The blessings of religion

[Joe Cummings]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/nigeria_children_witchcraft

I hope no one is prepared to defend this.

Joe Cummings

[freon96]

It presents a problem for Western Liberalism in that we
defend the principle of individual rights and self
determination for ourselves but not for others. In some
places, witchcraft is believed to be real so punishments for
it are also real. If we are to honor their right to be
wrong, we really can't do anything. The alternative is to
forcefully convert them to our beliefs.

Bill

[Martin Harran]

On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 08:19:37 +0200, Joe Cummings
<joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/nigeria_children_witchcraft
>
>I hope no one is prepared to defend this.
>

I hope no one is prepared to use this as a representation of religion
in general.

[Mark Isaak]

I hope nobody thinks it is outlandishly atypical, either.

"15 Real Exorcisms Gone Terrifyingly Wrong,"
https://www.ranker.com/list/creepy-exorcisms-with-disastrous-results/juliet-bennett-rylah

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"I think if we ever reach the point where we think we thoroughly
understand who we are and where we come from, we will have failed."
- Carl Sagan

[Glenn]

"Joe Cummings" <joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:9iv2ldhgjvdacsjqn...@4ax.com...

>
>
> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/nigeria_children_witchcraft
>
> I hope no one is prepared to defend this.
>

Are you prepared to defend your subject header?

[Joe Cummings]

On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 21:28:38 -0700, "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

Ah, perhaps it went over your head, but it was ironic.

Have fun,


Joe Cummings

[jillery]

I hope no one is prepared to claim this is an excuse to post Catholic
apologetics.

--
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Attributed to Voltaire

[Joe Cummings]

On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 14:11:22 -0500, freon96 <fre...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Joe Cummings wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/nigeria_children_witchcraft
>>
>> I hope no one is prepared to defend this.
>>
>> Joe Cummings
>
>It presents a problem for Western Liberalism in that we
>defend the principle of individual rights and self
>determination for ourselves but not for others

Agreed.

>. In some
>places, witchcraft is believed to be real so punishments for
>it are also real. If we are to honor their right to be
>wrong, we really can't do anything. The alternative is to
>forcefully convert them to our beliefs.

Here we have a problem. Female genital mutilation is regarded as an
obscene activity by people in the west, but also by many people in the
countries where it is practised.

The way to stop FGM is assumed to be by legislation, but until
people see that it serves no useful purpose apart from asserting the
leading role of the male, it will continue to be practised illegally.

You can't forcibly change people's beliefs, but you can proselytise
against them.

The interesting thing about the witchcraft business is that it has
acquired a Christian veneer. I don't doubt that there were
whitchhunts before the advent of Christianity in Nigeria, but what is
happening now is that the idea that you can profit from Christianity,
(as preached by some Christians) is reinforcing the practice of
witchhunting.

Is this what Christianity should be about?


Iought to say the I should have labelled this subject "OT."

My hasty attempt at an apology seems to have got lost.


Joe Cummings
>
>Bill

[Martin Harran]

Have you stopped beating your wife?

[jonathan]

On 7/20/2018 8:56 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 7/20/18 12:34 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 08:19:37 +0200, Joe Cummings
>> <joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/nigeria_children_witchcraft
>>>
>>> I hope no one is prepared to defend this.
>>
>> I hope no one is prepared to use this as a representation of religion
>> in general.
>
> I hope nobody thinks it is outlandishly atypical, either.
>
> "15 Real Exorcisms Gone Terrifyingly Wrong,"
> https://www.ranker.com/list/creepy-exorcisms-with-disastrous-results/juliet-bennett-rylah
>
>

15?


You're quite correct, ignorant ideas can cause
all kinds of horrors. For instance the ideas
of fascism and communism, just to name a
couple of highly...secular concepts.

Let's list some of the non Religious atrocities
for just the last century, and see how they
stack up to the 15 you cite and those in the
original article.

Most of these atrocities below were at the hands
of dictators or fascists of one kind or another.
And here we are in this day and age watching fascism
make a roaring comeback in America thanks to Trump.



