Do you think people can really be posessed by demons?

well i believe that demons can influence ur life by ur actions and persuading u to do bad things. they can work through ppl. i do believe that possesions can be real. but rare. more everyday possesions are through ur daily actions. there is an invisable world at work we dont see and is constantly tryin to make us sin and stray from God.. example: evolution… the theory rules out God but still there is no beginning. i think its this confusing so God can see who has faith. i have seen some crazy things people have done that is not like them at all and after they make the mistake they dont no why or wat they were thinkin. i believe that this could be the work of demons. of corse i am religious tho. a lot will disagree and say that its just in r nature to sin which it is but with the help of demons

I’m going with modern psychology here. I don’t believe that there are demons who can posses people, and I think anyone who thinks they are possessed by a demon should be thrown in a loony bin.

Many different religions with many different gods have exorcism rituals. They are all successful on occasion. So, I go with the psychological angle. The mind is a powerful thing. It can make you sick, and if you believe in your particular god enough, it can make you better.

I’m not sure. I have heard people tell stories about it on documentaries that claim these stories are true, but never an actual video of an exorcism or a possession attack. So I can’t really be sure. :\

Summary: I’m skeptical

I have seen a whatever its called when someone draws out a demon right before my very eyes. Its powerful, and you can definetely feel like your not even seeing it with your own eyes and your almost in a whirlwind, standing still. The paranormal is crazy

Yes.. I believe people can be possessed..

There is no such thing as a demon. Some people want to believe in the supernatural so bad they will find any reason to believe. But the fact is, there is not one shred of evidence that anything can possess someone. Anyone who thinks they are possessed ARE mentally ill.

Evolution does not rule out a god. It rules out the theory of young earth creationism, but it says nothing at all about the existence of a god. Most believers in a deity do in fact accept evolution as a fact.

The popular sentiment among many evolution deniers is that science is trying to remove god from our lives. That is just simply wrong. God just has nothing to do with it. Science is based on facts and evidence. There are no facts or evidence about any gods.

ur right jimahl there are christian scientist. i would be leaninn more toward evolution being in the hands of God..so no evolution does not rule out God just creation. thanks….

another example of how “demons” can stray u away from God…. people who tell u that God is not real.. if ur a believer and they know that and still try to convince u there is no God then thats the work of the “devil”… just an example since my other one was not accurate.

http://funadvice.com/r/150aiaaenr0

real audio of an excersism in russia.. Not been tampered with.. It is by far the freakiest thing ever

Well if you believed it happened in the Bible and the Bible is still relevant to today…. then yeah demons can possess people still.

exorcism I think is the word you are looking for

Well since we can’t find out exactly what is inside people’s heads…. we don’t know for sure if it’s not something outside this world

A lot of research has already been done on this. Mental illnesses and psychiatric disorders (which sometimes make people look crazy or possessed) are down to chemical imbalances in the brain. In many people, the brain secrets certain hormones and chemicals more than usual which makes them think or behave a certain way. So unless the demons somehow feel the need to inject hormones and chemicals into brains EVERY TIME they are supposedly possessed - which would be a bit weird of them, right? - then no, I think it’s impossible for people to be possessed by demons.

Basically, every time someone looks crazed or does something really weird - it’s not a demon, it’s just a lot of chemicals and hormones secreted by the brain - which is why medication, not exorcism, helps correct these problems.

“It has been documented that traditional healing methods, like exorcisms, can help or cure mental illness, but it is believed that this is due to that person believing in that particular method not the method itself. “

Yep. Not sure how many of you have heard of this term but it’s called the “placebo effect.” It’s like when sometimes people get sick and the doctor gives them a sugar pill and it works - belief that something works goes some way into helping people recover from anything.

As for exorcisms, again VERY well documented with a lot of research already done on it, people do very weird things in crowds. Falling down, jumping around, shouting gibberish - you name it - most people feel compelled to do things, even crazy ones, when supported by crowds. It’s all psychology, no demons.

Put it this way - if you’re a mentally disturbed person, you’re better off seeing a psychiatrist rather than an exorcist.

Actually we can do a pretty good job of seeing what is in a persons head. See Ivan’s post above. Mental illness is a real provable and quantifiable phenomena. Possession and demons are not.

We don’t see what’s in a person’s head. We see hormones releasing, neurons firing, and basically things we can measure. However, we can’t measure a person’s soul so there is no way of measuring possession.

Basically it all comes down to whether you believe in angels, demons, God and Satan. If you don’t believe in that thing, then it is all written as insanity. However, for those of us who believe….. well then there might be such thing as possession. Not to say all cases are, but if you believe in God then you have to believe in Satan and demons and what they can do

You just made my point. Mental illness is verifiable, and demonic possession is not. So which should someone believe? The thing we can see, or the thing we should just believe, even though there is not one shred of evidence? Ever hear of Occam’s razor? It is the concept that the simplest explanation is usually the right one. I will take the simplest explanation…

I didn’t prove your point other than saying there is no way to prove demon possession using only our physical body readings. We can’t measure a spirit so their is no way to prove anything supernatural to anyone who doesn’t want to believe in anything outside what they can physically see. I know Occam’s razor, but that doesn’t mean in every situation it’s right. Good thing too or else we’d still be bleeding people out to get rid of the “bad blood”

Ok let me see if I can I can restate this….. if you want verifiable proof that something is going on in their heads then yes, you have proof that people can be mentally insane without demon possession. However, we can’t study every case as well as study every aspect of a person’s mind. Ex, we can study that a person can dream, but not what they dream.

