The Superstition of Demon Possession

Last night I chanced upon a Christian blog, with one of the posts talking about demon possession. After quickly reading through it, then reading the 10 or so comments, I was stunned at the amount of people that really believe in this superstition, of a literal demon taking over a person's body. So I gave a short comment about this subject, with my thoughts about it. After several hours of my comment "pending" it finally got deleted, as I thought it would. It would seem that Christians don't like their beliefs being questioned, nor do they want a discussion about it with anybody not a Christian. I figure that, at least with this one website, they only allow comments from other Christians. It was at that time of my comment being deleted that I knew what my next post would be - Demon Possession.

Let me begin by saying that there is no such thing as demon possession, because there are no demons. Look at my previous post here concerning demons, and angels as well. There is, however, something called mental illnesses. It is this illness that people, especially religious people, like to falsely call demon possession. A person with a mental illness needs help and compassion, and not being pointed to and being told they have a demon inside them, and in some cases being put in a show of "casting out a demon".

Mankind has always been superstitious; things they don't understand they blame the supernatural on. And mental illnesses has always been on the top of that list. It seems that in many cases, superstition over-rules common sense and logic when it comes to many Christian teachings and beliefs. Ignorance and superstition has ruled religion for thousands of years.

There is absolutely no proof of demons or demon possession. What Christians call demon possession, the educated call it mental illness. In this day and age, we know better; science easily backs up many kinds of illness as a diagnosis.

Now what angers me is not that Christians misinform and/or lie to the public and the masses about demons, telling them it's truth when in fact the evidence states otherwise. Okay, that does anger me. But what angers me more is that many Christians take it one step further and claim to be casting out demons. People like Bob Larson and Benny Hinn, which many people trust and hold faith in, actively lies by stating people have demons in them, then goes on a great act of "casting those demons out". Both individuals are a good showman, but are a disgrace to the Christian religion. (In another post I will speak about Benny Hinn's false "slaying of the spirit"). Click on this link that I found that shows Bob Larson "casting out demons" for a quick look at how this works, and then questioned by a reporter about how he has used his ministries money.

Anybody with charisma, skill, patience to practice, and a powerful presence, such as Bob Larson, can easily mentally overpower a weaker-minded individual and force them to act in ways which he wants. They really put on a good show, especially with a large crowd. People with a mental illness (or even those that do not, but are having some personal problems) go to these events, brainwashed into believing they have a demon in them, and hoping that their "demon" can be cast out.

It is a psychological ploy by the "exorcist", who preys on weak-minded individuals that has some sort of illness, using emotion, persuasion, fear, & intimidation to overpower that person. Finally the poor person falls down in exhaustion. Then the exorcist, after claiming he cast that demon out, says something to comfort that person such as "you are now free, my child" or other comforting words. It is one of the greatest hoaxes in the Christian community!

I said if before, and I will say it again - there is no such thing as demon possession. There are no demons. There are no supernatural forces that takes over a persons body. It is all false. There is no evidence for this, while all of the scientific evidence points towards many types of mental illnesses instead. Show me a demon possessed person, and I will show you that in reality, that that person instead is mentally sick, and needs medical help.

Let us stop this foolishness of believing in demon possession, and instead, really help these mentally ill people. Don't treat them like a circus act, but rather, treat them with love, compassion, and understanding. And to the Christian community, stop the lies of saying that literal demons exist and that they take over people's bodies. Stop the scare tactics! It is totally ludicrous. I challenge anybody to show me one demon, or a true case of demon possession.

And finally, let us move away from ignorance and superstition, and move towards education, critical thinking, and self-evaluation instead.

The Falsehood of God's Grand Punishments

If you're like me, and have either been involved in a religion or associated with religious people, then we have been told that God punishes bad people, the wicked, heretics, and the list just goes on and on. Even to the extent of "God will punish people that don't believe exactly as I do". And a lot of people truly believe this, to the detriment of humanity.

First off, God does not punish, if even one exists. Many people think that if a natural disaster happens in a certain region of the globe, that there was some kind of God behind it. They say things like "those people must have been really wicked" or "they forsake God and He's now punishing them", and the like. You know who I mean; we see them all over the place.