30 Worst Atrocities of the 20th Century

The Hemoclysm [river of blood]


Rank Death Toll Event Dates

1 55,000,000 Second World War (Some overlap w/Stalin.
2 40,000,000 China: Mao Zedong's regime. (incl. famine)
3 20,000,000 USSR: Stalin's regime (incl. WW2-era
4 15,000,000 First World War (incl. Armenian massacres)
5 8,800,000 Russian Civil War 1918-21
6 4,000,000 China: Warlord & Nationalist Era 1917-37
7 3,000,000 Congo Free State [n.1] (1900)-08
8 2,800,000 Korean War 1950-53
8 2,800,000 2nd Indochina War (incl. Laos & Cambodia)
10 2,500,000 Chinese Civil War 1945-49
11 2,100,000 German Expulsions after WW2 1945-47
12 1,900,000 Second Sudanese Civil War 1983-(99)
13 1,700,000 Congolese Civil War [n.1] 1998-(99)
14 1,650,000 Cambodia: Khmer Rouge Regime 1975-79
15 1,500,000 Afghanistan: Soviet War 1980-89
16 1,400,000 Ethiopian Civil Wars 1962-92
17 1,250,000 East Pakistan: Massacres 1971
18 1,000,000 Mexican Revolution 1910-20
18 1,000,000 Iran-Iraq War 1980-88
18 1,000,000 Nigeria: Biafran revolt 1967-70
21 917,000 Rwandan Massacres 1994
21 800,000 Mozambique: Civil War 1976-92
23 675,000 French-Algerian War 1954-62
24 600,000 First Indochina War 1945-54
24 600,000 Angolan Civil War 1975-94
26 500,000 Decline of the Amazonian Indians (1900-99)
26 500,000 India-Pakistan Partition 1947
26 500,000 First Sudanese Civil War 1955-72
29 450,000 Indonesia: Massacre of Communists 1965-66
30 365,000 Spanish Civil War 1936-39
? >350,000 Somalia: Chaos 1991-(99)
? >400,000 North Korea: Communist Regime
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/atrox.htm




Where's the outrage against the rise of secular fascism?
Religion, in general, is the solution not the problem.




s

[jonathan]

On 7/21/2018 2:40 AM, jillery wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 20:34:23 +0100, Martin Harran
> <martin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 08:19:37 +0200, Joe Cummings
>> <joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/nigeria_children_witchcraft
>>>
>>> I hope no one is prepared to defend this.
>>>
>>
>> I hope no one is prepared to use this as a representation of religion
>> in general.
>
>
> I hope no one is prepared to claim this is an excuse to post Catholic
> apologetics.
>

In an interview with Rolling Stone, [Bill] Gates stated in regard
to his faith:

"The moral systems of religion, I think, are super important.
We've raised our kids in a religious way; they've gone to
the Catholic church that Melinda goes to and I participate in.
I've been very lucky, and therefore I owe it to try and
reduce the inequity in the world. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates



List of wealthiest charitable foundations worldwide.

1) Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_charitable_foundations




s

> --
> I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
>
> Evelyn Beatrice Hall
> Attributed to Voltaire
>

--

[jillery]

AIUI FGM is forced on young girls by older women, similar to the
historical Chinese foot-binding. The claim is that it makes the girls
more valuable as a bride, but in practice it's a form of abuse by
women across generations.

[Martin Harran]

On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 17:56:07 -0700, Mark Isaak
<eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

>On 7/20/18 12:34 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 08:19:37 +0200, Joe Cummings
>> <joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/nigeria_children_witchcraft
>>>
>>> I hope no one is prepared to defend this.
>>
>> I hope no one is prepared to use this as a representation of religion
>> in general.
>
>I hope nobody thinks it is outlandishly atypical, either.
>
>"15 Real Exorcisms Gone Terrifyingly Wrong,"
>https://www.ranker.com/list/creepy-exorcisms-with-disastrous-results/juliet-bennett-rylah

So, are you trying to suggest that those cases are *typical* of
religion in general?

[Mark Isaak]

Your knee is jerking again. I am trying to suggest that those cases are
not outlandishly atypical.

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 08:11:06 -0700, Mark Isaak

<eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

>On 7/21/18 5:51 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 17:56:07 -0700, Mark Isaak
>> <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On 7/20/18 12:34 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>>> On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 08:19:37 +0200, Joe Cummings
>>>> <joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/nigeria_children_witchcraft
>>>>>
>>>>> I hope no one is prepared to defend this.
>>>>
>>>> I hope no one is prepared to use this as a representation of religion
>>>> in general.
>>>
>>> I hope nobody thinks it is outlandishly atypical, either.
>>>
>>> "15 Real Exorcisms Gone Terrifyingly Wrong,"
>>> https://www.ranker.com/list/creepy-exorcisms-with-disastrous-results/juliet-bennett-rylah
>>
>> So, are you trying to suggest that those cases are *typical* of
>> religion in general?
>
>Your knee is jerking again.

