BIBLE SAYS SATAN CAN DO DECEIVING MIRACLES

Catholicism seeks miracles even today and denies that there has necessarily been no miracles since Jesus returned to Heaven.  The Protestant Churches held that God no longer did signs or miracles so if you wanted supernatural intervention you had to go to the devil. Desperate people will do that. Even if they think God might help, they realise that he is more likely not to help with a miracle anyway! Belief in God leads to a temptation to superstition.

However, Christians protest against occult toys and novels with an occult theme.

Those who think that Harry Potter and troll dolls do harm mean that the harm is subtle for they hold that Satan likes to act and look good and does evil bit by bit so that nobody can see how they have caused the harm.

What people must ask is this. What right have I to say demons use such things or even exist when it leads to accusing others of wittingly or unwittingly promoting the most evil power in the universe? That is extremist and dangerous. It is too big of a thing to get wrong if it is wrong.  

The Bible is vehemently anti-occult or anything that leads to it. Those who are truly Christian will be the same. 

The atheist is more tolerant in the sense that she regards an occult superstition as good as a Christian one! 

THE DEVIL CAN DO MAGIC
  
Though some Christians disagree, the Bible can be proved to teach the existence of a personal Devil. The doctrine of a clever Devil who has strong occult capabilities contradicts the Bible and Church doctrine that miracles show where the truth from God is.
 
By Satan, the Jews meant an evil fallen angel. Jesus said that Satan couldn’t be working through him so he agreed with them. He did not use Satan to mean mental illness, for the presence of sin. Some say he did. Then, he would have been a liar. He spoke about Satan as if he believed him to be a demon, a real person, and misled them if he believed Satan was something else. Jesus would have told them he disagreed with their understanding of Satan for he had to be careful to avoid telling lies. He had told enough through carelessness. So, Jesus believed in literal demons.
 
If Jesus did not want to upset his hearers by denying the existence of the Devil, he could have simply talked about evil tempting us and possessing us etc. Today's scholars try to read our modern knowledge back into Jesus' life. They are engaging in rationalisation and excuse-making.
 
The Bible is clear that the Devil is able to do miracles. He allegedly turned himself into a snake to lure Adam and Eve into sin (Genesis 3).

The Egyptian magicians were able to transmute water into blood (Exodus 7:22) and make frogs overrun Egypt (Exodus 8:3). This was not trickery according to the Bible. It is plainly written in the Bible that they did the same as God who did these things miraculously so they did theirs miraculously too. It was a contest and they could not take part without miracles.
 
Besides, the magicians would have been no match for Moses or tried to be if they needed props to do their tricks while Moses did not. They would have been laughed at and the whole point of the magicians’ endeavours was to make Moses and his God look small not bigger. How could tricksters cover much of Egypt in frogs and why would they want to? They wanted to show that what God did was not impressive but they didn’t need billions of frogs to prove their point. Their spells must have done more than they bargained for. The miraculous results were attributed to the Gods of Egypt so God didn’t do them for he does not trick pagans into thinking that their gods exist (Numbers 23:19). Christians reckon Satan performed these miracles. Strange that God never worried that his miracles would force the Egyptians to believe in him here.
 
If God sets up nature and then changes is it because he has his mistakes to fix? These miracles were evidently just done to correct God’s mistakes because they could not edify Israel when the magicians were able to do miracles too and when they were very vindictive miracles and when they made Egypt more stubborn in evil. Why would God edify Israel which was a small clique in the midst of the more numerous Egyptians who were corrupted and made incorrigible by what they seen God do? The miracles had mostly bad fruits no matter from what angle you look at them from. Human life is the absolute value and these miracles killed the firstborn of Egypt. When Heaven sends miracles like that, there is obviously no way of spotting the difference between them and the ones that come from Hell.
 
By the way, Jesus proclaimed that his resurrection showed he was the infallible Son of God for whom people should be prepared to abandon everything if he required it despite the great physical miracles he believed that his nemesis Satan did in the Old Testament! What does that say about him? He hadn’t even the decency to give an explanation which is totally fatal to his claims to have divine approval. His resurrection being a false credential proves the same Devil was with him if he really rose and it also shows that The resurrection of Jesus if it is truly the most verifiable miracle ever which according to Christianity’ eccentric vision it is, then it stands forever as a testimony that miracles are never signs of divine love and divine truth.
 
Revelation 13 says the Devil’s beast, symbol of the Antichrist will lead the inhabitants of the earth astray for it will make fire whoosh out of Heaven as people watch that entices the world into idolatry as a result. It could be literal so it is not symbolic. It is not a nuclear blast for you don’t turn to idols over one of them or look at them. The Egyptians would have seen the miracles of Satan not as evil but as showing that Yahweh was evil and their gods were better and stronger and when rubbed up the right way could be very nice friends. When Satan acts the nice guy he will do kindly miracles that could fool even the saints (Matthew 24:24). If anyone could, only a theologian with an IQ of a thousand would have any hope of seeing when a miracle is really the Devil’s work.
 