One example is the 2004 Indonesian Tsunami. I remember a lot of Christians at this time were saying that God caused the earthquake and tsunami, because mostly it was the Muslims who died in that tragedy. And likewise, the Muslims say the same things against the Christians if a natural disaster happened to be in a country or region that had a large Christian population. And there are just numerous examples of this on both sides. This kind of thought process is very dangerous for at least a couple of reasons.

The first is that it is unsupported by facts, which I won't go into much here as that is pretty much self-explanatory. Anybody who is at least slightly educated knows how earthquakes happen, and how tsunami's form. A natural disaster is just that, a natural disaster. God, or a god, does not need to be present for these types of tragedies to happen. They happen quite naturally, all by themselves, without needing some sort of supernatural power behind it.

The second is because it is this kind of intolerant and illogical thinking that leads to more hate and division, rather than peace and unity. This backwards thinking only harms humanity as it builds higher walls of mistrust. We need to come together in peace and forgiveness, and not point fingers anymore with the thinking "look at God punishing those people."

This post is just one small example of how religion is slowly destroying the world. Education is the key to our survival. Education and unity.

The Silliness of Scientologist's Xenu

The Church of Scientology, we can all agree if we look at it even half objectively, is a Christian cult. There are no two ways about it once studied and evaluated. Their beliefs and history just can't be taken seriously once you've done just a little research. You can take a look here at what I'm talking about, in addition to doing your own research if desired.

Before I talk about the subject of this post, Xenu, I just want to point out that this cult was founded in the early 1950s by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. And truthfully, the history of Scientology is read just like a science fiction novel. And it all starts with the story of Xenu.

Now after reading this Xenu story, how can any rational mind expect to believe in this. I mean, it's totally ludicrous to be taken seriously. As a science fiction novel, yes, it's quite interesting and sure to sell a lot of copies. But as this to be taken as absolute Truth, even to be taken as any kind of a Christian religion at all, I think not.

What's sad, in my opinion, is how many people are taken in by this Scientology cult, and how many people are brainwashed into believing this fantasy that is taken as literal truth. To actually believe that a dictator of some galaxy, Xenu, came to Earth millions of years ago on some sort of spacecraft that looks like a modern-day airplane, then murdering billions of his own people, really needs to take a step back and look at this objectively.

Is this Xenu character, and the story around this fantasy, something we can say really happened? Is it logical? Does it make sense? How rational is it? We don't even need to ask for proof, as it is so illogical to begin with that to ask for proof would be wasting time. Any man (or woman) who says "yes, this Xenu story is true" is either lying, or brainwashed, and needs to seek professional help immediately.

The South Park episode "Trapped in the Closet" Season 9, Episode 12, is very accurate regarding this Xenu story. This cartoon not only accurately tells what Scientologists actually believe, but also exposes Scientology as a whole. I don't use this South Park episode to prove my point, I only say that it's dead-on accurate.

To end this post, it all boils down to this - the Church of Scientologist's Xenu is pretty silly. There are many other items I would love to talk about regarding Scientology, but they'll have to wait for some future post, in some other time, in some distant galaxy.

"Marjoe" documentary is awesome!

Today I'd like to talk about a documentary I always enjoy watching, called "Marjoe". In the current world of mega-churches and faith healers, it's nice to have an inside look at the latter - of faith healing. This is an award-winning documentary made in 1972 that shows some of the stunts and tricks that faith healers perform. Even though this movie (documentary) is 40 years old, modern-day faith healers still practice these same tricks, and I'm sure future ones will too.

In short, this documentary is about the early life of Marjoe Gortner (Marjoe is short for Mary and Joseph), raised by his parents and at a very early age was taught by them on how to deceive believers, and make huge amounts of money doing so. He went from town to town doing tent revivals, preaching, healing, then collecting the people's money. Several years later Marjoe felt bad about what he was doing and quit. And then later in life he did one last revival tour, this time bringing a documentary crew with him. During this last tour we get behind-the-scene looks at how faith healers perform their tricks.

There's not enough good things to be said about this documentary. I'm sure that there are other documentaries that exposes faith healers, but this one is the original. This is the one that first shed light on this subject, and started bringing people out of the darkness.

