Demons are the Pagan Gods of Ancient Times

[Byrd]

Looking at these different (and more popular) religions, there seems to be a recurring theme, one that we’ve all noticed and one that can’t be ignored – partly because it’s a big point of contention:
“Blah blah blah, my God is the one true God.”

Historically speaking, this is not the case.

Wars and conflicts in the ancient world are mostly about territory (and occasionally about revenge on a multigenerational scale.)  We see many civilizations adopt gods from other civilizations (Rome adopted some of the Greek gods and made them their own, Egypt's own Isis became part of other pantheons as did Sumerian Astarte and so on.  Anubis shows up as a god for the Romans somewhere after 200 BC.

Here's a lovely example... yes, that's Anubis and it was carved in Rome sometime after 100 AD


In addition, demons in the ancient world really weren't reworked deities.  They were quite often embodiments of human afflictions (diseases, etc)

Let’s go a step further… What do the ancient gods and “Demons” have in common? A lot, to put it simply. You can summon them. You can build them altars. You can offer them sacrifices and gifts. You can commune with them and ask them for favors. They each have individual areas of expertise (so to speak). They are both not to be toyed with. According to a lot of tales and books, they’ve each been around since the beginning, if not beforehand.

Grunge ( 12 Terrifying Ancient Demons In Roman-Egyptian Folklore (grunge.com)) has a rather ... indifferent article on demons but does have this interesting distinction between gods and demons:  nobody sets up altars and temples to demons and they don't have cults (shrines and priests and worshipers.)

Now... we should make a distinction here:  Originally, gods COULD control demons and sometimes had spirits that followed them (Bast, I'm looking at you and Sekhmet as well... and Tutu) and could be used as tools for either good or retribution (hunting up evil Discover Sekhmet: Goddess of Retribution and Protector of Egypt (ancient-egypt-online.com)   But for the most part, demons were something that humans captured and destroyed (here's one of the tools, a "demon bowl")



The kinds of interactions you are describing are fairly late Christian (Middle Ages sort of thing), where demons were summoned to answer questions/bring gold/etc, etc.

Side note - Could that explain verified cases of possession? Essentially just pissed off Gods from thousands of years ago that went from being worshipped and having offerings presented on a regular basis, to being demonized (pun intended) and turned away from... That would definitely explain the hatred towards anything with a Holy connotation to it.

I'd say "no" since most of them were never turned into demons (the exception being the actions of the "People of the Book" (Jewish/Christian/Muslim))  Furthermore, you get legitimate examples of people being possessed by gods... everything from the sibyls of ancient Greece to the modern Voodoo practitioners.  Demonic possession seems to be a psychological problem and not associated with actual spirits.



And if you are on Facebook and like mythology, you might give Mr. P's account a good looky-loo: Facebook