Do Catholics believe in literal demons?

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Story of Adam and Eve cannot be accepted literally and still be consistent with our knowlage of the universe.
 
Nonatheist said:
And by the style of their writting, it makes sense to assume that they were written to promote a religion
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They were all written to people already embracing the Faith of the Church, to Catholics, so it is not a matter of Promotion - promotion of the Christian Faith is not done by writing, but by person to person involvement, where the non-Christian sees and hears the Christian from the Outside, and does not any longer wish to be Outside, so the non-Christian asks to be taken Inside, to be baptized.
The scriptures were written for our superiors in the Faith to use in their guiding of us into knowing our Lord, so that they forget to teach Nothing. The Scriptures are not officially for Outsiders, and they do not correctly read nor understand them, as you show yourself not understanding their use and purpose.
 
How so?
The existence of Adam and Eve goes against our knowlage of evolution.
And by the law of non-contradiction only one can be true
 
Nonatheist said:
l want to understand them in a way that makes sense, questioning some aspects of it is a part of it.
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Yeah but you’re all over the place, and the discussion loses focus. This is the philosophy forum, but you’re questioning the integrity of scripture.

If you want a philosophical discussion of pure spirits, I’d recommend Thomas Aquinas. Start here.
 
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Fair enough, I would have been a bit more clear about such intentions in the OP… but that’s just me. Take care.
 
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If you saw someone rise from the dead, I’m pretty sure you’d wanna follow Him too. Especially if He were a teacher and told you to make disciples.

But people come up with different dating ideas. To me, the logical idea would be since Luke wrote Acts, and Acts excludes St Paul’s glorious martyrdom, but stops just short, it would indicate that it was written before said event (or before Luke could find out), so as to be around or before 62 AD, with the Gospel of Luke being written before then. And since Luke, under either a Matthean priority or a Markan priority viewpoint, was not the first Gospel written, other (s) would have been written even earlier.
But even the 50-year gap you’re describing would be a fairly decent amount of time for a biography for the time period.
But that’s beside the point. Even without such, we have a surprising amount of written material from the early Church indicating their beliefs.
 
Nonatheist said:
Story of Adam and Eve cannot be accepted literally and still be consistent with our knowlage of the universe.
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Your “knowledge of the Universe” is not knowledge, but theory, and science has a long way to go before it has correctly theorized the material universe. Having dispensed with Philosophy, it has dispensed with its own purpose in being science.
 
Thomas Aquinas and his 5 proofs are what initially who got me interested in knowing more about Catholicism. And what got me away from atheism.
l have many ‘metaphilosophical’ problems with him.
And by what l read here, it’s only relavent if you agreed on his previous work
 
Nonatheist said:
How so?
The existence of Adam and Eve goes against our knowlage of evolution.
And by the law of non-contradiction only one can be true
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Well, a creationist could simply deny the assumption of gradualism. Modern evolutionary science assumes that things have been the same through the beginning of creation. Creationists could rightly claim that using this to say Creationism is disproved is circular, as it assumes what it then uses as a disproof.
This is because the traditional understanding of creation is that God formed the world and all its parts and then made the laws of nature to work as they do while He sustains all of Creation after this was finished. In this way, we would be unable to look at creation and ascertain its age through scientific means.
Old Earth Creationists would likely accept gradualism as a general principle, but deny common descent.

It should be noted that not all Catholics are Creationists in this sense. The Church gives interpretive freedom so long as it is within certain bounds.
 
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Guys, @Nonatheist, @Prophet-of-Doom, please keep this thread on topic regarding demons. If you guys want to start talking about evolution, you can make a thread about it and discuss it from there. It will otherwise make things messy and hard to follow here.
 
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Nonatheist said:
To increase my knowlage on Catholic thought is my primary objective, secondary would be to have a dicussion.

l want to understand them in a way that makes sense, questioning some aspects of it is a part of it.
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There are demons per Catholicism, which are defined as the fallen angels, which per Revelation is about one third of the angels created. Unlike mankind, angels are pure spiritual beings (has no body and does not depend for existence or activity on matter), yet may appear to man.

Catechism of the Catholic Church
The existence of angels - a truth of faith
328 The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls “angels” is a truth of faith. The witness of Scripture is as clear as the unanimity of Tradition.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p5.htm

414 Satan or the devil and the other demons are fallen angels who have freely refused to serve God and his plan. Their choice against God is definitive. They try to associate man in their revolt against God.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p7.htm
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Yes, we do.

And we also believe that the world and the flesh are other sources of temptation, not just demons.
 
Yes. But, along with anything else, there are some that do not I’m sure.
 
That’s what the Church teaches. The Church also teaches they were given certain gifts by God which are referred to as preternatural, including bodily immortality.
 
So far, that is only an assumption. It is a “what are the odds” question. The correct answer is no one knows. I have studied a lot of material about possible life on other worlds, but it is all speculative. We may find microscopic life on Mars, about a mile below ground where liquid water exists. We may not.
 
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