to say these things to bring ridicule to the one true church.

What do I know :shrug:

As an atheist, I can assure Father Davies that I do not hate God, that would be absurd. I simply portion my belief in any statement of any kind to the evidence that supports it, a way of thinking that has led me to conclude that it is a high status probability that there is no God...

Skadi was right! Christianity is just wonderful!

Seriously, though, I barely know where to start with this guy. Well, first off, atheists don't hate God, as they don't believe God exists, and therefore there's no need to hate him/her/it/whatever. Some of them hate Christianity, though, and with people like him around it's not altogether hard to understand.

More importantly, though, this is turning out just like I feared it would. This genius makes it sound like atheists practically are devils in disguise. Keep it up with stories like this, and it won't be long before nutjobs find the justification they've always been waiting for to maim and kill atheists, to act as soldiers of God and raise whole armies to wage holy war against the 'heathen' masses. It'd be like bringing back the inquisition and the crusades. A nutjob like this one always gathers followers, and I'm sure either he or a good deal of his followers would be moronic enough to start a bloodbath.

You'd be unlikely to hear a senior CoE clergyman speak like that in this day and age but Catholics are a little different, I think... not so compromising.

The thing is though, at least forty percent of the clergy in the Church of England are atheists... I shit you not, that's deadly serious.

Interesting choice of career for an atheist, maybe they were interested in the subject that is theology?

Or maybe it was the free house and the company car?

Seriously, the Arch Bishop of Canterbury is basically an atheist here. Tony Blair had to pretend to by an Anglican all through his premiership, although he did post a woman called Ruth Kelly from a nutty fringe group called Opus Dei as his minister for education which was rather disturbing. Quite how the plasticity of Blair's faith, not to mention his involvement in the first degree murder of nearly a million people, will sit with God is an interesting thing to think about...

I think the Church of England, or in the case of where I live the Church of Scotland, has to accept people who are basically atheists, and even people who have no faith in God whatsoever, because there are so few moderate religious people left here. The people who still believe in God and have strong faith here tend to be fundamentailsts like the We Free who the rest of us titter at and who would drive a congregation away, or else the happy clappy types who again the rest of us titter at...

I wonder if he realises that a person can't become demon "posessed" unless they invite it into their lives? Probably didn't read that bit of the bible. Probably didn't bother to think that there's zero point for the demonic to run around sending people insane through posession and single-handedly destroying small towns today because, lets face it, no-one believes they're real so why change that fact?

If your mission is to stop people from believing in God, but your very existance proves Gods, then wouldn't the first thing you'd do be to convince everyone that you didn't exist in the first place?

Then following the same chain of reason, God's very existance proves the existance of the even more subtle and complicated designer that it was created by?

no?

Then I'm confused. How did the creator come to exist?

The whole "Atheist hatred of God" confuses me. *looks baffled* How can someone hate something that they don't believe exists?

It does beg the question...

Well, in all fairness, I suppose you CAN hate fictional beings, like people might hate or love someone from a movie. But it doesn't make much sense for atheists to hate God, no.

Allow me to emphasise his point...You said a demon, by proving the existence of demons, also proves the existence of God. Why? If God can exist without having been created then there's no reason to posit a creator for other things either. You apply logic to one but not the other? And thus we enter the realm of willing self-denial.

WilV no offense but that logic is unfounded. especially given that "demons" are believed in, in more cultures than just Christian so its by no means set in stone that the presence of one requires the existance of the other.

Its like saying "I threw a rock into a field, a year later someone finds that rock sitting there and there-fore knows who put that rock there and why simply because the rock is there."

is false logic. assuming two things are related based on zero empirical evidence.

its like
the grass is green
grass is a plant,
therefore all plants are green.
therefore all green things are plants.

to you it may seem right, but its not. further evidence on that shows clearly that not all plants are green and not all green things are plants.

Demons are present in Christianity
Christianity has "God"
therefore demons present proves God exists
therefore God created all demons in the world.

the truth is all faiths have some type of supernatural creatures, hell even people who don't have a god can have inhuman hauntings and supernatural creatures. and seeing as every faith, polytheist, monotheist, or nature worship all have anti-human supernatural forces. so even if demons were proven to exist this wouldn't be proof to the existance of the Abrahamic God.

Ok, let me expand. We are talking, specifically, about the "christian" defined demons here, as pointed out from the original article. Logically, if the "christian" demons exist as defined in "christian dogma" then their existance points to their creator, as defined in the "christian dogma" surrounding said "christian" demons.

Everything else has no relevence to the article or the discussion. So, no the christian god's existance does not point to it's creator because it's existance, from christian dogma has no beginning and by definition can have no creator.


Hope that cleared it up.

which the existance or none existance of demons has nothing to do really with the article as the nut-job in the article just assumes that they exist and that atheists are proof of that. its just a biased article.