Jesus and his people said that the evil one will do misleading signs and wonders to delude the world someday in Mark 13:22. Paul wrote that the man of lawlessness would do incredible miracles to deceive the world in 2 Thessalonians 2:9. They say these miracles are false in the sense that they are claimed to be from God and are not. There is no hint that the wonders are not supernatural.

If the Devil does miracles that makes big complications for the Church. When the Devil was able to make water into blood and even to miraculously create frogs to torment Egypt with he could even have raised Jesus from the dead though Jesus made the resurrection his credential. Maybe he even changes the bread and wine at Mass into the body and blood of somebody evil.
  
SATAN RUINS THE SIGN DOCTRINE
 
The Catholic Church holds that we must believe in the miracles of the Bible to be Christians. Indeed if we don’t, we end up with no reason for holding that the Bible is the word of God. The Church holds that miracles since then may be believed in if you want. The Church doesn’t approve of such miracles - it only permits them to be believed in after an investigation to authenticate them.
 
We know that the distinction between compulsory miracle belief and optional is arbitrary and what applies to one applies to the other. It is obvious. 
 
The Catholic Church allows the Catholic to arbitrarily believe that her optional-for-belief miracles are of the Devil, a personal being who used to be an angel but who now devotes his time to doing evil magic. And if Catholics believe this they will have to hold that the Church does nothing but put souls in Hell. The Devil would not assist a religion by doing miracles to attract new members and make the allegiance of present members stronger if that can bring souls to and through the gates of Heaven. He would be afraid that God would turn his efforts to his own advantage if he were after anything else so he goes for what God can’t take advantage of. This option smears the reputation of all who declare a non-Bible miracle to be authentic and from God by portraying them as ignorant and lacking in caution and of wilfully being in league with the Devil.
 If a religion teaches that it is true that miracles are done to show what religion is true then it follows from this teaching either that all other religions that claim to have been verified by miracles have been fooled by hoaxers or that the Devil performed the miracles. Thus, miracles are being used dishonestly when presented as evidence.
 
Satan's plans can be as complicated as God's so he can do a lot of good for manipulative purposes. Ultimately, the notion of the Devil working deluding miracles means that no miracle ever backs up any doctrine for you can never be sure if he was responsible or not. If Catholicism is good then other religions are good too or at least not obviously evil.
 
When God lets the Devil trap people by bestowing miraculous powers on him he could let him perform any kind of sick hoax. He did not give him the power for nothing. To say he won’t let him do this or that is to make mere assumptions and set up an arbitrary, that is useless, standard for determining which wonders are God’s and which are the Devil’s work. It would be assuming what would show that a miracle is from God and claiming that when a miracle passes this assumed test it is verified which would be entirely dishonest. The Devil might see far ahead into the future and do a good and holy looking miracle that will someday and indirectly and secretly do more harm than good. His plans may be as mysterious as God’s meaning that there is no possibility of distinguishing holy from unholy miracles. Miracles that seem to support the faith are the work of a lying spirit if not hoaxes for they promote a form of faith as good when it is evil for it is blind.
 
Christians teach that one is entitled to doubt that miracles come from God unless they are done to boost goodness and do good. The New Catholic Encyclopaedia says under Miracles (Theology of) that there will be at least one moral fault with a vision or miracle worked by Satan that will show it was not from God. But every single miracle is an occasion of sin for many. For example, many commit the so-called sin of unbelief in the resurrection of Jesus.
 
The Devil would do superficially nice miracles for a mysterious evil purpose. The Devil would have happily raised Jesus from the dead though it was a good miracle for it would do far more damage than good by upsetting blasphemers and people who are trying to force themselves to be sceptics which draws them into sin. We cannot judge others to be worse or better than ourselves because their minds are not ours so it is impossible to calculate how much sin a miracle has resulted in. The Bible says Satan will often pose as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:13, 14). It is no good to object that God wouldn’t let him do good miracles that are a cog in the machinery for wreaking evil when God lets all kinds of evil happen and lets him and others seduce us with their evil advice that looks good and wise to us. Satan knows things we don’t know so he can perform sweet miracles for an evil purpose that we cannot discover. To do obviously evil miracles would be ineffective and would serve only to put people off him and his plan.
 