So you present a collection of sensationalist stories about exorcism,
most of which have nothing to do with any particular religious group,
being carried out by clearly deranged individuals or families and you
claim they are not "outlandishly atypical yet when i question that,
*I* am the one who his knee jerking; you might want to go back to the
drawing board with that idea.

>I am trying to suggest that those cases are
>not outlandishly atypical.

They are either typical or atypical - "not outstandingly" are just
weasel words which suggest you would like to claim they are typical
but know well that you can't stand over it.

[Joe Cummings]

On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 08:19:37 +0200, Joe Cummings
<joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>

Here are more

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38063882

Joe Cummings

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 19:08:00 +0200, Joe Cummings

<joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 08:19:37 +0200, Joe Cummings
><joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/nigeria_children_witchcraft
>>
>>I hope no one is prepared to defend this.
>>
>>Joe Cummings
>
>
>Here are more
>
>https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38063882

More what ? I'm assuming you are trying to make some kind of point.

[Let Cosby Go-Justice Must Not Enable Sluts]

Thank you Bill......

[Glenn]

"Joe Cummings" <joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:9jo5ld5j7nio8e209...@4ax.com...

Is it typical of what Christianity is about?

[*Hemidactylus*]

Seems an unfortunate amalgam of warped versions of Pentecostalism (as
practiced by opportunistic pastors), folk beliefs about magic and sorcery,
and the growing Nigerian film industry exploiting a manufactured moral
panic (their own Rosemary’s Baby, Omen, Exorcist craze).

Yet this tidbit can be more widely generalized as a serious problem with
some forms of modern Christianity that rely heavily on a combination of the
just world fallacy that undergirded Calvinism and prosperity gospel based
loosely on the Talents:

“Every other poster promises some miracle - how to get that job, find a
spouse, deal with miscarriages, cure infertility, and of course, eradicate
witchcraft.

But these posters underline the two key
characteristics of the Pentecostal doctrine that has spread throughout
Nigeria since the 1970s.

Firstly, this form of Christianity emphasises success and plenty - if
someone is failing in life then this is a sign that something is
suspiciously awry.”

That opportunistically materialistic crap is not confined to Africa.

As for sorcery, if not for attenuation of religious dogma via freethought,
science, and newfound respect for human rights where would we be given
“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"? Such sentiments are thankfully
limited to kooks who think the Harry Potter series is poisoning the minds
of our youth. But Salem is not far behind us nor European persecution of
witches. And Wicca doesn’t seem to be given much of a place at the modern
ecumenical tabl^H^H^hristian pedestal.

[Mark Isaak]

The collection I presented showed an example of superstition-based
religious excesses from a variety of religions from many parts of the
world. As such, they are, in my opinion, a good example of religious
excesses from a variety of religions and cultures. Which shows that the
witchcraft problem is not limited to one Nigerian sect, but occurs in a
variety of religions and cultures. Do you disagree?

>> I am trying to suggest that those cases are
>> not outlandishly atypical.
>
> They are either typical or atypical - "not outstandingly" are just
> weasel words which suggest you would like to claim they are typical
> but know well that you can't stand over it.

I really, really, REALLY hate black-and-white thinking. It is a form of
mental laziness which sometimes *causes* atrocities such as we were
discussing, and I did not expect you to descend to using it. "Typical"
and "atypical" are poorly defined points (or large regions, even) on a
gradual continuum. There is no either-or.

[*Hemidactylus*]

jonathan <WriteI...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/20/2018 8:56 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 7/20/18 12:34 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>> On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 08:19:37 +0200, Joe Cummings
>>> <joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/nigeria_children_witchcraft
>>>>
>>>> I hope no one is prepared to defend this.
>>>
>>> I hope no one is prepared to use this as a representation of religion
>>> in general.
>>
>> I hope nobody thinks it is outlandishly atypical, either.
>>
>> "15 Real Exorcisms Gone Terrifyingly Wrong,"
>> https://www.ranker.com/list/creepy-exorcisms-with-disastrous-results/juliet-bennett-rylah
>>
>>
>
>
>
> 15?
>
>
> You're quite correct, ignorant ideas can cause
> all kinds of horrors. For instance the ideas
> of fascism and communism, just to name a
> couple of highly...secular concepts.
>

Secular?

>
> Let's list some of the non Religious atrocities
> for just the last century, and see how they
> stack up to the 15 you cite and those in the
> original article.
>

Nonreligious?

