Demon Possession in 2016

[Jonathan_Burke (Jon)]

@Eddie

That is why comparisons of benighted African societies with modern Western societies are misleading. In a traditional African society, cases of demonic activity were not examined by both the tools of religious tradition and the tools of modern science.

No one is saying that the (current), Western experience is analogous to the African experience. Although it certainly used to be. In the past alleged cases of demonic activity were not “examined by both the tools of religious tradition and the tools of modern science”. Thanks to ignorant Christians, they were simply considered evidence of demonic activity, so people were misled for centuries. What has improved our approach to demons? By your own acknowledgement, it’s science. That speaks volumes.

@Eddie

In a modern Western setting where a Catholic priest is called in to render a verdict on possible demonic activity, that Catholic priest has been trained to respect modern science and to work with scientific personnel in the investigative process. He will read the clinical reports on the patient, etc.

In other words, the priest acknowledges the primacy of science in this area.

@Eddie

Neither Merv nor I nor anyone else here is suggesting that when someone in modern America starts behaving or speaking in a strange way, we should bypass scientists and doctors and place the case solely in the hands of a clergyman.

And no one is implying you are making such a suggestion. As the product of modernist Christianity, you have been led to repudiate the error-filled ways of your theological ancestors.

@Eddie

No harm is done by considering the demonic hypothesis, since in 99% of the cases it will quickly be ruled out, with the clergy in total agreement with the physicians.

If at thesis is ruled out in 99% of all cases, “with the clergy in total agreement with the physicians”, then that thesis should be the very last considered, and its entire validity should be called into question. And where is the actual evidence for that 1% of cases in which the physicians are in total agreement with the clergy, saying “This is demonic activity, our medical skills are of no avail here”? The very approach you describe is the complete opposite of what we find in the New Testament. If you’re going to take the New Testament as authoritative, you should actually act on what you claim it teaches, not do the complete opposite.

And what about the fact that evangelicals are actually importing their beliefs to Africa and in many cases are in fact perpetuating or even initiating hunts for demons and witches? Since when did non-belief in demons actually result in people being killed? And what about the cases in places like North America and even other Western countries were Christian demon believers abandon medical treatment out of preference for exorcism?

This happened in Australia during the 200s, when a US based Christian organization called “Mercy Ministries” took thousands of dollars from families and used exorcism (instead of medical science), to “treat” people with depression and anorexia.

They sought help, but got exorcism and the Bible

A SECRETIVE ministry with direct links to Gloria Jean’s Coffees and the Hillsong Church has been deceiving troubled young women into signing over months of their lives to a program that offers scant medical or psychiatric care, instead using Bible studies and exorcisms to treat mental illness.

But these former residents say no medical or psychological services were provided - just an occasional, monitored trip to a GP, where the consultation takes place in the presence of a Mercy Ministries staff member or volunteer.

Instead, the program is focused on prayer, Christian counselling and expelling demons from in and around the young women, who say they begged Mercy Ministries to let them get medical help for the conditions they were suffering, which included bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders and anorexia.

in fact a number of “patients” ended up worse off than before, with some becoming suicidal as a result of how they were treated by these Christian cranks.

The truth though has been revealed by whistle blowers who say that they came out of the Ministries’ program suicidal and more depressed than ever, convinced that their problems were due to demonic possession and Satanic control.

Naomi Johnson, Rhiannon Canham-Wright and Megan Smith (Megan asked to use an assumed name) went into Mercy Ministries independent young women, and came out broken and suicidal, believing, as Mercy staff had told them repeatedly, that they were possessed by demons and that Satan controlled them.

So where are all the success stories of people correctly identifying demonic activity and combating it with a theological approach?

@Eddie

We should keep open all possibilities for which we don’t have a formal disproof.

Like astrology? Like frost giants?

@Mervin_Bitikofer

So; you (@Jonathan_Burke) have put arrogance behind you in all this. I’m glad to hear that, and that is very good for you indeed.