My point was that mental illness is observable and quantifiable. When you say that “We see hormones releasing, neurons firing, and basically things we can measure. However, we can’t measure a person’s soul so there is no way of measuring possession. “ you are agreeing with my point.

You say: “We can’t measure a spirit so their is no way to prove anything supernatural to anyone who doesn’t want to believe in anything outside what they can physically see. “

It is not a matter not wanting to believe. I can’t make myself believe something there is no evidence for. I can’t make myself believe in Santa. I can pretend to, but I really wouldn’t actually believe, would I? Could you choose to start believing in Zeus, or Odin?

And we can study what a person dreams. We have to rely on the creamers description, but psychiatrists and psychologists do it all the time. We can’t experience the dream, but we can study it.

that should be “rely on the dreamers description”. lol

We rely on people telling us the dream…. but we can’t experience the dream ourselves. For all we know they could be making the dream up. We have to believe that they are telling the truth. and then the psychiatrists and psychologists who study that do their thing….. Mental illnesses are observable and quantifiable…. demon possession isn’t measured as a mental illness (to some) therefore we can’t measure it. I’m not trying to get you to believe nor convince you. I think we’ve had the conversation before… haha. However, just as easily as you can’t believe it, I can’t believe the opposite…

I think we are mostly agreeing here. lol. Yes we can’t know if the dreamer is telling the truth, just as we can’t always tell if a believer is telling the truth, or if the non-believer is telling the truth. That is not the point. The point was that dreams can be studied (given you believe the dreamer is telling the truth). Belief that you are possessed is treated as a mental disorder. It is only taken seriously as demonic possession by believers in such things. It is certainly not taken seriously by the majority of people.

i believe they can be because i’ve seen it but unlike other christians i don’t try to force what i believe onto other ppl…if someone else doesn’t believe in God and demon possession then that’s their business i don’t see any point in arguing about it.

Yeah we are mostly agreeing. However, majority of people are religious in some sort whether Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, believers in the Force, etc. So most people do believe in demons to some extent. As for how much they exist and what all they can do is dependent upon the religion and how much the believer is wiling to believe. So to wrap this up if it’s a physical illness it needs physical treatment…. if it’s spiritual, it needs spiritual treatment. Just depends on the diagnosis

Just because most people have religious belief does not mean they believe in demonic possession. I think if you were to show someone claiming to be possessed to a 1000 people, the vast majority of them would say the person is crazy and not actually possessed.

And I think spirituality is a man-made concept, and no amount of “spiritual” treatment will have an affect on anything.

uh huh. it was done by a pastor on a camper kid. he was only 16

Wow… awsum answers and points made by both of you. Maybe consider this little bit of info: When a person claims to be posessed and seeks help from a priest or other spiritual leader, the person is always referred to psychiatrists and psychologists first. This is law within the Catholic movement. Only when the person has exausted all medical options, does the church consider an exorcism… And then psychologists only allow this, because they believe that if the person believes they are posessed and that they can be cured through an exorcism, then they are cured via their belief in this method and not because the exorcism drove out real demons… Interesting to note that the church also follow the lead of modern psychology…

“loony bin” - glad to see you using the neutral, non-judgmental technical term, lol. :P

@jimahl - I’m glad to see your comment here! I’m sure it’s no different from what you always knew, but I think it’s significantly different from how you were tending to express yourself not very long ago. Thanks for the change of tone! And notice what a different kind of response it elicited. {:^)

Thanks Suzaan, well said.

Does the church believe that they have expelled a demon? Does the person believe they expelled a demon? If the psychologist doesn’t believe in the possibility of possession then of course he’s going to state that there was no demon, but only curing the mind by tricking it. The thing is, I hardly know anything about exorcisms and demon possessions as for what goes on, how does one go about getting one, etc. Suzaan I appreciate the comment and very insightful. I would also like to know where you got this info… cause I’d like to do a little research myself. Anyways, I’m arguing that it is possible from a christian stand point. And as one who believes what the Bible says is true has to believe in the possibility of demon possession.

who is to say what controls the chemical imbalance in are brains.. maybe demons..maybe thats how they work.

Thanx. I got the info from the books I’m using in my studies, Bryson. I’m studying psychology. It’s because I’ve read about this in my text books and because of that comment on one of my previos questions that I stated this question. Allot of thought provoking responses.

Maybe so for someone reading and understanding this thread. But not for everyone. If you live in a traditional culture where psychiatry is unknown, or is just another part of modernity’s threat to destroy your culture, then you are better off seeing your priest or your shaman. In either case, it is the shared framework of meaning-making that makes healing possible. Many people straddle two or more cultural frameworks; hence our ambivalence about scientific vs. spiritual approaches to healing. The placebo effect reveals a self-healing capacity of the human organism that so far remains mysterious to medical science (though a bit more familiar to anthropology). In my view, the effort to understand how it can be marshalled, though currently seen as rather marginal, is at the cutting edge of contemporary medical research.

Thanks Hayyim… I think…

Honestly I have not tempered my dialogue in the least. While I am merely human and do get “enthusiastic” at times, I usually tend to be pretty calm. But if I am constantly challenged, I will respond in kind, as was happening a few weeks ago with a particular FA member who I will not mention in the interest of not starting a flame war. I will say, I find your debate methods quite refreshing compared to most… Thanks…

i believe so. in the Bible there is a story about a man who is possessed by demons. Jesus comes and casts them out. The demons fly into a group of pigs who in turn run off a cliff

yeah