Admiral X wrote:Doesn't Christianity just label everything that isn't part of its canon as demons and witchcraft?
Well no, not everything. There's still Christmas and Easter being adaptions of pagan festivals and the influence of Plato, Aristotle and Cicero.
The "pagan gods as demons" thing is more likely influenced from their depiction in Paradise Lost, like the snake in Eden being Satan in disguise which from PL not the Bible.
Between all the empty posts with no text in them and the repeated "[phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 494: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead" messages at the top of the page, I'd say there's definitely some kind of witchcraft going on in this thread.
[As noticed the error in the boards at this time prevents either posting things containing the standard Quote markups so I am using quotation marks hope it is clear]
GandALF wrote:"Admiral X wrote: "Doesn't Christianity just label everything that isn't part of its canon as demons and witchcraft?"
Well no, not everything. There's still Christmas and Easter being adaptions of pagan festivals and the influence of Plato, Aristotle and Cicero.
The "pagan gods as demons" thing is more likely influenced from their depiction in Paradise Lost, like the snake in Eden being Satan in disguise which from PL not the Bible."
Except the Greek and Latin words δαιμον and daemon just meant divinity/god originally, but that is what the modern English word demon is derived from (coming in to old English a thousand years ago according to a quick check of the etymological dictionary). I think there is clearly an element of Christianity demonizing non-Christian religions that long predates Milton who at most probably codified an existing set of associations.
Note Jesus is literally casting out all kinds of daemons in the New Testament and part of the current understanding of what a demon is is based in those sorts of stories (demonic possession) and elaborations upon them. So those sorts of beings would naturally be associated with the pagan gods (who are also literally daemons after all).
So sure not every pre-Christian religious belief is rendered as a malignant thing like a demon, but a strong tendency is there pretty much from the writing of the New Testament in Greek to simply label non-Christian gods as demons (this compounds with the Old Testament things like the depiction of Baal and warning against idol worship). Also, while Christianity can positively integrate some things by stretching its cannon (a saint has elements of a pagan god etc.), how much legwork is required suggests the sort of base level of friction at work.
Yours Truly,
Allan Olley
"It is with philosophy as with religion : men marvel at the absurdity of other people's tenets, while exactly parallel absurdities remain in their own." John Stuart Mill