I live in a country which is highly religious, with many people believing in ghosts, demons, spirits, and various forms of the supernatural, even if they aren’t religious. I have no qualms about visiting local temples and shrines, or joining in the traditional ceremonies which seek the blessings of the ancestors, ceremonies which are conducted monthly by many Taiwanese companies and in which employees are expected to participate. I’m active in the local indigenous community, and have participated in their worship and traditional religious practices (both Christian and pre-Christian). I was raised by open minded and tolerant Christian parents, in a very relaxed cultural environment in Australia. So I don’t have any problem living in a country in which Christians are a tiny minority and in which most people hold theological and religious views very different to mine, and I certainly don’t have arrogance issues.

@Mervin_Bitikofer

I’m afraid that many of us as your compatriots in the same cause have more than enough to make up for your deficiency.

I’m not sure who you’re talking about there.

@Mervin_Bitikofer

With our glorious Science at the helm, the world is surely headed in the right direction

I don’t know what that lengthy screed was about, since it didn’t have any obvious connection to anything I had written and since it doesn’t reflect what you believe or what I believe.

[Mervin_Bitikofer]

My screed had perhaps more than its fair share of sarcasm in it. When I wrote:

“Many of us as your compatriots in the same cause [advancing science] have more than enough [arrogance] to make up for your deficiency”, I was referring to the attitudes (probably more common in the U.S.) that often accompany the same kinds of claims.

As far as connections to things you’ve written, I may have conflated topics from a couple threads together (this one, the tower of babel thread, and maybe others as well.) But I really am glad to hear that my early morning screed was probably well “over-the-top” as far as you are concerned. It doesn’t sound like you are so embroiled in Scientism as what I was imagining.

[beaglelady]

I’m afraid I’m not impressed by this article you stumbled upon. Here I see no references to brain scans or other medical tests. For such an unusual case, wouldn’t it be appropriate to see what a secular doctor thought? Wouldn’t he be impressed by junk flying off the shelves, even if he didn’t believe in possession? A case report in a professional journal would be more convincing for me.

[Jonathan_Burke (Jon)]

@Eddie

Then why does the African experience keep being invoked, despite my repeated discussion of a different kind of situation?

For the reasons I have given, one of which is to demonstrate the danger and futility of belief in demons.

@Eddie

The priest acknowledges the relevance of science in this area, to test for non-demonic possibilities.

The priest decides that 99% of the time science is more relevant than his religion. So much for religious approaches to demonic possession; science gets priority, then religion comes slinking in the back door hoping to pick up the scraps. This is simply the classic god of the gaps argument, only even more humiliating than usual.

@Eddie

That doesn’t follow. For example, when a doctor is diagnosing a patient, there may a 1% chance that the patient has a very rare kind of cancer, but the doctor first investigates the more likely options. Testing for the 1% possibility isn’t “invalid”; but it takes a back seat in the order of investigation.

What doesn’t follow is your analogy. In your analogy, the very rare kind of cancer has actually been empirically proven to exist. This is totally unlike demons. In your analogy, the very rare kind of cancer is empirically verifiable. This is totally unlike demons. In your analogy, the very rare kind of cancer has a known pathology, diagnosis, and treatment. This is totally unlike demons.

Where a priest can only offer a diagnosis of demonic possession in 1% of cases, since that diagnosis has no empirical basis and cannot be verified, of course it should be called into question. Like I said, it’s just the god of the gaps. This is even more the case when it becomes clear that although the priest gives the diagnosis of demonic possession of cases, the doctor gives it in 0% of cases. So in 99% of cases the priest agrees with the doctor, and in 1% of cases the priest is on his own because the doctor doesn’t agree. And the doctor is the one who has been right 99% of the time. I know who I’d be listening to.

@Eddie

So are you saying that in the New Testament, specifically in the Gospels, demons are regarded as real beings who can be exorcised from a person?

No. I note you have completely avoided the point I raised. Here it is again. The very approach you describe is the complete opposite of what we find in the New Testament.

@Eddie

I take no responsibility for what those people do. I cannot stop flaky Christians from going off to poor countries and doing all kinds of crazy things that they do. I certainly do not support them with either encouragement or money.

You just cover for them by supporting their beliefs.

