IS WITCHCRAFT GOOD OR EVIL?

[acehighinfinity]

[Replying to post 106 by Divine Insight]
DIVINE INSIGHT:

Moreover, I find the verse that you have posted to be quite interesting and I use it frequently to defend my witchcraft against Christian criticism. The Christians often claim that witches get their power from Satan (just as Jesus had been accused of in the verse you've quoted).

However, like Jesus I use my powers for good works. Therefore, for the very same reasons that Jesus gave my powers cannot come from Beelzebub (or Satan) because a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Therefore my powers necessarily must come from God, for precisely the same reasons that Jesus gave.

If what Jesus spoke is truth, then clearly it must also apply to me. I cannot do good works in the name of Beelzebub, demons, or Satan because that would be a house divided against itself.

So I find it rather humorous that Jesus himself has totally vindicated all witches who do good works. Because their power (according to Jesus) can only come from God. Only God's power can be used for good works.

I would like to invite you here DIVINE INSIGHT
The above post caught my attention and I would like to bring this to the light. Now in another thread I am under the impression you study Buddhism but claim not to be a Buddhist, correct?

I am totally against WitchCraft according to the Holy Bible:
Deuteronomy 18:14 "The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so."
Revelation 22:15 "Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood."
Leviticus 19:26 "Do not practice divination or seek omens"
...the list goes on.

Questions:
If Divine Insight claim to use WitchCraft for good, then could you or anyone else list those examples please?
Does one see WitchCraft as Good? or
Does one see WitchCraft as Evil?

Feel free to add on.

Thanks in advance,
Ace

[Divine Insight]

I practice sorcery too. So this is nothing new to me.

This is just not believable.

Your responses are all over the map. If you really did practice sorcery, you would know first hand that spells, incantations, auguries and summonings never work. The bonds of the laws of physics don't allow them to work.

If you believe that then surely you don't believe in the ancient Hebrew superstitions about Jesus?

[The Me's]

1--If you believe that

2--then surely you don't believe in the ancient Hebrew superstitions about Jesus?

I divided your quote into two halves.

The "if" half has absolutely no logical relationship to the "then" half.

My conclusion is that I'm correct about you in all the following claims:
1--You have never witnessed witchcraft spells actually functioning
2--You have never witnessed sorcery functioning
3--You are not in fact a sorcerer, you only wear the title
4--You have no way of connecting Jesus to witchraft or sorcery despite your claim

I'll make a fifth: all of your claims about Jesus of Nazareth reside inside ambiguities that are far too vague to define, and that leaves you free to move the goalpost as far as you need to to avoid defending your own claims.

I see no reason to take you seriously until you make a commitment to stand behind the claims you make. If you don't trust them, why should I?

[Divine Insight]

I'll make a fifth: all of your claims about Jesus of Nazareth reside inside ambiguities that are far too vague to define, and that leaves you free to move the goalpost as far as you need to to avoid defending your own claims.

I see no reason to take you seriously until you make a commitment to stand behind the claims you make. If you don't trust them, why should I?

You just described the Bible right there.

All of the claims about Jesus of Nazareth reside inside ambiguities that are far too vague to define.

Why do you think there are so many disagreeing denominations of Christianity?

So to hold me responsible for that is ludicrous.

Whether or not I believe in witchcraft or sorcery or have ever experienced it is a moot point that you are attempting to hide behind.

For one thing, I'm quite sure that you and I aren't about to see eye to eye on what constitutes witchcraft or sorcery anyway. So that would be a whole different topic of discussion in any case.

All I am saying is that when accused of obtaining his power from an evil source Jesus' excuse in his defense was that he does good works, and therefore his source cannot be evil lest it be a house divided against itself.

And that excuse would then be true for everyone who performs good works, not just Jesus.

You are refusing to acknowledge this obvious fact.

Moreover, Jesus told his disciples to go out and heal the sick, raise the dead, and perform all manner of miracles, so clearly he wasn't claiming to be the only one who could do this. He even said that they will do greater works then he.

And if we are to become disciples of Jesus today, then we too must inherit those same magical powers.

Perhaps you have failed to notice that I consider myself to be a disciple of Jesus, amongst other sages.

