Ok, this is a featured piece of journalism from the 700 Club's Website, which is Pat Robertson's cash cow. Not exactly an out-of-the-mainstream Christian organization; I think Robertson is universally admired by most Evangelicals, be it Baptists, Pentacostals, snake-handlers, etc... Do the people who write this stuff ever sit back, scratch their heads and go "Wow. I can't believe people really believe this crap". Not only that, but why do so many people believe this rubbish to the point of sending (lots of) money? What the hell is wrong with you Evangelical Christians? http://www.cbn.com/700club/features/Amazing/Jeff_Harshbarger032006.aspx Jeff Harshbarger: The Devil Inside By Dan Reany The 700 Club CBN.com – Jeff Harshbarger was only in the third grade when his parents bought an ouija board. It seemed like a lot of fun until he found out that it was no game. Jeff Harshbarger: The oracle as you put your hand on it would move around. Well, my brother’s a jokester, and I kept giving him the elbow convinced that he was moving it around. He kept trying to convince me that he wasn’t doing it. Well, what I did was I took the ouija board by myself up to my bedroom one night. Dan Reany [reporting]: But the ouija board still answered his questions, and Jeff knew some other force was at work. Jeff: It scared me beyond anything I’d ever experienced but at the same time, it was like a rollercoaster ride. You’re scared to death but you’re thrilled. I began to recognize that there was a presence that began to develop in my house. I would wake up in the middle of the night and literally feel somebody’s watching me. I basically felt like someone was with me. I would wake up and walk through the house in order to experience that because I liked it. Dan: Normally a kid in third or second grade wakes up and feels some presumably dark presence in the room. He doesn’t want to get up in the middle of the night to walk around the house alone to check it out. Jeff: Right. Right. But I based this experience on the fact that I knew there was more. There was something on the other side. Dan [reporting]: Jeff was soon closer to the presence than he was to his own alcoholic father. Jeff: I was unhappy as a kid. I didn’t want to be where I was. I didn’t want to be in the family I was in. So I was looking for an escape. I was looking for the possibility of something else, anything else, because my life was hell. Here I was the town drunk’s kid, being abused, being neglected. I didn’t feel loved. Dan [reporting]: Soon after his experience with the ouija board, the presence Jeff felt in his home spoke to him. Jeff: I woke up one night and literally there was a voice behind my ear saying “Jeff, come. Come here. There’s something I want to show you.” Dan [reporting]: This strange force took Jeff on out of body experiences. During these times, he saw things days before he experienced them in real life. Then Jeff met a man who happened to be a practicing satanist. Jeff: We constructed a pentagram, stood within the pentagram, he prayed over me, and laid hands on me. When he laid hands on me, I was literally filled with a demon. Dan [reporting]: Jeff believed satanism was the path to honing his paranormal abilities. Jeff: When a demon is around you or inside of you, with the sensation of their presence, you lie to yourself. You think that is your power level. Dan [reporting]: He and his new teacher formed their own coven and recruited other teens to join them. Jeff: I saw each and every one of them become demon possessed, and I noticed something in my heart. My heart felt for them. It was like I was convicted. I knew it was wrong. It was like I knew this shouldn’t be happening. I fought that because I’m a satanist. I don’t care about anybody or anything but me. [But] Here I am a caring satanist. I began to ritually try to kill this part of me -- this heart, this part of me that cares. Dan [reporting]: No matter what they tried, Jeff and the demonic forces inside him just couldn’t kill that little seed of love and compassion. So, the demons that had given him power for so many years turned on Jeff and tried to kill him instead. Jeff: The demons inside of me literally began to torment me. I mean turned against me, against each other, sending me through hell… Dan [reporting]: Jeff decided the only way to escape the torment was to kill himself. Jeff: So I got me a gun, went down to my motel, sat in that room, and put the gun against my head. When I looked down the barrel of that gun, the thought in my mind ‘Where are you going to spend eternity?’ came out of nowhere. I couldn’t pull the trigger. Dan [reporting]: The next day he tried to hang himself, but the rope slipped. He went to bed sobbing. Again he heard a voice, but this time it was different. Jeff: The voice came from right here next to me and said, ‘Get out.’ I knew it wasn’t demonic. It was different. I got out of bed. I didn’t even think about walking through the house and going out the back door. I opened up my window and stepped out. I’ll be honest with you, when I stepped out my window I was in a completely different presence in my backyard. I knew it was God. There was this incredible presence of power, but love… I knew that that power that had pursued me, who wouldn’t let me die, was present. Here is the love that you have always wanted, always needed, always been searching for, and you went looking for it in the wrong place. Because you didn’t have it, you turned to darkness. Now here it is. I just looked up in the sky and said, “Jesus make my life okay.” Dan [reporting]: Though he had just given his life to Christ, Jeff still had to deal with the demons. He had been performing elaborate satanic rituals for years, but all it took to get rid of the demons was the simple prayer of a woman he met at church. Jeff: She just started praying and the demons inside of me just came up and turned my head. I looked at her, and she looked at the demons and just said, “In the name of Jesus, go.” And they left… It was like that. I ran to find a mirror, and I looked at myself for the first time in four years. ‘Cause every day I shaved I saw the demons. Finally I’m free. Dan [reporting]: Jeff was soon able to get married in part because his need for love and acceptance had finally been met by God. Jeff: Every one of us is looking for someone somewhere to take care of us, to love us. We’re all still children, though our bodies age. We have a Heavenly Father who is real, who we have access to anytime we want. Think about that. What an awesome opportunity to be loved, to be taken care of, to be provided for. He’ll never leave us or forsake us. It’s almost too good to be true, so we deny it. Don’t deny it. Take Him at His word. Allow Him to be who He says He is. Don’t tell Him what to do. Don’t try to manipulate Him. Just be His child and let Him provide and love for you. He will.
