HOLON rules. xxx

I was once a Christian, but do not believe that way anymore. Blood animal sacrifices, human sacrifices, talking serpents, 2 of each animal on 1 boat, and naked people who were supposed to live forever sounds really ridiculous when you look at it objectively & take all of your emotions out of the picture. However, my son who is severely bi-polar (I have a mood disorder too but not to the degree that he does) and 13 years old claims that spirits are trying to penetrate him. He sees them, hears them, etc. So, the question for me is it mania or spiritual warfare? Naturally, we're on a new med. because we treat medically. However, I would have never considered spiritual warfare except that I had a pastor suggest to me that bi-polar disorder itself is simply demon possession (if that can be classified as simple). I had another person suggest the same thing and gave me scriptures to support it (something about Jesus exorcising demons from a man & sending them into pigs which then drowned themselves in the river). So, I'm struggling with the idea of spiritual warfare myself, as it sounds like a really nice and fast way to "cure" my son. By inviting the holy spirit in, nothing can touch you, right? However, to me, it sounds like you did that & believed it with all your heart. You believe Jesus is your savior, right? And yet, your mental illness still persists. Perhaps mental illness is just mental illness and nothing more than that. I think that you have to embrace that some, as the most talented and creative minds in the world were often mentally ill minds. As far as your pastor, keep in mind that he is a human being. According to Christianity, we all make mistakes and are forgiven for those mistakes. If you believe yourself a disciple, then you are a disciple. Seek your answers from God himself and not the opinion of another human being who is just as fallible as you are. I think it's very sad that this sent you into a depression. As people with mental illness, we are too in tune with ourselves and too critical of ourselves. You are what you believe you are. I am sorry that this happened to you & sorry that it made you doubt your faith.

it sounds like what you expierianced was in some form the result of your own beliefe and importance you place on his words,i dont know i think pastors and represenatives of a church should be a little more open minded than that?and you have a right to challenge his oponion if its discrimatory towards anyone
it does sound similar to the buddahist idea that our sins from this or from past lives is still with us and we have to resolve it somehow but the idea of sin seems alittle more involved basically it sounds like he was saying all mental illness is the rewsult of some deviation from gods laws and that these conditions are the result of something bad we did just sounds overly judgemental and harsh and simplistic and not even true anyway whatever happened that is his oponion we as indeviduals should have the right to disagree without haveing to worry about spiritual or any other kind of warfare

maybe interesting that that resembles,if it resembles so called nourture vs nature argument? what i do like is the idea of haveing inherent in the same conflict resolution,if thiers a lock thiers a key kind of logic but then again thiers thr question why did human beings erect religions to begin with and the idea of the existence