That’s fine. I’m not asking you to believe me. Obviously, even if I did explain it you’d have some explanation of why it happened and why I’m a sucker. I’m not looking to change your mind, but I know what I saw and I know the person it happened to.
You’re right though, I shouldn’t have posted if I wasn’t able to explain and cite, which I am not. So I apologize.
Well, I say that the supernatural is a bad “last resort.” To claim that all natural explanations have been ruled out is to claim that those making the determination not only know for sure all that can possibly be known about natural causes but has been able to think of them.
I agree that it’s a psychodrama and I agree that the demons are delusions, but I don’t know if exorcism is the most valid method of dealing with it.
I don’t know enough about ancient Jewish exorcisms to formulate a clear answer but from what I know of contemporary traditions of “demonic possesion” and exorcism, it was either, as you suggested, an elaborate psychodrama or perhaps were symbolic, ritualistic “healings” of people with schizophrenia.
Now this I believe. My experience in West Africa showed me that some tribal people were very susceptable to psychosomatic “hexes” and the like. Someone would put a “curse” on them and they would really get sick. They would not respond to conventional medical treatment and defied any sort of diagnosis. But if they went and paid a witch doctor (that’s what they called them) to lift the curse they would miraculously get better.
myrnajean made the observation in this thread that only people who already believe in demons seem to get “possesed,” and I think that’s a pretty telling point. Why doesn’t it ever happen to atheists?
If you defined a “Demon” as a disruptive, but discrete energy pattern that has the ability to invade a host being and impair its functioning, would that make the idea less difficult to believe?
Sort of like a virus, but only existing in the EM spectrum, is that such a kooky idea?
Nope. You would have to show that this “energy pattern” is detectable and you would have to show some mecahanism by which it “enters a host” or “impairs functioning.”
You would also have to show why “exorcisms” would have any effect on these “energy patterns.” Why would hollering “Jay-sus” at them make them leave the host?
Energy is material. It’s not just an abstract catch-all that you can use as a pseudo-scientific category for hypothetical supernatural entities. Energy is detectable, predictable and non-sentient. Imagining a special kind of energy is no more scientifically valid than positing a special kind of invisible wax. it doesn’t get you out of the empirical box. You still need to prove it.
Do you have some evidence that these patterns have ever been detected on the electromagnetic spectrum?
Probably for the same reason that placebos don’t work on Christian Scientists (or whoever the group is that refuses medical treatment).
Will you accept anecdotal evidence? Probably not, so no.
I could, but it would also be anecdotal.
I can not provide a scientific definition for something that is by definition supernatural.
I agree.
However, there are things I’ve seen and experienced that simply have no scientific explanation. Since you were not present at any of these events, it would be very easy for you to ‘debunk’ them by saying, “There must have been a scientific explanation.” I am quite confident that what I experienced was supernatural. Granted, I didn’t hire a team of scientists to come scour the area for clues. But even if they hadn’t found anything, would you believe it to have been a supernatural event, or would you just be convinced that they missed something?
The key to critical thinking:
YET.
Sure. Maybe one day someone will build a PKE meter like in Ghostbusters and we’ll be able to prove the existance of supernatural spirits.
How do you know they don’t have scientific explanations?
It’s funny, the world is full of this anecdotal crap but not one time has anything “supernatural” ever been verified by scientific analysis. Arguments from ignorance are not valid arguments.
Until that time, there is no rational basis for hypothesizing such things?
(What is a “spirit” anyway? What is it made of? By what mechanism doe it interact with the physical world?
Science studies the natural world. Supernatural events are outside the scope of its studies.
Like I said before, a scientific explanation for something which by definition is supernatural is not possible.
We are talking about specific, observed phenomena and whether such phenomena requires a “supernatural” explanation.
There has never been any observed phenomenon ever which requires a supernatural explanation. This means that there is no reason to to hypothesize any such thing as a “non-natural world.”
If you are defining the supernatural as that which is outside the scope of of scientific analysis, AND scientific analysis is, by definition an analysis based on empirical observation then you seeing to be saying the supernatural cannot be observed. This would mean that “demonic possession,” since it is observable cannot be a supernatural occurrence.
[/quote=Diogenes the Cynic]
If you are defining the supernatural as that which is outside the scope of of scientific analysis, AND scientific analysis is, by definition an analysis based on empirical observation then you seeing to be saying the supernatural cannot be observed. This would mean that “demonic possession,” since it is observable cannot be a supernatural occurrence.
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Can the cause of the demonic possession be observed?
Can the cause of the demonic possession be observed?
Sorry, I just had to fix that coding. That was a serious eyesore.
Well, I don’t know about all that. Just two nights ago, I saw with my own eyes that Camile Velasco had made the final nine of American Idol and was transmorgrifying an Elton John classic into something hideous and bleak. Do you deny that that was the work of the devil? And then one night later, she was voted off the whole shebang — clearly evidence that there is a God.