>
> Most of these atrocities below were at the hands
> of dictators or fascists of one kind or another.
> And here we are in this day and age watching fascism
> make a roaring comeback in America thanks to Trump.
>
>
>
> 30 Worst Atrocities of the 20th Century
>
> The Hemoclysm [river of blood]
>
>
> Rank Death Toll Event Dates
>
> 1 55,000,000 Second World War (Some overlap w/Stalin.
>

Japanese emperor was a demigod. Nazis had centuries of Lutheran
antisemitism as precedent. Stalinist Communism was a faith based approach
to political economy*. It was at least a cult of personality.

*-so is free market fundamentalism

>
> 2 40,000,000 China: Mao Zedong's regime. (incl. famine)
> 3 20,000,000 USSR: Stalin's regime (incl. WW2-era
> 4 15,000,000 First World War (incl. Armenian massacres)
>

All at least nominally religious nations. After throwing in behind
belligerent Serbia, Russia punted as it went Commie. Muslim Ottomans threw
in with Germany. Anglican Britain invented the whirlwind of Beduin
aspirations as an annoyance to the Ottomans and created national borders of
Arab Islam we still deal with today. Thanks Winston and Gertrude. Oh and
the raucous Palestine mandate.

Catholic France cultivated Syria and Lebanon. How did that work out?

>
> 5 8,800,000 Russian Civil War 1918-21
> 6 4,000,000 China: Warlord & Nationalist Era 1917-37
> 7 3,000,000 Congo Free State [n.1] (1900)-08
> 8 2,800,000 Korean War 1950-53
> 8 2,800,000 2nd Indochina War (incl. Laos & Cambodia)
>

So are you asserting the canard that Uncle Ho bears the brunt of this
because Gulf of Tonkin? Or did you merely copypaste a list you didn’t
really think about or understand to pursue an anti-atheist narrative? It
warrants some mention that “under God” was put in the Pledge around a
decade before we launched our renewed Crusade against godless commies
toppling dominos in SE Asia. And some of our Vietnamese allies descended
from Catholic Francophiles, one of whom referred famously to indignant
Buddhist self-immolation as a barbecue.

And out of that cited number how many were killed by US actions in and
outside Vietnam?

>
> 10 2,500,000 Chinese Civil War 1945-49
> 11 2,100,000 German Expulsions after WW2 1945-47
> 12 1,900,000 Second Sudanese Civil War 1983-(99)
> 13 1,700,000 Congolese Civil War [n.1] 1998-(99)
> 14 1,650,000 Cambodia: Khmer Rouge Regime 1975-79
>

Arguably a byproduct of that peaceful Quaker Nixon bombing Cambodia and our
policies of extending the war beyond Vietnam leading to instability.

And this: “A Vietnamese invasion eventually forced the Khmer Rouge to give
up its control of the central government in 1979. Most of the group's
leadership went into hiding in Thailand and Western fringes of Cambodia.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/08/07/why-the-world-should-not-forget-khmer-rouge-and-the-killing-fields-of-cambodia/

>
> 15 1,500,000 Afghanistan: Soviet War 1980-89
>

US policy of fomenting religiously motivated guerrilla backlash against the
Soviets is a textbook case in blowback.

>
> 16 1,400,000 Ethiopian Civil Wars 1962-92
> 17 1,250,000 East Pakistan: Massacres 1971
> 18 1,000,000 Mexican Revolution 1910-20
> 18 1,000,000 Iran-Iraq War 1980-88
>

Being Ba’athist Husayn wasn’t much of a Muslim, but this war had Sunni-Shia
undertones and we played it to our advantage, helping Saddam at times and
arming Iran by way of Israel to divert funding past the Boland barrier into
Contra hands.

>
> 18 1,000,000 Nigeria: Biafran revolt 1967-70
> 21 917,000 Rwandan Massacres 1994
> 21 800,000 Mozambique: Civil War 1976-92
> 23 675,000 French-Algerian War 1954-62
> 24 600,000 First Indochina War 1945-54
>

Because FDR died and dipshit Truman looked the other way as the Brits
rolled out the red carpet for the French exploitative colonial return until
Dien Bien Phu. The French went on to deal with troubles in Algeria.

>
> 24 600,000 Angolan Civil War 1975-94
> 26 500,000 Decline of the Amazonian Indians (1900-99)
> 26 500,000 India-Pakistan Partition 1947
>

Just as Catholics would later flee North Vietnam toward the US allied
South, Muslims flocked northward to form Pakistan. How is this secular?