I was diverging to something that is barely touched on.

for instance, lets say that we discover that someone really is possesed, what proof then is there that the "demon" doing it is a christian defined demon?

that's what I was getting at. There is no proof of their existance, t

he artical points to bigoted claims that are borderline psychotic as the person sees what they think of as christianity decliening and does the most illogical insane thing possible, rather than blame it on any shortcomings in his religion he blames it on invisible boogymen.

now what I was actually going on about was something you said, that the existance of demons=existance of God.

first you would have to outline what makes a christian demon distinctly christian in origin in order to even assume that's what is responsible.
then you have to prove that is the cause.

and that makes me wander something that I will make a different thread for. What makes a christian demon, distinctly christian in origin?

It does. If the Christian God didn't need an intelligent designer, then neither do we...

Entia non sunt multiplicanada preter neccessitatum!

I'm guessing that you're a very logical and scientific. Trust in the laws of science and the theory of evolution and all that good stuff. Now, I am merely assuming that you don't believe the universe spontanteously created itself. Since you clearly deny the only true alternative, I'm guessing you believe that it was the Big Bang. So answer me this, what caused the Big Bang? Energy can neither be created or destroyed only tranformed into other forms of energy (law of the conservation of energy). So, if nothing existed before the Big Bang, where did the energy come from to cause it?

Now following along your line of attack, I must insist that any answer you give come with undeniable proof authenticated by independent, outside source.

Athetists are the world's large group of hypocrites, you don't realize you're just following a different religion, and are ten times as likely to act "holier-than-thou".

Very well put.
I see the results of peoples skepticism, & almost always, they are in contradiction of themselves.

pot
kettle

you both need to shut up. especially as all you can say is "I am right you are wrong"

as for that what created the universe/caused the big bang. Yeah read that in some religious nutter book where they actually think everyone thinks that way, and the ONLY ALTERNATIVE is for a magic cloud man to have willed it into existance.

do you people actually listen to yourselves? you think one thing is crazy and you are right, when what you say is just as crazy if not crazier than what others say.

I got the alternative, if this were 4,000 years ago, It would be crazy to think that anything other than the sun god Ra created the universe.

or ancient Greece. Chaos simply existed and willed Nyx and the other primordials into existance and that created the universe.

and I said this all before, and like last time, you will see the "crazy" in the ancient beliefs and think you are being insulted by compareing these "obviously wrong and crazy" ideals to your "right" ideal which doesn't sound anywhere as nutty as the old ones.

they sound the same, same old song, different players. Humans are the EPIC FAIL.

you can't see past either the limitations of your ancestor's bed time stories, or the limitations of what you can observe in the physical universe.

you want to know what created the universe, and where all the matter and energy was prior to it. Maybe if humans weren't trapped on some tiny ball, only able to look out in three directions, with most their view blocked by dust in the universe (we are lucky our planet didn't form inside a nebula or all we would see is light and dust and think the universe didn't extend beyond that.

God created the universe because God said so. proove that. The universe came into existance from a massive clump from a time beyond our observations, proove that.

we change our minds all the time as humanity is still learning, maybe it would learn faster if it wasn't tied to this childish, primitive us vs them mentality and refusul to let go of ancient stories whose purpose was to teach morals (NOT to teach the true origins of the universe.)

if it was it would have been more specific, and pointed out more details. but stuff like that (which is seen in other faiths with too much detail meant for primitive minds) clearly lost something as it couldn't hold onto the people.

the appeal and grab of the Abrahamic faiths was its appeal and focus on human beings, not the heavens or the world after.
And if you open your eyes to the world you will notice that it has been this attempt to turn the focus on the religions to apply to the greater universe that has been killing it.

by argueing that your God created the universe, rather than saying it is the God of man who created man and need not be the omnipotent ruler of all things as its the creator of your kind thus your GOD, you have turned away from the core values of your very faith and focused on something completly unrelated to its purpose.
that is what is killing it, you are as fish in the stream trying to say that the stream created the mountains.
or
you are as sheep who think the sheppard is in charge of the sun and moon.

Appearently, I've struck a nerve. All I am trying to say is that those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. There are flaws in everyones, EVERYONES belief systems. Thankfully, my belief system allows the naive to pass with a light punishment if they are not completely counter to ideals and virtues of it. I am quite happy to live along side other religions. I have several muslim friends, I happily spend time with the Buddhists in my community and I contently worked with Jews even though they treated me like shit because I'm a German immigrant and a Roman Catholic. A good portion of my friends are athetists (agnostics included in that number) and they leave me well enough alone outside teasing and healthy debate on the matter.

