Diseases that Religion Cannot Cure

I don't mean to suggest that medical science can cure everything that religion cannot. My point is that people too often turn down helpful medical aids in lieu of ineffective-- and even dangerous-- alternatives.

Below is a  link to a story on the BBC News' Heart and Soul program, presented by Catrin Nye. I think it's worth looking through or at least checking out the video.

Possession, Jinn and Britain's backstreet exorcists

The link above begins with a short video. Scroll down to the end of the article to see the full report. Or, click here: Full Report: Possession, Jinn and Britain's backstreet exorcists

I though only Pentecostals did this sort of thing with spirit possession. Interesting . . .
I say that because I used to be a Pentecostal. I didn't know Muslims dabbled in demon possession.

Demon Busters

Spiritual Warfare is a theme that I haven't talked much about.

You know, Demon Busters.

People who believe that every malignant thing that happens is caused by a demon.

Did you talk back to your parents? A demon influenced you to do it.

Did you get too lazy to pray today? A demon did it.

Are you depressed? A demon is oppressing you.

Do you feel surrounded by constant bad luck? A demon has invaded your life.

Are you sick? Never mind microbes-- you've got a sick demon riding your back.

And demons should be cast out of you. Some person close enough to God has the power to lay hands on you and call that demon out of your life.

In recent years, I wondered why calling upon an omnipotent God to remove a demon more powerful that you was always a struggle.

There is always this big display. Lots of crying, bucking, and jerking. Eyes start rolling in the back of the head as one starts foaming at the mouth . . .

Heck, Jesus just said, "Come out!" and they did. Rarely did demons talk back. And when demons did talk back, he told them to shut up and sent them off into swine who subsequently ran themselves off a cliff and to their deaths.

And Jesus said that his followers would do greater works than those that he accomplished.

So why is demon busting so hard?

Because the demon buster and the demon possessed both have to get their minds worked up to play their respective roles.

See, those of the demon busting type believe that Christians are not exempted from being demon possessed. Even those filled with the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues could become demon possessed. No one is safe. Not even when God's Holy Spirit dwells within you.

Ain't that a bitch!?

So then, just as self-hypnosis can cause someone to behave like they're possessed by the spirit of God, they need that same state of mind to play the role of a possessed person.

Or the "demonic" is simply playing along for grins and chuckles.

So, I believe the preacher and the possessed get worked up together. Because a preacher usually has a language of sorts that he speaks when he (or she) is casting out a demon. First, they tell you that you have one.

Then they start to speak against it and pray for you with the laying on of hands.

Then, they get all wound up. They probably won't quit if you don't exhibit some sort of show yourself.

Or, if you're wrapped up in that sort of thing already, you'll subconsciously play along. You would believe that you are really were possessed because the anointed of God just told you so. Such believe is no different from when I once believed that I actually spoke in tongues.

I think it's a damaging thing to tell someone who is clinically depressed that they have a demon. If the demon could only be cast out, they'd be happy again. Until they commit suicide. Why suffer that when an anti-depressant can possibly save someone's life and make life worth living again?

Telling someone that their cancer is a result of a demon can't be much for emotional morale. What if the demon is "cast out" but the cancer never leaves?

And I feel really bad for homosexuals who are caught up in Pentecostal movements. Homosexuals get picked on really badly. They are talked about openly and abrasively in many Pentecostal circles. Their lifestyle is always described as a "condition" at best. And often, homosexuality is a demon to be cast out. I don't see how a Pentecostal who is homosexual could ever be happy. Having a demon buster talk a homosexual into being unhappy for the rest of his or her life can't possibly be healthy.

I find it highly suspect that an omnipotent God must use us frail humans to struggle with the eradication of a demon.

Something just isn't right about that.

On a side note, I visited Demon Buster.com in preparation of this post. They say that a midi file plays when you visit their site-- Oh, The Blood of Jesus. I'm quite familiar with this song and I'm quite familiar with the emphasis demon busters place on the name and blood of Jesus.