I am by no means a fan of the Evangelical movement, but I think most Evangelicals see Pat Robertson for exactly what he is. Your characterization of his organization as mainstream is not accurate. What is sad is that there are a lot of Evangelica Christains who are that extreme.
I don't know if I'd agree about Robertson, but that's only been my experience growing up in the Baptist church. Of course, that was before Robertson made his moronic 9/11 comments, and he might have lost alot of followers and reputation since then. You are correct about the number of evangelicals that buy into this stuff, though. In growing up Baptist, I was told the following things by me religious teachers (I am not making up or embellishing, I swear). 1. Music about 120 beats-per-minute was satanic because that was the tempo that Africans would use to summon demons in their tribal rituals. 2. Christian music is a sin. The analogy used was to compare it to "Light Beer" - even though it's "Light", it's still beer? So even though Christian Rock is Christian, it is still evil Rock and Roll. This included soft-rock acts like Amy Grant and Steven Curtis Chapman. 3. Once during 5th grade class, a guy came in and played records backwards and warned us of hidden Satanic messages. So everyone with a broken record player is going to hell, I suppose. 4. I was told that everyone who didn't get "saved" was going to burn eternally, including my best friend, and Catholic grandparents who I loved very much. Talk about psychological torture at an early age. 5. Ouja boards were entry points for demonic possession. Also included was Dungeons and Dragons, and smoking. 6. The urge to masturbate was caused from demonic influence. That really comforts a teenage boy going through the pains of puberty. Let's associate demonic guilt with natural sexual activity and see how it goes! Fun! 7. Dancing is a sin. Plain and simple. god hates dancing. I could go on and on. My first hand experience is that most Evangelicals are nuts.
for any crazy blief religion A has, religion B is just as nutty. evangelicals are nuts. but so is every religion. what supafan believes is no less nutty (no offense dude). find the most mainstream religious moderate you can find. whatever they believe is completely insane. althouh i gues it should be noted that many religious people are lying and don't believe what they say they do
Some thoughts on the Evangelicals I've been in contact with... The nastiest, most cut throat people I worked with in retail were "Born Again". They would steal your sales and not think twice, but heaven forbid if you didnt subscribe to the born again thing. Now that's sinning. A friends boss who is saved will talk you up and down about his belief, but he hits on my friends wife, looks up porn at work, has stolen credit from my friend, has taken my friends commission, you name it. It's one thing to be human and make mistakes, but if your walking the born again walk...you may wanna, um, not be a scum pervert thief. I have a big problem with anyone who pulls the your going to hell card out. I just always respond: "It must be very taxing being God'd messenger on Earth" I dont have a problem with people who believe what evangelical's believe. That's fine, free country, believe that your god is a jar of mahaw jelly, whatever. But if your going to make a list of going to hell actions just be sure you dont fit the bill.
I agree with all of this. I harp on Evangelicals because I was personally psychologically abused (not sexually, I didn't say Catholic) by this church, so I harbor some resentment, but yes, basing your life on folk-lorish tales accounts of tribal disputes from over 2,000 years ago is about as insane as it gets. Selecting to believe the words of a man who claimed to be the son of god versus the other thousands of people who have made the same claim in the same era is nuts. Believing that Moses, David, and Abraham were decent, role model type people despite the horrible atrocities they perpetrated on untold numbers of people (including Abrahams own son) is insane. Then you delve into the religions spawned by Martin Luther, who was a rabid and murderous anti-semite, or Calvin, who personally tortured and murdered one of the most influential free-thinkers of his day. Then go to modern times, with people like Mother Teresa teaching the poor, disease-infested flock that using contraception is a sin, and get canonized for doing so. And of course we don't have to mention the institutional abuses prevalent for most of the history of the Catholic church against children, which only now is it forced to pay billions in restitution after aiding and abetting the pervert priests for years. Not to mention all of the wars and regional conflicts commited in the name of religion, which most are. I don't know how thinking peoples can willingly submit themselves to such a horrible institution like religion, other than the convenience of allowing someone else to think for you. And to this day I have yet to hear a reasonable explanation of why religion is a good thing, period. My "religion", and what should be taught to all children, rather than the belief of a silly, ancient delusion, is the modified "Golden Rule": Treat others just like you would like to be treated.
The parts of Calcutta where Mother Theresa's nuns taught Natural Family Planning have the lowest birth rates in India. Where as the UN threw birth control pills and no direction at the populace the Sisters of Charity taught a natural, scientific, systematic, safe, and effective method of birth control. This is a baseless and exaggerated claim. In truth the sexual molesters in the church existed at a much smaller rate than in the general population. What the church is most guilty of is listening to the many medical doctors whom in the sixties told the Bishops the abusers could be cured through counseling. The university, the hospital, genetic theory are all the by-products of religion. Secular cultures are every bit as violent, corrupt, and destructive as religious ones. Most people are just jerks and will behave badly with or without religion.
dude , i used to light mother T up around here and i think i just convinced everyone to think i am an *******, nobody wanted any part of it. this must have been before you came around.
