Some ‘evidence’ for theism are the ‘documented’ cases where people seem to be possessed by demons, speaking strange things and behaving really weirdly.

Because these cases are extremely frightening they have more weight than other examples.

From a skeptic’s perspective can anyone give me a reference to a back issue of Skeptical Inquirer (or a better WWW site to ask about this).  Are the cases all frauds or ‘urban legends’, are people misinterpreting natural phenomena, etc…

Thanks.

Jackson

If you go to the CSI homepage you can do a search (in the search box at the top) for whatever terms interest you. I got a number of hits for “exorcism” and “possession”, although other terms might actually be better. At any rate, Skeptical Inquirer has written extensively about these issues.

(Not sure that all the back issues are included in the web search, BTW).

I’d be interested to hear what CFI has to say, but my personal opinion is that it is nothing but a stunt to get people to believe or the person said to be possessed is actually mentally ill.  Sadly there is still some superstition behind mental illness and the ultra religious believes the person has a demon if they are mentally ill.  This simply is not true.

Ironically, I watch a lot of movies where the person is “possessed” ie The Exorcist, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Nun, Demon Hunter etc and find them funny.  Then again, I don’t believe in demon possession either.  I had an Episcopal priest tell me demon possession is extremely rare and some psychologists have said it’s extremely rare too, so rare that only an extreme few have seen it.  If you ask me, once we grow out of our infancy we will figure out that it’s just another mental illness and nothing more.

Most of us have never witnessed the wildly bizarre behavior of some mentally ill people because they are quickly institutionalized.  So, when someone does demonstrate this kind of mental illness in a religious setting, it’s easy to be jolted by it.  Although, as Mriana says, it can be just a stunt.  The minister has a shill flake out to impress the audience with his power and drag them into the same kind of frenzy so he can control them.

Occam

You’re right, Occam, most people have not, but I have seen people with Schizophrenia off their meds (the revolving door program was what they were on at the time).  The only thing that scared me was that when they were off they meds, they were quite threatening in that they would tower over me because I’m so short and threaten me.  I just called the bouncer like psych techs to assist me, but when they were talking to Casper it didn’t bother me.  They could talk to Casper all day long and I would be fine with them.

The only thing I wished for them was that they would realize that once they were back on their meds that they were better off with them even if they felt just fine and didn’t see a need for them.  When they were on their meds, I could have the most intellectual conversations with them.  One was once a school teacher and was a very lovely, intelligent, lady on her meds.  The sweetest woman you could ever meet and the only thing that stopped her from being a school teacher ever again was that she had schizophenia, but when she was off her meds, she could be quite frightening- not in the demonic sense, but in the intimidating and violent sense.  I could imagine the effect she would have on little kids and it’s sad really, because I could see in her a brilliant school teacher when she was on her meds.  Thing is, when she felt better, she stopped taking her meds and became what little children could very well view as a monster.  She just could not understand or did not want to understand that she was better off constantly taking her meds even when she felt good.  She might have had a chance as a school teacher if she stayed on her meds and if there were not so much prejudice against the mentally ill.

Then there was the “I’m Jesus Christ!” Schizophrenics.  They were humourous, but you dared not let them see you laughing or they would become frighteningly intimidating too.  Not a pretty picture, but I think that is one reason why I’m calloused to the demonically possessed horror movies.  I don’t view the character as being demonically possessed, but rather mentally ill.  Thing is, I can laugh at some of the bizzare behaviours they attribute to the mentally ill in those shows- like vomitting up pea soup.  The mentally ill just don’t do that nor do they have “super human strength”, but they do get violent sometimes and have a lot of adreneline at the time.  I have yet to see anyone jump like a cat onto someone though and it is these things I can laugh about, because such things are simply not true of someone who is truly mentally ill.  It’s all just theactrics.  Now the voices… well there are many mental illnesses that can contribute to such things, but even those without mental illness can change their voice, esp when they are speaking a different language.  One’s voice gets slightly higher or lower depending on which language they are speaking.

Part of the reason people still have superstitious notions and/or stereotypes of the mentally ill is because we do cloister the mentally ill, esp when they are very sick and then we make silly movies like the Exorcist.  When you know the truth, such movies do not scare you- or at least not me, but when you do not know the reality of such things, you loose perspective and start fearing something that needs not be feared, at least not in that manner.  We do have to be concerned about the mentally ill potentially harming themselves or others, but not like that.