Jesus said that if you have the faith of a mustard seed you could move mountains. Clearly you have no faith at all since you don't believe that you can do anything out of the ordinary.

For me, Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva. He actually renounced the God of Abraham. He said, "Before Abraham was I am", meaning that Jesus is the primal essence of all life prior to any made-up God of Abraham.

And not only that be he taught that "I and the Father are one", and "Ye are also Gods".

He was teaching Mahayana Buddhism, or something very similar, perhaps Jainism.

He renounced the Old Testament God. He rejected the judging of others as the Old Testament God commanded people to do. He renounced the stoning of sinners that had been commanded by the God of the Old Testament.

He flat-out rejected and renounced the God of the Old Testament by rejecting "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" and replaced it with "Turn the other cheek" as taught but Mahayana Buddhism and Jainism.

So Jesus' God was my God. Not the God of the Pharisees or the Old Testament.

I am in perfect harmony with Jesus. Jesus and I are one. We are the same entity just as Jesus taught. Whatever you do to the least of your brethern you do unto me.

The Christians are the ones who have demoted Jesus to being the demigod son of the God of the Pharisees.

And then they just use Jesus as an idol of hatred to belittle and degrade everyone else in Jesus' name.

That clearly was not what Jesus was all about. Jesus didn't belittle and degrade anyone other than the Pharisees themselves.

But you are attempting to take the position of the Pharisees by accusing people who do magic for good works of obtaining their power from evil sources.

Clearly Jesus does not support that accusation as he himself rejected it as being absurd.

So I am in perfect harmony with Jesus. My powers come from the same source that his powers came from obviously. It can be no other way as Jesus has made clear.

What you personally believe is irrelevant to me. I'm just telling you like it is for whatever it's worth.

[The Me's]

I'll make a fifth: all of your claims about Jesus of Nazareth reside inside ambiguities that are far too vague to define, and that leaves you free to move the goalpost as far as you need to to avoid defending your own claims.

I see no reason to take you seriously until you make a commitment to stand behind the claims you make. If you don't trust them, why should I?

You just described the Bible right there.

All of the claims about Jesus of Nazareth reside inside ambiguities that are far too vague to define.

This is not only not true, it's not an argument.

I have many times at this site (and others) made the claim that the Bible is totally error free and I'm prepared to offer evidence from outside the Bible demonstrating it's historical accuracy in many points.

There's nothing ambiguous, vague or non-committal in that statement.

You, on the other hand, have offered nothing demonstrating the claims I noted above. I may be wrong, but I take that to indicate that you're not willing to commit to your own claims.

[Divine Insight]

I have many times at this site (and others) made the claim that the Bible is totally error free and I'm prepared to offer evidence from outside the Bible demonstrating it's historical accuracy in many points.

There's nothing ambiguous, vague or non-committal in that statement.

It's a totally bogus statement that amounts to nothing more than an unsupportable opinion.

I have done precisely the opposite. I have shown beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Bible is extremely contradictory and impossible to support as being consistent or error free.

So what you have just claimed is absolutely impossible as far as I'm concerned.

There is no such thing as an "Error Free Bible".

That is a totally unsupportable claim on your behalf.

[The Me's]

That is a totally unsupportable claim on your behalf.

You're not willing to investigate this statement any more than you're willing to give us proof of your own acts of sorcery.

Therefore there's no reason for me to take you to be a serious part of this thread.

I, on the other hand, am always willing to try to back up any claim I make, and you're certainly welcome to keep me honest. By all means, start a new thread and message me on it's location. As a Christian, I'm not afraid to have a backbone.

[Divine Insight]

You're not willing to investigate this statement any more than you're willing to give us proof of your own acts of sorcery.

I have no need to prove my own acts of sorcery. That's strawman on your part.

If you want to go head-to-head on the consistency of the Bible I'll be more than happy to mop the floor with you on that topic.

I can prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Bible cannot possibly be made to be consistent verbatim.

The only way you could even remotely pretend that the Bible could be "consistent" is to deny what it actually says verbatim and pretend that it says something entirely different by claiming absurdly unrelated metaphors and interpretations that have nothing at all to do with what the biblical stories actually have to say.

