Demons: Evil Beings or Just Minor Deities?

[ambelamba]

I was surprised that most people don't know the original meaning of the word 'demon'. It simply meant lesser deities. No more no less.

Rather than seeing the world as ruled by one single supreme God and his angels under his command, we can contemplate on innumerable number of so many deities, without really naming them. Or...should we even set boundaries between each of them? Am I the only one that sees old school religions as fanboy playthings for ancient people? Probably theologians were modern equivalent of D&D rulebook writers, since everything revolved around religion and so was entertainment.

So, eventually the boundary between monotheism and polytheism becomes very vague. Anything wrong with that? Maybe the only bad thing is that it can confuse whole lot of laypeople.

[Whisperer]

Saw an image in a thread or net post from an archaic culture, of a cup or plaque showing demons paying homage to an earthly ruler, maybe Egyptian and they looked like folk with a lion head!

But they were described as demons or named as such....

[DecoNoir]

I take option C: A great excuse for those who don't want to admit their mental health issues. Also good for cheap horror screenplays.

[+Link of Hyrule]

I haven't got my resources on me right now to clarify your position. I'd like to go to the source to see what it had to say. But since I can't, can you provide links and sources that I may be able to further read on this?

[Jilliman]

I've searched for names of demons online and I've found some share the names of various deities from other religions. I suppose that's how the belief originated. False gods and renegade angels against Yahweh. Makes sense.

Not saying I believe in demons or god though.

[jamesjr191]

Heres a boat load of names.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_theological_demons