>
> 26 500,000 First Sudanese Civil War 1955-72
> 29 450,000 Indonesia: Massacre of Communists 1965-66
> 30 365,000 Spanish Civil War 1936-39
> ? >350,000 Somalia: Chaos 1991-(99)
> ? >400,000 North Korea: Communist Regime
> http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/atrox.htm
>
>
>
>
> Where's the outrage against the rise of secular fascism?
> Religion, in general, is the solution not the problem.
>

Really? And given Trump’s infatuation with overturning the Johnson
amendment and the next SCOTUS addition may end Roe v Wade jurisprudence,
the US is looming dangerous towards theocracy. Jefferson’s wall crumbles.

[*Hemidactylus*]

freon96 <fre...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Joe Cummings wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/nigeria_children_witchcraft
>>
>> I hope no one is prepared to defend this.
>>
>> Joe Cummings
>
> It presents a problem for Western Liberalism in that we
> defend the principle of individual rights and self
> determination for ourselves but not for others.
>

We don’t really promote such ideals for ourselves very well. We are limited
in what we can do in cases of other places that violate our alleged
principles. But if it is in our national interest we may find it within our
power to do a drone strike on a wedding or take out an aspirin factory. Or
stage a coup.

>
> In some
> places, witchcraft is believed to be real so punishments for
> it are also real. If we are to honor their right to be
> wrong, we really can't do anything. The alternative is to
> forcefully convert them to our beliefs.
>

One can use international shame and economic leverage. But first one has to
set an example to be proud of in the eyes of the world. When we separate
kids from families because rabid xenophobia it is difficult to admonish
others for how they act. We are taking an even lower moral ground than we
have in the past. Have we reached our nadir yet or is there more sinking
into the slime to come?

[*Hemidactylus*]

I recall a story about a sorcerer who during an exorcism of a legion of
demons drowned some hapless pigs. Given the intelligence of pigs they no
doubt suffered greatly. Given the fate of Michael Vick for animal abuse one
wonders what public opinion toward such animal abusive sorcery would be
today.

[Joe Cummings]

I am. I 'deedy 'deedy am!

Let's have a recap:

I posted some BBC reports about religious charlatanry.

Was this an attack on religion in general? How?

Was it an attack on some aspect of religion? No, it was an invitation
to people to condemn or defend this charlatanry.

I should imagine that Haran would have condemned it, but he didn't -
in fact made defensive noises instead.

I share Haemodactylus's view on this.

It's a curious amalgam of Calvinist penacostalism and superstition.
Calvinism in its assumption that poverty is the fault of the poor -
God rewards the just by giving them wealth in this world.

This is ancient doctrine; it goes back to the Protestant criticism of
the Catholic Church as being too indulgent to the poor. I think that
Calvin and Luther always preached with one eye on the wealthy - noble
or mercantile - for support.

Of course, this is a strong reason for the hold of Pentacostalism in
the US. Put bluntly, it is saying: "To get on in life and become
wealthy , believe!"

Of course, I also realise that there are many good people who follow
this precept, and work diligently for their living, but there are also
people who I would call chancers who stridently "believe" in order to
acquire wealth. Witness the number of luxury jets ordered by
preachers to "carry on God's work."

I shall now await your responses.


Have (non-charlatan) fun,

Joe Cummings

[Ernest Major]

You can add the Sudanese Civil Wars to the religious column. The Spanish
Civil War is more equivocal.

Jonathan ought to look at the beam in his own eye - the Catholic
contribution to Trump's success - possibly that's why he can't see the
outrage. Catholics might break from Trump, but they were part of his
coalition.

https://religionnews.com/2017/08/24/the-catholic-bishops-honeymoon-with-trump-is-over/

--
alias Ernest Major

[Glenn]

"Joe Cummings" <joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:qsh8ld1e6e48huuj2...@4ax.com...

> On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 20:02:00 +0100, Martin Harran
> <martin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 19:08:00 +0200, Joe Cummings
>><joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 08:19:37 +0200, Joe Cummings
>>><joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/nigeria_children_witchcraft
>>>>
>>>>I hope no one is prepared to defend this.
>>>>
>>>>Joe Cummings
>>>
>>>
>>>Here are more
>>>
>>>https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38063882
>>
>>More what ? I'm assuming you are trying to make some kind of point.
>
>
> I am. I 'deedy 'deedy am!
>
> Let's have a recap:
>
> I posted some BBC reports about religious charlatanry.
>
> Was this an attack on religion in general? How?
>
> Was it an attack on some aspect of religion? No, it was an invitation
> to people to condemn or defend this charlatanry.
>

Bullshit.

