Shintoism Their belief in Kami

Research Question What do you think has been the reason why Christians (specifically Roman Catholic Church) believe in the existence of ghosts and demons How do they deal with it

Religion is basically defined as a set of beliefs to gods.  It is primarily a sacred involvement to things that has to do with spirituality.  Karl Marx once said that human makes religion and not religion makes a human, as what most of us believes.  There are different religions that have evolved centuries ago.  One of these religions is Christianity, which is the largest religion in the world covering more than 30 of the world population.  For this ethnographic fieldwork, we would focus on a specific Christian religion  Roman Catholic. 

There are many Christian religions in the world, Roman Catholic is one.  Roman Catholic believes in the existence of God through the Holy Trinity God the father, God the son, and God the Spirit.  Religious Tolerance has given an explanation of why the term Roman Catholic evolved.  According to them, we use the phrase Roman Catholic in place of Catholic to avoid confusion. Most Christian faith groups acknowledge the Nicene Creed and thus regard themselves as Catholic, at least as far as being part of the catholic and apostolic church. Within any one given faith group, the meaning of the term Catholic is relatively clear. But our site deals with all Christian denominations and all other religions. To assure clarity and to avoid ambiguity, we use the term Roman Catholic when referring to the church headed by the pope in Rome. We use similar terms (e.g. Evangelical Catholic, Anglo-Catholic, Old Catholic) when referring to some other faith groups.

Roman Catholic has many beliefs in its religion.  Most of these beliefs are based on the religions Holy Bible which consists of the words and doings of Jesus Christ (God the Son).  The religion also consists of people who are called the servants of the Lord this includes the priest, nuns and saints.  One of the many beliefs of this religion is the existence of ghosts and demons.  Not many religions believe in the existence of such and how Catholics approach this issue is very interesting. 

My hypothesis for this problem would be Catholics believe what the Bible consists and the existence of demons was told in the Bible.  Also, Catholics have the belief that one of Gods angels, Satan (also called as Lucifer) has become a traitor, and he has become the image of a demon.   The concept of ghosts evolved because Catholics believe that when a person died without fully accomplishing his purpose in life, he tends to come back to Earth in the form of spirit mostly commonly considered as ghost.  Some Catholics also believe that the existence of ghost could be because of revenge or guidance.  It is also a part of the belief that ghost could possibly turn out as guardian angels. 

For the ethnographic fieldwork, I have decided to conduct a one on one interview from people that were randomly selected.  The group of interviewees consists of a priest, a student, a ghost buster, a kid and an old woman.

The interview with the priest was quite predictable and boring.  He did support my hypothesis that Catholics adopted the belief of demons from the Bible.  He also noted that ghost should not be termed as such rather, it should be called spirits.  In the fundamental sense, ghosts are spirits surrounding us.  According to him, the best way to deal with demons is through prayers, the usual prayers would work but knowing tongues is better.  Tongues is a way of praying in which you mouth random words and saying the prayer only in your mind.  He says that through this, the devil would not be able to hear your thoughts.  Catholics do believe that there are some powerful devils that get immune to basic Catholic prayers such as The Lords Prayer and it would be more effective if a person would mouth his own.  Evils sometimes possess a persons body and this is dealt with through exorcism. 

The rest of the interviewees have almost the same answers.  They believe in the existence of demon because there is the existence of good.  They believe in the story of Satan.  The kid said she believes in demons because she believes there is evil but she does not believe in ghosts because her mom said ghosts are just products of our imaginations.  She said she considers ghosts as guardian angels like her grandmother who just passed away and are not to be afraid of.  The student, however, believes in ghosts because he was able to see one already.  He also said that whenever he feels cold air pass him he gets paranoid that someone unseen is there. 

Nevertheless, he only believes that ghosts exist only to frighten people and not to hurt them and to remind everyone the existence of God.  The old womans belief is caused by traditions and faith.  She said that she does believe in the existence of the two but are not afraid for them God is with her all the time. 
The ghost buster primarily believes that the existence of ghosts is because of unfinished business. 

Stories about demons and ghosts are usually believed to happen in provinces or places far away from the city proper.  This because such things do not like to be seen by much people. 

The belief of Catholics about the existence of ghosts can be falsifiable because ghosts are not included in the Bible which is the basis of the Catholic Church.   Also, there are no distinct and concise explanations of how a spirit would exist.  The beliefs are only based on sayings and there are only few people who are able to witness such things that still make this issue unjustifiable.  

The approach for this issue was easy because the topic is part of the cultural norms.  The interviewees did not have any difficulties answering the questions and all of them were able to support the hypothesis that the Bible influenced the people with the belief of demons.  Though some of them have their different opinions and views about ghosts, it can be concluded that most Catholics believes in the existence of demons and ghosts. 

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