Okay, all seriousness aside, I can give you a scientific definition of a “demon” if you can give me a scientific definition of “life”. Seth Shostak, a SETI astronomer with Project Phoenix, says “Defining ‘life’ in a way that’s both complete and exclusive is not only hard, it hasn’t been done.” So, I really wouldn’t choose that hill to die on if I were you. Besides, everybody pretty much knows what a demon is and, frankly, I’m not sure whether it is even appropriate to define supernatural things in a scientific way. I mean, would defining, say, “gravity” in a religious way really be helpful to a discussion about gravity? No. Gravity is a natural phenomenon, and demons are supernatural.
Beyond that, I think that just what sort of evidence is demanded is equally as pertinent to the discussion as what sort of definition is demanded — when, for example, you ask for a single verified example. Now, you demand that demon be defined, but then use a word like “verified” without providing any sense of what you mean. If I told you what I experienced yesterday, would that verify anything for you? What do you need measurement of and what is the measure? If you aren’t careful, you will start asking for scientific evidence of something beyond nature. And that wouldn’t be appropriate. Just like you wouldn’t ask for legal evidence that natural selection is the mechanism of evolution. Surely, you wouldn’t accept the finding of any arbitrary jury as lending any validity to any scientific finding. It didn’t work in Tennessee. It is by the same token inappropriate to demand the same sort of evidence for a supernatural event as for a natural one.
DTC:
Perhaps the method to “detect” this particular kind of energy does not exist, but neither does a method exist to detect kinetic energy.
We have to rely on applying a mathematical formula to measurements of speed, which relies on observing and measuring speed. This process of inference, if sufficient to prove that kinetic energy exists and is “detectable”, can then be applied equally well to the problem of demonic possession.
We could “detect” the “demon” by looking out for unusual behaviour such as levitation and “unholy strength”, both of which, if real, would require energy in excess of what the host is capable of producing normally.
As for the act of exorcising the “demon”, I don’t think the name “Jesus” would have any direct effect in that respect, but perhaps somehow it might provoke an internal reaction in the host which would cause a release of energy that would drive the demon out.
Your objection with most weight is that energy is non-sentient. How so? If energy is matter, humans are composed of matter and humans are sentient, doesn’t that mean that it is logically necessary that energy must possess sentience?
Does the RCC keep records of exorcisms? I assume the procedureis extremely rare…demons seem to be scarce in the modern world. Anyway, would a real eveil person (like Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin) be considered to be demonically posessed? Too bad they were not exorcised! 
Yes, but the Jo(h)ns continue to avoid the bottom three, so there goes your God theory. 
Both “life” and “gravity” are attempts to describe actual observable phenomena. “Demons” are not derived from any observable or testable phenomena, they are simply pulled from the ass in gratuitous fashion. We can look at “living” species and see that they are different from “non-living” things and try to put a precise, scientific finger on exactly what is different, but a difficulty in finding a precise boundary between life and non-life (and that’s really all a definition of “life” amounts to, a search for a demarcation) is really only a semantic problem, not an empirical one. It is not necessary for “life” to exist objectively for us to use the word descriptively. Whether a thing is living or non-living, we know that it exists.
In the case of “demonic possession” there is simply no evidence that anything exists outside the mind of the afflicted individual. There is no phenomenon which requires such a hypothesis and there are an infinity of other unfounded hypotheses which merit just as much or just as little consideration.
The definition of life is a non-sequitur inre the definitions of demons anyway. A failure to define one thing does not prove that another thing exists.
Scientific method requires falsifiable definitions for things. Popular images of "demons’ simply don’t cut it from a scientific standpoint. When you really examine those popular conceptions, they don’t amount to anything more than a visual image.
When you’re talking about people trying to attribute supernatural explanations to observable, natural phenomena then scientific method automatically applies. Science may not be applicable to “God” as a concept, or Heaven or anything which does not intersect with the natural, but when you are talking about this world, this universe and these physical laws then assertions of otherworldly influence are entirely fair game for rational analysis.
There is no reason to suppose that any kind of energy exists, either directly or inductively. You’re working backwards. You’re staring with a hypothesis and then searching for an excuse to justify it. There is nothing in the observable data which would suggest that any sort of discrete energy patterns exist.
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In the case of “demons,” there is nothing to observe, measure or infer. There is no data, no phenomena, nothing which can be shown to be discrete from the “possessed” person.
If you could actually prove levitation you might be on to something. No such occurrence has ever been verified by any credible science, though, which isn’t surprising since it’s impossible.
I don’t know what you mean by “unholy strength.” How strong does one have to be before it becomes “unholy?”
If you mean a demonstration of physical strength which is physically beyond the capability of the muscle mass of a given individual (like, say…a four year old girl lfting an SUV over her head) then you would have a case for naturally inexplicable phenomenon.
No such occurrence has ever been verified by science though.
Or maybe it’s just the old placebo effect.
Do you have an explanation for why demons only possess people who already believe in demons? Just curious.
All my objections have more than weight, they are completely irrefutable, let’s not sell me short.
Human sentience is a biochemical process. We can slice up the brain and look at all the neurons and stuff. It requires physical material to occur. Without a brain, there is no sentience.
How can “demonic” sentince exist without materiality?