You posted a url and titled the post "The blessings of religion", and said that you hoped no one was prepared to defend the url.

Several posters have defended the subject title by associating "Christianity" with acts described in the url.

You should be proud.

snip more garbage

[Martin Harran]

On Sun, 22 Jul 2018 11:07:53 +0200, Joe Cummings

<joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 20:02:00 +0100, Martin Harran
><martin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 19:08:00 +0200, Joe Cummings
>><joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 08:19:37 +0200, Joe Cummings
>>><joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/nigeria_children_witchcraft
>>>>
>>>>I hope no one is prepared to defend this.
>>>>
>>>>Joe Cummings
>>>
>>>
>>>Here are more
>>>
>>>https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38063882
>>
>>More what ? I'm assuming you are trying to make some kind of point.
>
>
>I am. I 'deedy 'deedy am!
>
>Let's have a recap:
>
>I posted some BBC reports about religious charlatanry.
>
>Was this an attack on religion in general? How?
>
>Was it an attack on some aspect of religion? No, it was an invitation
>to people to condemn or defend this charlatanry.

I find it difficult to believe that you seriously thought anyone would
defend it.

Seems to me more a case of you and Mark mirror imaging people who try
to attack evolution on the basis that people used it to justify
eugenics and genocide.

>I should imagine that Haran would have condemned it,

Why on earth should I have to condemn something that is so evidently
evil?

>But he didn't -

>in fact made defensive noises instead.

What defensive noises did I make.?

[...]

[jillery]

A problem with activist Liberalism, encouraging others to share one's
own ideals, is that more often than not said encouragement is turned
against those doing the encouragement. A recent example is the Arab
Spring, a series of government turnovers in Islamic countries,
generally encouraged by the U.S. at the time, but which led to
governments hostile to U.S. interests.

Another problem with activist Liberalism is that of conflicting goals.
A recent example of that is the U.S. involvement in Syria, which
walked a tightrope between opposing Bashar al-Assad and also opposing
ISIS, which resulted in opposing neither effectively.

There's a difference in the kind of activist Liberalism which
encourages by example, the kind which encourages by policy, and the
kind which encourages by military intervention. In my lifetime I have
seen both political parties accuse the opposition of appeasement for
not intervening militarily.

At the very least, forceful intervention guarantees the creation of
enemies, some of which hold grudges for centuries, and the depletion
of national resources. It's immoral for a nation to demand that its
citizens risk their lives in order to forcefully intervene in other
countries without first, last, and always, clearly identifying a
compelling national interest to do so, and then directing said
intervention toward that interest.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Crickets?

[zencycle]

On Sunday, July 22, 2018 at 12:00:02 AM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:

> Or did you merely copypaste a list you didn’t
> really think about or understand to pursue an anti-atheist narrative?

That's exactly what he did

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 19:26:31 -0700, Mark Isaak

OK, let's look at just a couple of them.

# 2 The Exorcism of Bridget Cleary
"Bridget Cleary was an Irish woman murdered by her husband, Michael
Clearly, in 1895. Michael believed that Bridget had been kidnapped by
fairies and that the wife he had been interacting with was actually a
changeling."

# 8 Zakieya L. Avery's exorcism of her children
In 2014, a 28-year-old Maryland mother of four named Zakieya L. Avery
stabbed her two youngest children-ages 1 and 2-to death. The older
children, ages 5 and 8, were wounded but survived.

Many if not lost of the other stories listed are in the same vein -
are you seriously trying to argue that the actions of people who are
clearly mentally deranged can be portrayed as religious excess? If so,
then you are effectively mirror-imaging the idiots who blame mental
problems on possession.

>
>>> I am trying to suggest that those cases are
>>> not outlandishly atypical.
>>
>> They are either typical or atypical - "not outstandingly" are just
>> weasel words which suggest you would like to claim they are typical
>> but know well that you can't stand over it.
>
>I really, really, REALLY hate black-and-white thinking. It is a form of
>mental laziness which sometimes *causes* atrocities such as we were
>discussing, and I did not expect you to descend to using it.

I think you really need to look at yourself in that regard. Elsewhere
you have recognised things I have posted as genuine correct of errors
by other people but described it as "knee jerk". Here, you have tried
to use a poorly-constructed article from a populist site to attack
religion.

