Magic?

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Coleton
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The Word of God Almighty says that the Occult, and evrything of it is evil. So is magic. I agree with that. I always do my best to take god at his word, because it is the truth, and his word never changes. But, is all magic evil? Of course it is, but what about Santa Clause. His magic. Is that evil to, in comparison to the Occult. I, personally, think that Christmas Magic, does not classify as Magic. All magic has roots, in some way shape or form, to the Devil, or at least Idols that people used to pray to instead of God. Aka, Most of the Occult's Origin Theories. People given something in return for something outragous. Like an Infinite source of money, in return for a soul. But what about Christmas Magic. No, I believe that The spirit of Christmas does not classify as Magic, but as, Like my Special Gift from God Almighty, Prayer Personified. A prayer to God Almighty, personified in reality as a prayer answered by God, the man, Himself.

Also, Make sure not to forget that the real "Reason for this season" is Jesus Christ. From Birth to the right hand of God Almighty. Simply Put, God is awesome.
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ArcticFox
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Before one can really talk about the idea of magic in a real-life sort of context, it is first necessary to define what "magic" means.

For instance, what do you mean when you talk about "Christmas Magic?"

There's also "magick" as practiced by Wiccans, which may or may not be related to other forms of occultism.

Since the Scriptures to explicitly forbid the practice of witchcraft, we can conclude that there's some kind of occult force that we, as humans, have access to but are forbidden to use. Whether or not that is what we think of as magic is a good topic of discussion.
"He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool."
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CRCBrony
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Honestly, I think that the "Magic of Christmas" is is linked to the devil, this so called magic is linked to Santa Claus, a legendary figure of the sorts. Even what Santa (who is not real at all) does is good, it is still witchcraft. The "Magic of Christmas" is just something for us to believe in. We start to believe in it instead of Jesus Christ, which is totally wrong! But, if it is a "spirit", then you must show Christ's love with it. Show something else, it is best to consider it evil. In life, there might be chances you might find some people with.... special abilities (which can be anything; literally). But again, if he/she doesn't promote the Lord, and you cannot feel Him, stay the heck away from that person. Plant yourself where it's safe, never in harm's way.

Anyway, I'm not one much for talking about these kind of things, but I hope I did okay. Hope it helps.

from Equestria,
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Coleton
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Thanks CRCBrony for your detailed response. I will always choose to believe in Jesus Christ first and foremost, that was my given from the beginning, I think you for stating this specifically, "Even what Santa (who is not real at all) does is good, it is still witchcraft. The "Magic of Christmas" is just something for us to believe in. We start to believe in it instead of Jesus Christ, which is totally wrong!" Thank you for raising this idea to me. Also, ArticFox I thank you for giving me the topic of my next post. Magic is Real. Plain and Simple. However, your point that wether there is good magic, intrigues me. Personally, I believe all magic is evil, as a child I grew up believing in magic, fairy tales and the sort. I was always in love with the Idea. Only recently on my way back home, did I discover the truth. I guess this applys here: Proverbs 20:11 "Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right." Thanks to both of you for the replies
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ArcticFox
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Oh I don't mean to suggest there's "good magic" at all. I agree with you that it should always be avoided. I only meant that there are several different viewpoints on what, exactly, magic is.
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Coleton
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Okay! Alright! Now I understand what you meant. Though I do have another question. Do you know of any other people with gifts from God? People who put their gifts to use in the right way that God had intended for them? People who don't use magic, whose gifts are from God, and they use those gifts to glorify his name, and build his kingdom, The Kingdom of God Almighty, Heaven? If you know someone like that I'd really like to meet them.
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ccgr
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People use their gifts every day! Doesn't have to be magical, helpful is just as appreciated :)
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Alrighty, then! Thanks for the response.
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CRCBrony
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Well, I'm glad we could help some. If you need anything, don't be afraid to ask. And just remember:
Sarcasm Begin
 
TO SPREAD THE MAGIC OF CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR!!!!
 
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Superstars111
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Magic is a deceptively complex topic. I see there being three types of "magic." (I wrote a blog post on this a while back that you can look at here if you like, but I'll try to sum it up.)

The first type is miracles, or light magic. This isn't really magic, it's something like when God parted the Red Sea, or turned Moses' staff into a serpent. God chose to work through a human, but He was still in control. But this would have looked like a form of magic to the Egyptians.
As Christians, we don't generally get confused about this one.

The second type is dark magic. This is true magic. Like the first type, it's supernatural power, but it comes from demons or spirits. This is, I believe, what the Bible says is wrong and evil.

The third type would be neutral magic, or unexplained science. This is something that can be explained naturally, but is currently beyond our understanding.