@Eddie

If North American Christianity had more respect for educated people than it does,

…belief in demons would be as moribund as belief in witches. Or do you believe in them as well? Ghosts? Trolls under the bridge?

@Eddie

You have decided, out of what expertise in either medicine or psychology or demonology I am not sure, that the demon possibility is on the level of the alien abduction possibility.

I don’t need any expertise in medicine or psychology or demonology to note that not even a single demon believer can provide any empirical evidence of demonic possession.

@Eddie

But we are talking here merely about whether credible witnesses have reported apparently non-natural happenings. And they have reported such happenings.

Yes they’ve reported things like “A witch turned my neighbour into a goat”, and “This three year old child killed my cow with a curse”. Totally believable and convincing statements, because they were from credible witnesses with no reason to make this stuff up.

[beaglelady]

@Eddie

You claim to want reports. Well, above, you had a report from Dr. Ex-YEC, who according to his own self-description and the description of others (on the Bible and Science Forum, for example) is both clergyman and scientist, and therefore has the right combination of critical faculties and faith to have a balanced judgement in such matters.

I wanted a real case report. Do you even know what that is? It would be in a scholarly journal. Your sudden change in tone suggests that you might be having trouble finding one.

btw, you can’t believe everything you read on the internet. Sincere people can believe all kinds of wonky things. Just look at the right hand side of the article of the web site you found. There’s an article about ghosts caught on camera and a book about alien abductions.

@Eddie

Your obsession with formal research and with paper documentation amazes me.

Thank you.

[Jonathan_Burke (Jon)]

@Eddie

Not so.

Please show me that demons have been empirically proven to exist.

@Eddie

For a traditional Christian demons are just as real as rare cancers, and therefore they become a diagnostic possibility.

As usual this avoids what I wrote. The point being made is that demons have not been empirically proven to exist. The fact that people believe in them doesn’t change this. There are people who believe in Bigfoot and alien abductions. That doesn’t mean they exist. From a medical perspective a diagnostic possibility can only include that which has been empirically proven to exist.

@Eddie

Not a single believer in God can provide any empirical evidence of the existence of God.

Yes they can. Not proof, but evidence; the type of evidence which the Bible even indicates we should see.

@Eddie

Speak for yourself; don’t universalize with an unqualified “we.”

So to be clear, when you read the New Testament do you find that cases of suspected demonic possession were first investigated thoroughly by physicians to be certain that they were not simply the result of a natural cause, and then only when the physicians had completed their examination and agreed with an exorcist that the individual was demonically possessed, then the exorcist would treat the individual, and that in 99% of cases it was discovered that the individual was not suffering from demonic possession? Is that what you find in the New Testament?

[beaglelady]

@Eddie

So are you calling the author of the article a liar? If so, just say it outright. But if not, how do you account for what he observed?

No. Sincere people can be deluded. and others can pick up on the delusion.

@Eddie

Was the author of the Gospel lying when he said that Jesus fed five thousand people with seven items of food? If so, just say it outright. But if not, how do you account for what the author reports as an actual event?

No, the author of the Gospel wasn’t lying. Why would you give somebody you found on the internet the same weight and authority as the gospel writers? Besides, Jesus continues to feed His church today in the Eucharist, and I have experienced it.

[beaglelady]

@Eddie

So you and beaglelady, who vigorously deny that demons exist or ever have existed, have only two logical options.

I have never denied the existence of the demonic. I just deny demon possession.

[Casper_Hesp]

Hi @Eddie, I applaud you for your perseverance in continuing to debate this matter.[quote=“Eddie, post:316, topic:4581”]
I said that they personally believed that such demons existed, and that they believed that Jesus had interacted with demons, and that they intended the readers of their Gospels to believe that demons existed and that Jesus had interacted with demons in the ways described.
[/quote]
Good summary!

[beaglelady]

No I don’t deny the existence of demons.

[beaglelady]

@Eddie

You haven’t accounted for the delusion. How can one be deluded about a child rising above a bed in a room in which one is standing?

Delusion happens al the time! Some 30,000 witnessed the Miracle of the Sun. I don’t believe it myself. And again, tell me why I should believe somebody you ran into on the internet?