Ranker is a site that seeks to be achieve popularity through
titillation with lists like 'The Weirdest Statues of Celebrities' or
'The Most Over-The-Top Celebrity Fat Suits Ever Worn In TV And Movie
History'. It describes the author of the article you cited as "a
journalist living in Los Angeles. She was born in a cold place,
similar to Winterfell, and moved after getting a B.A. in Writing. She
enjoys Halloween, escape rooms, immersive theater and true crime
novels. Petting animals and staying in terrible motels are her ideal
hobbies, but she'll also binge watch any crime procedural on
Netflix.".

You clearly put a high value on the integrity of sources when it comes
to science but anything seems to go when it comes to religion - I have
called you out several times for using sources that are less than
reputable.

[Mark Isaak]

Cherry-picking.

> # 2 The Exorcism of Bridget Cleary
> "Bridget Cleary was an Irish woman murdered by her husband, Michael
> Clearly, in 1895. Michael believed that Bridget had been kidnapped by
> fairies and that the wife he had been interacting with was actually a
> changeling."
>
> # 8 Zakieya L. Avery's exorcism of her children
> In 2014, a 28-year-old Maryland mother of four named Zakieya L. Avery
> stabbed her two youngest children-ages 1 and 2-to death. The older
> children, ages 5 and 8, were wounded but survived.
>
> Many if not lost of the other stories listed are in the same vein -
> are you seriously trying to argue that the actions of people who are
> clearly mentally deranged can be portrayed as religious excess?

Superstitions do not arise in a vacuum. The Catholic Church probably
could not put an end to all deaths and torturers by exorcism, but it
could make a huge dent in their number if it released a statement
saying, "Although we ourselves engaged in the practice in the past, we
now recognize that exorcism is a superstition which does far more harm
than good, and we reject its use under any and all circumstances.
Individuals showing overt signs supposed to be possession should instead
receive state-of-the-art medical and psychological treatment.
Compassionate and effective treatment of the accused should be the
highest priority." Instead, the Vatican actively promotes exorcism. It
fuels the fire that leads to such stories as those in the post.

And the Catholic Church is not alone to blame. *All* churches which
recognize anything resembling demons and which do not make such a
statement are to blame. To the best of my knowledge, that includes all
major denominations of all major religions.

Do you think the exorcisms on that list did not occur? I had heard of
at least two of them from other news sources.

> You clearly put a high value on the integrity of sources when it comes
> to science but anything seems to go when it comes to religion - I have
> called you out several times for using sources that are less than
> reputable.

So is Catholicnewsagency.com reputable? How about Catholic Answers
(catholic.com/magazine)? Newsweek? All of these tell that exorcism is
an active, promoted policy.

(Of course, you may have reason to dismiss everything I say, since I
myself apparently show a few of the signs of being possessed. Rolling
my eyes, in particular.)

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net

"Omnia disce. Videbis postea nihil esse superfluum."
- Hugh of St. Victor

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 08:07:07 -0700, Mark Isaak

Hmm … do I really need to go through all the other cases like the
aspiring rapper who fatally stabbed Morgan Freeman's
step-granddaughter while screaming, "Get out, devils! I cast you out,
devils!" and had to be restrained by police from still trying to
attack Hines' body; or the case of Irene Mbithe who murdered her
six-month-old baby by cutting out his tongue and intestines in an
exorcism attempt; or the 2-year-old boy starved to death after his
parents refused to give him food for 25 days. Or could I simply reply
to the cherry picking accusation by employing the 'tu quoque' response
so favoured by another poster in these parts?

>
>> # 2 The Exorcism of Bridget Cleary
>> "Bridget Cleary was an Irish woman murdered by her husband, Michael
>> Clearly, in 1895. Michael believed that Bridget had been kidnapped by
>> fairies and that the wife he had been interacting with was actually a
>> changeling."
>>
>> # 8 Zakieya L. Avery's exorcism of her children
>> In 2014, a 28-year-old Maryland mother of four named Zakieya L. Avery
>> stabbed her two youngest children-ages 1 and 2-to death. The older
>> children, ages 5 and 8, were wounded but survived.
>>
>> Many if not lost of the other stories listed are in the same vein -
>> are you seriously trying to argue that the actions of people who are
>> clearly mentally deranged can be portrayed as religious excess?
>
>Superstitions do not arise in a vacuum. The Catholic Church probably
>could not put an end to all deaths and torturers by exorcism, but it
>could make a huge dent in their number if it released a statement
>saying, "Although we ourselves engaged in the practice in the past, we
>now recognize that exorcism is a superstition which does far more harm
>than good, and we reject its use under any and all circumstances.
>Individuals showing overt signs supposed to be possession should instead
>receive state-of-the-art medical and psychological treatment.
>Compassionate and effective treatment of the accused should be the
>highest priority."
>Instead, the Vatican actively promotes exorcism. It
>fuels the fire that leads to such stories as those in the post.