The only viable view of right and wrong comes from ethical egoists. It is the view that we should help others for we enjoy it and not out of an attempt to sacrifice ourselves. It is utterly opposed to the morality the Church has accepted and is completely incompatible with the Church and its revelation and its God therefore miracles are out to get us to do evil. Anything else is just human invention. When religious morality is just invention what use is a moral criterion? Many would think that a vision that forbade all lies was from the Devil for most of us believe in lying under strict conditions for the greater good. The criterion of the Church is too prejudiced to have any value.
 
It would be more reasonable for religionists to hold that if miracles are signs then they only imply the existence of God indirectly. Now that would mean they are not necessary for they could only imply God if reason has worked out on other grounds that there has to be a God.
 
The miracles might imply that there is a Devil for they happen and prove nothing directly about God. Some object that it is obvious that if there is a Devil then he is not supreme because somebody good must have him on a leash. Or maybe he has power but not enough!
 
If a miracle doesn't tell us anything directly about God the miracle does not tell us what to believe but tells us to do a puzzle and work out who or what might be doing it and what it would mean. But then we would have to be sure there could be a God first before we could consider attributing the miracle to him. And then we would not need the miracles. And the miracles being useless would not imply that there is a Devil and a God but a mad spirit.
 
The Catholic Church says that her miracles point one to the faith and are not the basis for faith which is the resurrection and miracle-working of Jesus as reported in scripture. The alleged miracles of Lourdes and Fatima and others convert many people to a deeper faith in Roman Catholicism. But if the apparitions or healings or whatever are not a basis of faith then they are really reducing true Christian faith and replacing it for most Catholics cannot prove the resurrection or Bible miracles were historical events so how could one believe in the resurrection more than in, say, Lourdes? And there are loads of Churches so it is foolish and lazy to take the Church’s word for it that the faith is true. When the word of the Church is enough for people the reason it is enough is because they feel it is true not because they believe it is true. Extra-biblical miracles are not the basis of faith and they lead most astray therefore they must be from the Devil or hoaxes for they are not from God.
 
God would not ask us to believe in miracles coming from a lying religion and many religions tell lies and seem to have authentic miracles. The Devil would.
 
The Devil would do a holy looking miracle to prove the existence of God when belief in God makes any wrong we do more than just wrong it becomes an act of cruelty against the God one believes in. Catholicism urges you to believe you deserve terrible things for your sins. That is evil.
 
Dear Catholic, it is not right to call the miracles of other religions satanic works or hoaxes when your belief in your own faith’s miracles is blind and therefore irrational. It is slanderous and accusing anybody who disagrees with you of being stupid or deceitful. If that is not wilful then it is the doing of the being that manifested in the apparition you believed in.
 
We have proved by horse sense that instead of defending the faith, Christianity’s miracle signs tear it apart. Any religion that has miracles that you cannot see and prove for yourself is offering miracles that are anti-God. That is, satanic.
  
Further Reading ~
A Christian Faith for Today, W Montgomery Watt, Routledge, London, 2002
Answers to Tough Questions, Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Scripture Press, Bucks, 1980
Apparitions, Healings and Weeping Madonnas, Lisa J Schwebel, Paulist Press, New York, 2004
A Summary of Christian Doctrine, Louis Berkhof, The Banner of Truth Trust, London, 1971
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Veritas, Dublin, 1995
Catholicism and Fundamentalism, Karl Keating, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1988
Enchiridion Symbolorum Et Definitionum, Heinrich Joseph Denzinger, Edited by A Schonmetzer, Barcelona, 1963
Looking for a Miracle, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, New York, 1993
Miracles, Rev Ronald A Knox, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1937
Miracles in Dispute, Ernst and Marie-Luise Keller, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1969
Lourdes, Antonio Bernardo, A. Doucet Publications, Lourdes, 1987
Medjugorje, David Baldwin, Catholic Truth Society, London, 2002
Miraculous Divine Healing, Connie W Adams, Guardian of Truth Publications, KY, undated
New Catholic Encyclopaedia, The Catholic University of America and the McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc, Washington, District of Columbia, 1967
Raised From the Dead, Father Albert J Hebert SM, TAN, Illinois 1986
Science and the Paranormal, Edited by George O Abell and Barry Singer, Junction Books, London, 1981
The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan, Headline, London, 1997
The Book of Miracles, Stuart Gordon, Headline, London, 1996
The Case for Faith, Lee Strobel, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2000
The Encyclopaedia of Unbelief Volume 1, Gordon Stein, Editor, Prometheus Books, New York, 1985
The Hidden Power, Brian Inglis, Jonathan Cape, London, 1986
The Sceptical Occultist, Terry White, Century, London, 1994
The Stigmata and Modern Science, Rev Charles Carty, TAN, Illinois, 1974
Twenty Questions About Medjugorje, Kevin Orlin Johnson, Ph.D. Pangaeus Press, Dallas, 1999
Why People Believe Weird Things, Michael Shermer, Freeman, New York, 1997