The web site puts so much emphasis on the blood of Jesus that they claim that anyone who is annoyed by the midi file on their site probably has a demon in their home-- if not, then the demon is in you.

But I didn't hear any midi file when I first visited the page.

So what does that mean? I guess I'm so demoniacally oppressed that the demons keep my ears from hearing the midi file play through my demonic laptop!

I guess I'm going to bust hell wide open, huh?

Or maybe you don't hear the midi file when you visit their site either.

Ah, but I went to my Windows desktop, the song finally played.

I guess Linux is the OS of the devil.

What Vodou & Pentecostalism Have in Common

One day while channel surfing, I ran across a televised pod cast on Current TV about Vodou.

Nope, not the traditional voodoo stuff I was used to seeing from Hollywood like sticking pins into dolls, putting roots into peoples shoes, or invoking spells and hexes to alter luck. Instead, the author gave a close up look at the religion that was prevalent in Haiti.

At first impact, the worship services looked way different from what I was used to seeing. However, I sensed something familiar about the way they bucked and danced around with their eyes rolling back. I felt a lump in my throat as I watched faces glaze over in a trance-like state and people falling out under the influence of other spirits – welcoming the possession of some other presence or spirit to take control of them until some miracle, divine message, or euphoric experience finally happens.

On the surface, Vudou looked really strange. But deep down inside, Vodou looked quite Pentecostal.

Seeing that similarity bothered me. Such behavior was too close to what I witnessed under Pentecostalism. Sure, I saw overt differences in the Vodou worship services, but the similarities were more frighting than the oddities.

So then, what made my experiences as a Pentecostal any different? The God I chose to invoke – is that why my experience was supposed to be genuine and all others fraudulent? The particular spirit I evoke makes all the difference?

But what if that doesn't matter? What if all those feelings and all that euphoria was self imposed? Ancient cults had tongue speaking as well . . . so not even that was a unique feature of Pentecostalism.

Are we simply psyching ourselves out with self-hypnosis?

This became my next concern when my faith first started to crumble. What was making me have all that euphoria during worship and praise? Where did the ecstatic speech really come from?

I saw an episode of Is it Real? on the National Geographic channel. In a particular scene, a Martial Arts teacher caused his students to “fall out” through the power of his qi. The response of the students looked very similar to being “slain in the Spirit” in the world of Pentecostalism. The idea is that God's presence is so heavy upon you that you just faint physically. But, mentally and emotionally, you are basking in God's presence.

That was an eye opener to see! I thought that only we Pentecostals did that!

The bad part is: for many Pentecostals, these kind of experiences serve as the all important evidence that God has accepted you as a believer and is involved in your life. To see someone call on the name of some other god or to use some other energy force to produce similar supernatural events was unnerving for me. Why? Because it undermined my deity. My deity was supposed to be unique.

Yeah, yeah, I remember the big showdown between Moses and Pharaoh. And, I remember Elijah and the priests of Baal. Their wicked counterparts could produce similar miracles and signs. But, the wicked only produced counterfeit signs that only the Almighty can trump.

But, I have little faith in the accounts that the Bible gives about those two "showdowns”. Especially after reading The Bible Unearthed.

All the arguments brought up by skeptics finally started to congeal into one major front against my faith. For if the Bible wasn't a true representation of history, then without question the pre-Jesus god-men are now a serious problem for my faith. Mystery Religions could very well be the true breeding grounds of Christianity. One part Mystery Religion, two parts Essene. And now with viewing the Bible as largely legend, I can't believe that the universe was created in the fashion that the Bible expressed. So, now evolution and the Big Bang theories start to sound quite reasonable.

And what about all those supernatural experiences? Now they can easily be explained away by self-hypnoses and trance like states of the mind caused by deep concentration and meditation.

But . . . what if The Bible Unearthed was wrong? What if the Bible really was infallible and inerrant? Maybe then I could recover my faith.

So, I started to take a closer look at whether the Bible was truly inerrant or infallible. If the scriptures could prove to be such, then I could trust them again. Maybe then, I could stop feeling like Vodou and Pentecostalism had more in common than I wished to admit.