The issue is that in fiction, people rarely differentiate between the latter two, and often get them mixed up. They can tend to look very similar at times, and often somebody in fiction will use both. For example, BBC's Merlin. His ability to move objects with his mind is something that he was born with, so I classify that as neutral magic. But the spells that he recites are things that anyone can learn, so I classify that as true magic.
Coleton
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Thanks Superstars111! You gave me more insight on the topic. I will respect what I've learned the the course of this forum , and try to summerize it all by paraphrase. From CRCBrony I learned that Christmas Magic is indeed evil, on the basis that some may choose or unknowingly follow the path that would lead into them believing in Christmas Magic instead of the real reason of the season, Jesus Christ. Through ArticFox I learned that we should take care in subjects such as magic and the occult, as well as what we think of as Magic. When I asked if there were anyone else like me, I was given a great response by ccgr, the lady herself. What I learned from that everyone who has God in their life, in any way, shape, or form, has their own special gift unique to themselves, even if they don't know it yet. Superstars111 taught me that Magic comes in three forms, which is an opinion I now highly respect, as well as helping me learn to properly classify them. I hereby vow to take all of this to heart and to learn from it. Thank you all for your help.
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Nedla2000
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The general conciseness has been that all magic is bad but I think not. Hear me out.

First what is magic? It is the supernatural interacting with our world. So there are two sides to this coin. On one side the Occult and the other the power of God. They are two warring factions that can each interact with our world. I believe that everything can be explained by science but that is a different post. The book Perelandra by C. S. Lewis is a very good book that deals with this issue. Praying, healing, and raising from the dead are things that both sides can do the only difference is that we have the creator on one side and the creations on the other. Thank God we have the creator of the universe on our side.
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ArcticFox
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I think the reason we're supposed to avoid occult powers like "magic," whatever its form, is that it would lead us to rely on that instead of God. If you are in a denomination that has a Priesthood, it's undermining Priesthood authority with occult "powers" that are obtained from sources outside of God.

Bad mojo.
"He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool."
—Brigham Young

"Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus."
—Christopher Hitchens
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RoosterOnAStick
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I think there is another aspect and it was touched on by Nedla about the supernatural interacting with our world. I agree with that premise but there is a lot more that I don't think a lot of us understand. Speaking of C.S. Lewis he highlights this problem of not knowing what we are doing regarding magic in The Magician's Nephew and is the premise of the first part of the story. It's how the white witch accidentally got unleashed into Narnia in the first place.

I'm going to throw in some Eastern orthodox stuff that has been said on similar matters as well. You see, the question comes down to our ability to perceive the spiritual world and well, our spiritual perceptions and abilities that humanity had before the fall are marred and blurred due to our sin. Insofar as we have repented and been sanctified, God may see fit to grant someone the ability to perceive these sort of spiritual things as they actually are. Then again, maybe He won't. The point is that it is at His discretion, not ours. Also, much like how we cannot lay eyes upon God the Father and cannot come to Him except through the Son, we can't simply expect to use this stuff as if spiritual wonders are ours for our own use. They are given solely at God's discretion and are to be used for His purposes only. Our fallen bodies and spirits may simply not be able to actually handle such things right now if God gave us too much we may just be blown away. Moses aged considerably just by looking at God's "back" for example, and let's not forget what happened every time someone messed with the Ark of the Covenant.

The presence of spiritual wonders is also not a sign of a holy man in of itself, for demons can also create spiritual wonders of their own, many of which can look like Christian ones too (they don't have to be occult to be potentially malevolent).

I believe human nature was capable of far more before it became fallen because of this, but that understanding does not mean that we can have a good understanding by starting off from our currently fallen perspectives. There are much greater metaphysical implications that can be absolutely soul destroying and if we go mistaking our damaged and flawed spiritual eyes for sound ones we can easily do great spiritual harm to ourselves.

In Orthodoxy we have a very important spiritual teaching about the concept of Prelest, or spiritual delusion. There are many types but they all have some element of either misguidance or sin (specifically spiritual pride but not always) behind them. If we do not have the discernment and wisdom to determine which supernatural practices are beneficial to a Christian and which ones are not, not only will we do incalculable harm, but we may not realize how much harm we are doing to ourselves until it is too late. False prophets, visions, new "revelations", counterfeit spiritual gifts, and counterfeit apparitions can masquerade as the real thing quite well and there can be real power behind them too. They can certainly feel very real and may well be real in that sense but that does not mean they come from God. There is also a lesser form IMO called fancy. We see it all the time where we sort of fancy ourselves to be (insert spiritual office or position here) when we really aren't or are at best a novice.

We just don't know enough and we need to realize how much we don't know. God would give these things to us if it will spiritually benefit us, others, and be used the way He wants them to be used, but only insofar as we can handle it.
“If the history of the 20th Century proved anything, it proved that however bad things were, human ingenuity could usually find a way to make them worse.” - Theodore Dalrymple
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Nedla2000
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Yes thank you Rooster I agree. We must remember that we are not using magic the "magic" (which in reality are supernatural beings) is using us! And I also liked that you pointed out that humans have indeed fallen more than most people think. Not only did we fall into sin and gain the knowledge of good and evil; I believe that we fell at least 7 dimensions. Now that sound like something out of sci-fi but I will go into detail in a post I plan on writing sometime this week. As I think about it interaction with the supernatural is one of C.S. Lewis's main subjects.
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