The obligatory Halloween post

Thanks to school and deployments, I don't have anything else to do this evening, so I'm spending Halloween at home doing nothing in particular. Sure, I should be doing homework...but I'm not. I'm celebrating getting a 96 on my History 108 mid-term and watching the gun stuff on Outdoor Channel. At least I will be until UFC Unleashed comes on.

Since none of that has anything to do with Halloween, I guess I'll get on with my Halloween topic. Of course, since today is the day, a lot of stuff on TV tonight has to do with "spooky" stuff. Most of it isn't, but since Lugosi and Carloff movies are kinda scarce, that's just the way it is. One thing that there is in abundance, though, is programs about ghosts.

If you read my treatise on reincarnation-go ahead and read it, I'll wait-you'll come to the conclusion that the idea of a transitory spirit doesn't hold a whole lot of water with me. The accepted myth of ghosts is that they are the disembodied spirit of someone who died in a bad way. Could be through trechery, murder, accident, unusal Christmas tree mishap...whatever. The general theory is that it wasn't grandpa dying peacefully at home after a long and fruitful life. Why that matters, I don't really know...which makes sense, because you know I don't believe that myth. The "accepted" mythology of the ghost is not particularly feasible.

Now, that is not to say that I don't believe in the spiritual plane; I definitely do. The Bible makes reference to it, and the existence of God and Satan requires that there be an otherworldly place for them to occupy. Going beyond that is getting into spiritual arguments that are somewhat beyond the scope of what I'm intending to convey here, so I'll leave that as it is at this time.

People report scores of happenings that can't be explained easily. We've all heard them; they go by the name of "ghost stories", and are meant to have an etherial explanation to what cannot be explained empirically or scientifically. Let me get this out of the way: I don't believe they're lying, and I believe that many, if not most, of them believe what they experienced at a very deep level. They attribute these happenings to the unhappy spirits-ghosts-of individuals that should have moved to the Great Beyond and for whatever reason have not. I don't believe that they're ghosts. So where does that leave us? If I don't believe they're ghosts, what are they?

My theory on this has not been put forth as a common explanation: those things imputed as ghosts are not ghosts, but they are from the spiritual plane. They are demons and angels. Since most of the stories skew to the malevolent, the majority, if not all, of them are demonic.

Demons are the antithesis of angels. They are the minions of Lucifer (that Satan dude. I guess he likes a lot of names. Pretty vain), who was a fallen angel that can't get it though his head that he can't be God's equal. He was cast out of Heaven for rebelling against God, and his followers went with him. Those followers are demons in league with Beelzebub who do his bidding. That's an archaic way of saying they're his posse, and they're all a bunch of guidos that do what he tells them to. Or he does it himself. Yeah, that's possible: he's not omnicient or omnipresent. Even with his power, he can only be in one place at a time. I guess he's in good shape with all that running around.

"Why?" I hear you thinking. Well, I don't really hear it, actually. I just know that's the next logical question. That's pretty simple, really. Satan can do a lot of creepy, freaky things. As proof, I give you Hillary Clinton. Well, maybe not, but she does things that make ya wonder. Anyway! We mentioned the "why" and couldn't avoid taking a shot at the worst of the Presidential candidates. So here's the very simple "why": because Satan doesn't have to make you a follower of his to achieve his goal. In the book of Revelations, we find that da debbil loses. This is fact, and he knows it. However, since he's already invested in this particular course of action (arguing for predestination...hmmmm....) and can't stop now. Maybe he doesn't know it, but he should. At any rate, as I stated earlier, he doesn't have to make you a satanist to pull off his plan. All he's got to do is to take your eyes off of God. If he's got you thinking ghosts are real, and that the mythology is real, he's done his job.

That quiet little "boom" you heard? Yeah, that was your mind being blown. Again.