Hi  The devil has got to be around somewhere because of the way this world is ,children being ill treaten and animals,the main innocents of life who have never sinned,so why should they suffer,the devil has got a lot to answer for,but his time is becoming limited as God is going to intervene and get rid of the devil forever

I know the devil exists because ive done battle with him and God protected me all the way through it and that devil showed me a dark hole which absolutly had this foul stench coming from it,this is when i left my body and Gods beautiful white light was around ,like a wall in front of this devil,so its the way that Gods good far outways the devils evil,God wins ,that happened just after the devil and the dark cloaked figures entered my bedroom,i was put through hell by the devil but God helped me win with his love for me.

God is the only hope and salvation we have,Gods the one who protects us from the devil,if we ask him to,he is there by our side with his protection of love and light.

The bible mentions the devil,so does Jesus ,when he went to the boy who was possessed and Jesus said to this boy,"Get away satan and as jesus touched him,the boy was cured because jesus had told the devil to get lost,as the devil has no power over jesus or God.

I beleive that God will throw this devil into the abyss with all his fallen angels and the sooner the better i say.

I know some of you don't beleive the devils around but the bible and jesus talks of him ,so hes got to be around.i admit that we can create our own hell,but why do we create our own hell because the devil is trying to increase his army,but the love of God steps in and helps us to overcome these hells we create ,so the devil loses.

When i sat in front of my computer the night the devil challenged me,was because i said to the devil,that i did not beleive in him,i loved God and i told the devil that he would never win God in battle and so the devil came the same night,and God was my protector that night,there were dark cloaked figures in my bedroom,then the devil.I wittnessed the devils existence that very night,so he  is around.

The devil has no power in the spirit world but thrives on the hate and pain and violence in the physical world

Love and God bless   Love Juditha

I'm not a big believer in a literal independently existing Devil Juditha, and i think it does matter.

I'm drawn towards the view as Elite says that what looks like the work of the devil/evil is in fact just a manifestation of our distance from God - of our inability to live in love. Many of us out of the ignorance, fear and selfishness that results from this distancing do things we shouldn't do.

Everything from individual acts at the family or workplace level, right up to national and world leaders terrorising their own people, allowing the destruction of our environment by huge and powerful commercial interests fronted by their pals, failing to act on difficult issues like the environment out of a self interested fear of losing power, getting people fired up against hyped 'threats' from others or simply attacking others to steal what they have.

I'm sure this orientation extends into the afterlife (at least into certain lower realms), giving rise to the possibility of separated entities much like devils or whatever. But since this is all part of Creation, of the great plan they surely can differ from other beings only by their separation from God, not by an inherent 'devilhood' or whatever - they got there out of their own unwise acts, which led to more misery, which led to even more unwise acts, which .....

Some cast evil as a necessity to create the conditions in this reality which enable us to learn to love. Buddhism captures this nicely by pointing out that the deities (which ultimately are aspects of our own consciousness/selves, and hence of God) can manifest in both wrathful (or destructive) forms as well as benevolent.

Where this apparently fine distinction matters is that it completely reformats the situation, and the nature of the required actions.

It's not a battle, and its not about winners and losers. Because its only by discarding wrong behaviours ('not doing') and acting with love towards others (and that includes tyrants, despots, so called devils and so on as well as your nasty supervisor) that we can reverse this situation.

We can't even judge in this game, because judgement is itself is just a respectable form of aggression that seeks to cut others off from love. And that's before we get to discussing the fact that we generally don't have the wisdom to distinguish good from 'not good' (I don't like the 'evil' word - it carries such a charge, such prejudgement)  - we all to one degree or another see things through a selfish lens, and as a result often can't see the greater good in acts we feel threaten us or our ego. Or simply don't have the knowledge and wisdom to see what's needed in a given situation - how to perfectly express love.

Aggression (even in the name of God as history has repeatedly shown, and as current events in the Middle East are again showing us) can only lead to like responses, and consequently to an escalation and a worsening of the situation. To the creation of ever more 'devils'....

I think the concept of the Devil is something Christianity pretty much came up with as he is insignificant in the Old Testament (despite a few small references to Satan and Lucifer, which bear little resembleance to the Christian Devil). Probably from the start IMO he was invented to give people someone other than the supposedly perfectly loving God to blame for bad things (such as the existance of sin - although I don't think Christianity ever makes it very clear what the balance is between sin that is from man's "fallen"nature and - incorrectly used - freeewill, and disobedience, and that which results from the Devil's influence). However, parts of the Bible also admit, as you would expect from an omnipotent God, that pretty much everything happens with God's consent - one OT verse even says I create good and evil, as far as I remember. we can't just blame the Devil for  every bad thing - like earthquakes or child deaths etc, I don't think. The tendancy to see all good as from God and all bad from the Devil is actually maybe more like Zoroastrianism or the Manichean heresy, seeing the world as a combat between two powerful opposing forces of good and bad.
Personally I doubt there is a specific being from whom all evil emanates, but I may be wrong. Also what is good and what is bad can sometimes vary according to your perspective. To us "bad"is anything that makes us suffer, but whether the universe sees it that way i don;t know.

Hi recoverer  Just before i went to bed that night,i remember i felt uneasy because i had said to the devil that he would no way win against god,and i was thinking just before i went in my bedroom that the devil was going to take revenge on me for what i said ,so this could have helped me into beleiving the devil was in front of me,i know that i couldnt move my body through that experience.

Love and God bless   Love juditha

Hi recoverer Thanks for explaining to me why i could not move my body,it was my very first experience of out of body and i realise now that God and christ were looking after me.

Love and God bless you     Love juditha

Well done Juditha for staying with the thread - i was a bit afraid I might have caused offence on the devil issue...

I think the mode of evil stems from the beliefs in being "greater or less than" someone.  When someone believes that they can ONLY receive power by "Stealing" it from someone else and that their poverty is a result of somebody stealing their success, then "evil" things are bound to happen.  Unfortunately, there is the belief system that our creator is a King who created us ONLY to have lesser subjects to rule over and who is insecure in people's opinions about "him".  This is my opinion and take only the parts that work for you.  I can't force you to paradise after all.

Dave said:
"What amuses me is that we tend to crucify holy people like Jesus, but we always feel sympathy "for that poor devil" in his problems. Strange world."

I think if someone is surrounded even only faintly with the scent of perfection, uncloudable happiness, then us people react often with "Well, let's put him/her to the test and see how lucky he/she really is", while "that poor devil" makes remember us of our own devil-like tendencies/parts and our fear we could fall down the ladder once as well, and hope someone/something is going to save us then.

Persons with an aura of "holy" are appearing much more afar than "devilish" persons, as the latter are easier to figure out, while the holy ones are more a mystery. Therefore, the curiosity when approaching holy people could lead to dirty research methods.

Just my spare time psychology...

Spooky