One of the things I loved about this movie is a look at how powerful psychology plays a factor in people's minds. The psychological impact of a skilled preacher, combined with stirring worship music, surrounded by a crowd of other believers, the preaching and/or music gradually increasing in volume and tempo, is very overpowering to a lot of people. This is the state when people are most vulnerable and susceptible to power of suggestion and other forms of trickery. This is also the state where people will believe anything, even with any form of trickery being absent.

In fact, I remember one clip where Marjoe was touching people, who were all lined-up, on the forehead and then they would fall down. Now this one lady was next in line, and wanted so badly to fall down that she was literally shaking, her whole body was just shaking, waiting for Marjoe to touch her head. Once he finally did, that gave her all the excuse she needed to flop to the ground and start shaking. (Now I'm just shaking my head remembering that little clip.) The picture to the left is not that lady I just described, but just another lady.

In addition to exposing faith healers, Marjoe also briefly explains another phenomenon, speaking in tongues, and how that is done. I just can't stress enough the importance of seeing this documentary, regardless if you're a believer or not. Just watch it!

Here's a link for a little more info - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjoe

The Existence of Angels, and of Demons

The belief of the supernatural is prevalent in nearly all cultures and religions, even in modern times. And one of the most common beliefs is the existence of a supernatural beings called an angel, and their opposite, of demons. But despite their popularity, do these beings even exist?

It's nice to believe in the existence of angels, of a supernatural being so powerful that they look over us and/or protect us. It's quite a comforting thought! But the question is, do angles exist? Is there any proof at all of their existence? Has there been any photographs of an angel? Can an angel be physically studied and observed? Of course the answer is no.

Now let's move on to the angel's evil cousin - demons. These scary supernatural beings are just as strong and powerful as of the goodly angels. And they should be, as according to the Bible, a demon is actually a fallen angel. And these demons are running amok in the world, spreading hate, fear, division, and just about any other negative you can think of.

But do demons really exist? These guys run into the same problem as do angels. Not one demon has ever been photographed. Not one demon, to the best of my knowledge, has ever been physically studied and observed. Some people claim a person being "demon-possessed" as proof as to the existence of demons. But "demon-possession" is in reality an individual having some sort of mental illness. (Demon-possession is probably another topic for another day, one I would like to cover more fully.)

Both angels and demons are left to our imagination, with only scant clues given in the Bible or other religious texts about these beings. There are many reasons why people continue to believe in these two supernatural forces with no proof. Basically, in the case for angels, it is a comforting thought to have a strong Protector looking over us. And in the case of demons, as scape-goats to blame the world's troubles on.

Neither angels nor demons can be proven. There's not one shred of proof. Some people have claimed to have met an angel who has helped them under unusual situations, but that's not proof. What's far more likely is that that's just a stranger helping out another fellow human.

These are my quick thoughts on these two supernatural, mythical creatures.

Are Miracles Real?

Are miracles real? Wow! That's a huge topic, which would take many pages and chapters to cover. My thoughts on this will be relatively short and simple, giving just a broad answer at this time. (By the way, this is my very first blog, so I hope it goes well.)



Before getting started, my definition of miracle is "An event that occurs that cannot be explained by science at that point in time". Some events that has happened in the past were labeled as "miracles" only because science has not yet caught up to that time. Now once science has caught up, and that event can be logically explained, that event is no longer a "miracle".

Now a magician or an illusionist can also use their "tricks of the trade" to accomplish a "miracle". They are masters of trickery and can trick an individual or an audience into believing something that never really happened. There are many examples of this, anywhere from watching a rabbit get pulled from a hat, to a woman getting sawn into two. As humans, we are easily deceived into believing in impossibilities, especially when watching any skilled magician that has mastered slight-of-hand.

In my opinion, this whole concept of miracle is over-used anyway. When was the last time you went through an entire day or week without hearing this word? I personally know some people who say "Oh, this is a miracle" when something happens, even a small something. Then I'm all "noooo, that's not a miracle. There was a 50-50 chance of that happening."

The term "miracle" should only be used, in my opinion, is when something happens that can't be explained by that individual, and not throw that word out so loosely. But then again, that event will always be explained in time anyway.

We are at the point in time when "miracles" are a thing of the past, a time when science and logic has over-ruled superstition and ignorance. There never was, and never will be, any true miracles. Miracles require proof. And the larger the miracle, the larger the proof needed.

And I will end my first post with that thought in mind.