But I understand why people have that fear and why it's so hard to shake

Nothing would happen if you didn't assign weird consequences to it

I agree with your point on you have to give words meaning for them to have power

but you can't control if someone else gives meaning to your words

Words/concepts/people anything

Depends on what you mean by other people giving meaning to what I say

I mean in the context of speaking demons names

If I start blaspheming against allah that doesn't exactly mean I'm gonna get struck down by a lighting bolt, or have a 747 flown into my house, no matter what they would like you to believe

You may speak a name and not give it power, but if someone else gives, or more like, lots of people give those names power, it doesn't matter if you do or not

Collective consciousness

that wacky stuff

Sure it does, I just explained how that wasn't the case 🤔

In the case of your example, you gave Allah.

isn't he supposed to be "merciful and forgiving"? Obviously nothing bad would come of that

If you worship him, then sure

What would contextualize worship though?

The punishment for apostasy is death, so if you don't....

You could pick anything though, it wouldn't really change my point

Well, death at the hands of people, not the entity himself

or, maybe you could make an argument that he was responsible for their actions

Supposedly from the entities divine words though

So what do you believe? Is it ultimately his doing or his followers?

or are they not so different anyway

Maybe it doesn't matter if it's one way or the other, idk

the result is the same

These are all really interesting theological questions

Well that's exactly the issue isn't it? If it's from his followers, then all of these actions derive from giving meaning to something that requires meaning to function. If it's from Allah, then meaning is pointless, it happens regardless of whether you believe or not

So are negative effects from speaking demons names an external effect (something that happens without belief) or an internal effect (something that happens because we believe it will)

I've always leaned toward the second

But haven't got any real experiences with negative entities so I'm not sure

Never encountered anything I've perceived as negative

It applies to any percieved effects

Positive or negative

I've purposely reached out to negative forces years ago. Not so much Hollywood ohsospoopy demon but more or less draining of energy, and of those around me

Not so fun, but I was a dumb kid who was curious

As far as the discussion goes above, this is the same argument in the bible, during exodus

the scripture clearly states it was God who hardened the pharaohs heart to the plight of the Jews

so does that mean the pharoh wasn't at fault? Do we not have free will and God or whoever has full control over our actions?

if that's the case then did he make eve bite the Apple and then punish her for doing so?

Big brain questions I'm not equipped to answer tbh, but interesting questions nontheless

Is it even really free will if it can be taken away 🤔

@Diadact is right yo