In the meantime you attempt to pretend to pit your claim that the Bible is inerrant against some totally fabricated strawman silliness that I need to prove my acts of sorcery is absurd.

Those are two totally unrelated things.

In fact, if that is any sign of how you debate, then I can see where all you would be doing the whole time is side-stepping the real issues just as you did in this thread.

My claim in this thread was very simple:

If Jesus' excuse in his own defense that anyone who does good works cannot be using powers of evil because that would be a house divided against itself which could not stand, then this must apply to everyone who does good works, not just to Jesus.

Therefore any "witches" or "sorcerers" who do good works must necessarily be using the same divine source that Jesus claimed to be using.

What you are attempting to do now is to claim that there are no such things as witches and sorcerers.

But when you claim that, then you are also renouncing Jesus' own miraculous powers.

And you have also refused to acknowledge that Jesus even told his disciples to go forth and perform similar acts of magic.

So Jesus wasn't even claiming to be the only one who could do these things.

Apparently you can't even debate an issue without grasping at stawman arguments.

Clearly you have nothing to support your position or you wouldn't be grasping at strawmen already.

[The Me's]

I have no need to prove my own acts of sorcery. That's strawman on your part.

I call it "burden of proof".

You claimed that you were a sorcerer, you offered no evidence.

A strawman argument would be for me to ask for proof that you're a sorcerer, knowing that you were not.

(Wait--you're right.)

[Divine Insight]

I have no need to prove my own acts of sorcery. That's strawman on your part.

I call it "burden of proof".

You claimed that you were a sorcerer, you offered no evidence.

A strawman argument would be for me to ask for proof that you're a sorcerer, knowing that you were not.

(Wait--you're right.)

I am a sorcerer by my definition. I may not be a sorcerer by your definition.

So there's nothing to argue about on that topic.

I couldn't care less about your definitions.

And besides, that whole thing is a total side-track from the issue we were actually discussing.

Whether I am a sorcerer or not it totally irrelevant to the truth of my original claim. My original claim is that Jesus used as a defense when accused of using evil powers to do good works that evil powers cannot be used to do good works or it would be a house divided against itself.

Therefore any witchcraft, sorcery, or magic of any kind that is used to do good works must necessarily come from a good source unless you want to call Jesus a liar.

So now what you are doing is attempting to deny witchcraft, sorcery, and magic as being impossible.

But to do that would be to deny the miracles of Jesus, as well as denying Jesus the right to be able to teach his disciples to go forth and do the same.

So you are in denial of Jesus.

Whether I can personally perform acts of magic as Jesus had predicted that I would be able to do is actually irrelevant.

Remember it was Jesus who said that if you have the faith of a mustard seed you can move mountains. Obviously you don't believe in the words of Jesus.

If you had faith in Jesus and his teachings then you wouldn't even remotely question my ability to be a sorcerer. The fact that you don't believe that sorcery is possible only shows to that can't possibly believe in the teachings of Jesus.

If you are a disciple of Jesus you are supposed to be out there healing people using the magical powers that Jesus taught you to use. And if you aren't doing that it can only be because you lack faith in the teachings of Jesus.

I have complete faith in the teachings of Jesus, and so sorcery works just fine for me.

I saw in another thread that you claim to be a fundamentalist Christian. My only question to you would be, "Why do you not then believe in the teachings of Jesus?"

Why are you rejecting magic when Jesus not only used magic himself but he also taught his disciples to use it and to teach it to others?

You're not making any sense.

Do you believe in the teachings of Jesus or not?

[The Me's]

I am a sorcerer by my definition. I may not be a sorcerer by your definition.

I suppose you have every right, but I think the problem is you're not a sorcerer by anyone's definition of it, and when you make claims using this word, you're going to create confusion.

Your claim that Jesus was a sorcerer and a witch, even if you've created your own definitions for both, will also come across as insulting.

Until you come back to reality, and the common use of terminology, I have to stand firm that your claims are incorrectly stated and meaningless.

(I for one don't buy the "I have my own definition" routine, though. It smacks of a moving goal post. Of course I could be wrong.)