Can Someone Be an Angel and Not Know It
Are Angels Existent?
Angels surround u.s. all the fourth dimension — figuratively if non literally — peculiarly during the holidays. They appear in paintings, etchings, figurines, T-shirts, posters and just about everything else. Angels appear in several religions; for example, in Islam, angels are said to be made of light, while Christian angels were willed into existence by God.
Early versions of angels had no gender, though afterwards Christian angels were tall, slender males with soft features, often dressed in flowing robes specially tailored effectually their large white wings. Angels are said to be either immortal or greatly long-lived.
Though originally they were specifically religious figures, angels have become more secular over the years, and today they are widely associated with the New Age movement populated by pagans, atheists and those who consider themselves "spiritual." Books about angels and angelic contact are enormously popular, with titles like "Where Angels Tread" and "Angels: Who They Are and How They Help." They typically incorporate discussions of angels in scripture along with heartwarming true stories of modern-day miracles attributed to the heavenly visitors. Pop television shows such as "Highway to Heaven" (1984-1989) and "Touched by an Angel" (1994-2003) helped cement the prominence of angels in American popular culture.
Angels occasionally feature in reports of virtually-decease experiences, though by and large in those who have a pre-existing belief in them. Among UFO believers, some claim that alien abductors are actually angels instead of extraterrestrials. Erich von Daniken, for example, writer of several popular (if scientifically dubious) books in the 1970s, claimed that Biblical stories of Abraham and Joseph describe them meeting aliens, not angels.
Religious angels
The word "angel" comes from the Greek word "anglos," which means "messenger" in Hebrew. Angels can take many forms, usually appearing as human or a glowing light or aura. Often — especially in cases of averted tragedy or disaster — angels will not be seen at all, only instead their presence recognized by their actions. If something good, unexpected, and seemingly inexplicable happens, it's ofttimes assumed to be the issue of divine or celestial intervention.
The angels virtually people are familiar with today are the Christian angels, which originated from the Hebrew Testaments. The Catholic Church building devoted considerable endeavor to describing and developing an extensive hierarchy of angels. There were many different types of angels, archangels, seraphim, and and then on, with an official demography of about half a one thousand thousand.
In his volume "A Dictionary of Angels" (The Free Press, 1967) researcher Gustav Davidson devotes nearly 400 pages to identifying and listing angels. Many angels were created (or endorsed) by religious authorities, but others were made past quasi-religious scholars and laypeople. As Davidson notes, "To invent an angel, a hierarchy, or an order in a hierarchy, required some imagination but non too much ingenuity. It was sufficient merely to 1) scramble letters together of the Hebrew alphabet; two) juxtapose such letters in anagrammatic, acronymic, or cryptogrammatic class; and three) tack on to any place, property, function, attribute or quality" using the suffixes "-el" or "-irion." Thus, according to Davidson, "Hod (meaning splendor) was transformed into the angel Hodiel." In this way, simply as the aboriginal Greeks substantially created a pantheon of gods to worship, angel enthusiasts created a pantheon of angels—some more historically legitimate than others.
In Christianity and Islam, angels function mainly equally God'due south messengers (more often than not announcing births and deaths), but in mod times they office more as guardians. Indeed, the give-and-take "affections" has come up to describe any hero or benefactor. Though angels, by their nature, serve God, they also serve flesh direct. Angels perform a wide variety of tasks, from healing the sick and finding lost keys to smiting enemies and, of course, winning football games. Many believe that angels come up when summoned, and there is a long tradition of people using magic spells and charms to bring angels to them.
'Existent angels'
Despite centuries of theological speculation nearly angels — from their number to their duties to how many can trip the light fantastic toe on the head of a pin — no one knows if they be exterior of stories and legends. Many people believe they do.
Plato and Aristotle, for example, were convinced that they exist. In modernistic times, polls suggest that nearly 70 percentage of Americans remember angels are real. In their book "Paranormal America," sociologists Christopher Bader, F. Carson Mencken and Joseph Baker note, "Angels pervade popular culture in books, television set shows, and movies. ... Believers exchange informal testimonials in newsletters and interpersonal conversations virtually the potential power of angels to influence the globe, and more than one-half of Americans (53 percent) believe that they have personally been saved from damage by a guardian angel."
A 2007 Baylor Religion Survey plant that 57 percent of Catholics, 81 percentage of black Protestants, 66 per centum of Evangelical Protestants, and 10 percent of Jews reported having a personal experience with a guardian angel. And xx percentage of those who identified themselves as having no organized religion also claimed having encountered an angel.
In one famous 2008 angel run across, a North Carolina woman named Colleen Banton claimed that an angel miraculously healed her daughter. While in a hospital's waiting area, Banton noticed that a patch of sunlight appeared through a nearby window and shone in the hallway exterior her girl's room. Her daughter soon got better, and Banton attributed the recovery to the celestial visit. (While anybody was glad at the girl'southward recovery, others noted that the patch of sunlight regularly appears in that spot, at the door of patients who both practise and don't recover.)
Though angels are said to dwell in heaven, their visits to the earthly realm are not always benevolent. The virtually famous angel, of course, is Satan, who rebelled confronting God and was bandage out of heaven. He started his own outfit and has been doing well always since. Biblical angels wage warfare, lay siege to cities and impale people. The archangel Michael, for example, is oft depicted as the leader of God'due south Ground forces, destroying armies with his terrible powers and flaming sword. These avenging angels seem to take disappeared in modern times in favor of the benevolent variety.
Angels are enduringly popular for many reasons, including that they represent unconditional love and appeal to personal experience. Any good luck, meaningful coincidences or unexpected pleasant surprises can be interpreted as the work of angels. Whether real or fictional, angels have been with humans for millennia, and their presence volition continue to condolement.
Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer scientific discipline mag and writer of six books including Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries. His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.
Benjamin Radford is the Bad Science columnist for Alive Science. He covers pseudoscience, psychology, urban legends and the scientific discipline behind "unexplained" or mysterious miracle. Ben has a master's degree in education and a available's degree in psychology. He is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science mag and has written, edited or contributed to more than than xx books, including "Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries," "Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Brute in Fact, Fiction, and Sociology" and "Investigating Ghosts: The Scientific Search for Spirits," out in fall 2017. His website is world wide web.BenjaminRadford.com.
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Source: https://www.livescience.com/26071-are-angels-real.html
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