What I can't stand is the new "holier than thou" complex that is so common place amongst the athetist population these days. The "you're ignorant because you believe in God" complex. That applies to omnipotent God or no. I believe in God, so I am a sheep, I am primative and I don't have a single thought in my head. It is amazing how discounted I am based on one thing.

Now I know you are taking the statement of "only true alternative" as me saying you have to follow my particular system, so you went on this rant but I was really just refering to the Big Bang Theory vs Intelligent Design (the two most popular beliefs held on how the universe was formed). Considering the alternative to those is that everything just kind of popped into existence all on its own, yeah those two are the only true choices.

All the stuff about Ra and all the religions before Abrahamic ones is a symptom of man's fleet attention span as so kindly pointed out. But then again, they use to say that the Earth was flat, now we say its round. I guess we should discount the existence of Earth all together and besides, our view of Earth is far less nutty then their view of Earth.

And I don't see how I've turned away from the core vaules of my belief system. I believe God created EVERYTHING. The universe and man. But, then again, I'm a fish.

point 1 was directed at more than just you, it was also pointed at atheists.

yes the phrase "only true alternative" get strike a nerve. As I have heard it too often and usually used in the "I am right"

now just looking at these two versions of creation I hope you can see why they are equally nutty to me.

Atheist: the universe just popped into existance

Christian: God just popped into existance and then he made the universe

not all that much different.

or

Atheist: the universe has always been, or goes through cycles of creation and destruction

Christian: God has always existed and made the universe and may destroy it to begin again someday.

these views have virtually nothing to back up either, and both sides hold them as true, and they sound virtually the same, just one adds an extra player.

as for the sheep, fish, and primitive childish us vs them mentality: was directed at the whole of humanity regardless of belief. People seem naturally inclined to act this way about everything, trying to limit the universe to their particular system of belief and then fighting any opposing view as only they could be right so all others must be wrong and vice versa. Said it before and I'll say it again in this thread: that is the source of all conflict in the world.

Your logic fails in that we, and in fact the entire universe, has a beginning. While finiteness doesn't require a creator being/god/whatever (nor does it preclude the existance of such), it does require something to have come "before" it.

Anything that is infinite has no beginning, therefore cannot have a creator as a creator is required to be in existance prior to the object.

As others said, I don't hate the Christian God, because I believe it to be merely an image created by its worshippers. I do, however, hate stupid people, and he's ranking high on that list!

I'm afraid I can't just take your word for that, I shall require some evidence of these frankly rather outlandish claims... I'm waiting for it with baited breath...

It has yet to be proven that the Universe has a beginning. We don't even know what the Universe is yet. The spacetime continuum that we are an integral part of looks increasingly unlikely to be the entire thing, so there is a lot going on that is beyond our comprehension. Consequently, the best I can say about your very shabbily formulated hypothesis is that the house that WilV built has no foundations...

Of course, if you know something I don't on the subject of cosmology, I certainly wish to learn. I'm all ears...

The only finite things are constructs, all else is infinite..The construct collapses and changes to become a new one.

The concept of 'beginning' is anthropocentric...A psychological symptom of being unable to escape our formative human take on our own existence. We think that because we cannot remember before we were born that we didn't exist...We did exist in all our component parts but consciousness is a fleeting phenomenon lasting only the extent of one biological construct. The computer cannot compute before it is assembled and cannot do so again when it finally breaks down to be salvaged for parts.

Infinity is a simple concept and one that proves itself...If there ever was nothing, the probability of something occurring = 0. Therefore there always was something. Just because your brain hurts thinking about it and you start comparing it to shoes, houses, icecream etc in your limited capacity for abstract thought (all of which being man-made things created from pre-existing materials and only offer an illusion of creation) doesn't mean that it isn't an extremely watertight observance.

Tony Blair is quite the religious man. He said that God influenced his decision to go to Iraq (as well as saying faith had a big impact on his decisions all in all) and famously converted to Catholicism at the end of his time at Number 10. Or was it afterwards? I can't recall.
Now he wants to run some organisation that brings faiths together. Part of his whole 'Tony fixes the world' campaign. I read some article written by him about it. Or it was an interview.
My memory is shit.

Throne777

It is a good point. One unchangable thing about man is that he will undoubtable believe his perspective on the world is the most accurate. Even you hold your beliefs supreme to mine.

Indeed. I found that fascinating. The God that he denied in order to be able to run the protestant queen's government influenced him into going into Iraq. it all kinda proves Barbara Castle's point that he was vain, shallow, self obsessed and without principle. The Blair clique accused her of being senile because of that outburst. Mo Molam (spelling) said much the same thing about him, and they put that down to her dalliances with the bottle...

I'm pretty sure Tony Blair has absolute and pious belief in the messiah of the religion which for want of a better word we can call "New Christianity" and any of us who aren't on board must concede that we are well behind and have a lot of catching up to do...