Somewhat ingenuous mixture of half-truths in there.

First of all , the Catholic Church could not issue a statement
rejecting exorcism in "any and all" circumstances as it believes
exorcism is appropriate is some *exceptional* circumstances.

Secodly,, the exorcism is a last resort, only carried out after all
natural sources have been excluded including a thorough examination by
medical professionals to make sure that both physical and mental
illness are ruled out.

Thirdly, the exorcism can only be be carried out by an ordained priest
with the explicit approval of his bishop, not lay people taking it
upon themselves as in the Ranker examples you cited.

Finally, the Catholic Church is very aware of and very much on guard
for superstition driven exorcism; again quoting from the catholic
Encyclopaedia over a 100 years ago:

"Superstition ought not to be confounded with religion, however much
their history may be interwoven, nor magic, however white it may be,
with a legitimate religious rite."

>
>And the Catholic Church is not alone to blame. *All* churches which
>recognize anything resembling demons and which do not make such a
>statement are to blame. To the best of my knowledge, that includes all
>major denominations of all major religions.

I don't know enough about other denominations to comment but I'd be
surprised if any of the mainstream ones didn't adopt the same caution
as the Catholic Church towards other possible causes of *apparent*
demonic possession, especially mental illness.

At most, out of the 15 cases listed I only see two of them as possibly
qualifying as "official" exorcisms by a religious organisation and
it's not clear even in those cases,that the proper procedure was
followed.

>
>> You clearly put a high value on the integrity of sources when it comes
>> to science but anything seems to go when it comes to religion - I have
>> called you out several times for using sources that are less than
>> reputable.
>
>So is Catholicnewsagency.com reputable? How about Catholic Answers
>(catholic.com/magazine)?

Certainly reputable in regard to explaining the procedures within the
Catholic Church

>Newsweek? All of these tell that exorcism is
>an active, promoted policy.

Do any of them report the sort of cases you cited from Ranker? If so,
why didn't you cite them instead of a titillation-driven website?

>
>(Of course, you may have reason to dismiss everything I say, since I
>myself apparently show a few of the signs of being possessed. Rolling
>my eyes, in particular.)

Nope, bias and irrationality do not equate to demonic possession ;)

[Mark Isaak]

You think that makes it okay? All exorcism is superstition. That the
Church cannot see that says only bad things about the Church.
Furthermore, it is a particularly heinous superstition, in that it
invariably hurts people and, by distracting from effective treatment and
instilling PTSD, frequently causes long-term harm. Every instance of
exorcism is an atrocity. Every. Single. Case.

[*Hemidactylus*]

So is wearing a lucky shirt or not stepping on cracks. The notion that
using magical rites and invocation will rid a demon works is based maybe on
the “success” of such stuff “causing” cessation of strange behavior in an
after this because of this manner in the eyes of an exorcist and either
spontaneous remission of psychosis or placebo from POV of “possessed”. Not
sure what the demon feels afterward.

>
> That the
> Church cannot see that says only bad things about the Church.
> Furthermore, it is a particularly heinous superstition, in that it
> invariably hurts people and, by distracting from effective treatment and
> instilling PTSD, frequently causes long-term harm.

Always? No people actually helped by going through the motions of the
performative even if the constative aspect is dubious? Do the priests get
the fees of a psychoanalyst that talks it out with a client for years and
years? Any worse than prescribing meds for dubious made up conditions that
benefit big pharma? Don’t get me wrong. I think exorcism is batshit silly,
but if the possessed sincerely thinks they need it would a Catholic priest
be a worse choice than some New Age or bizarre protestant sect practitioner
who might be in it for the money? Is there a serious vetting process that
tries to direct the afflicted toward a mental health practitioner who might
have their own dubiou$ agenda? Is there a charge for the Catholic exorcist
service?

> Every instance of
> exorcism is an atrocity. Every. Single. Case.
>

Yeah I saw the movie too, but is that a fair representation? Is it always
pea soup or can it be chicken noodle sometimes? Every single case an
atrocity? Aren’t they basically telling demons to get lost? As long as no
pigs drown in the backyard pool then what harm? In the worst case pig
roast. Win-win. Let the priest take a rib slab home.

[*Hemidactylus*]

What if someone really thinks they are possessed, is of majority age, and
other than that idee fixe is of sound mind to make decisions? Their free
exercise leads them to call on a reticent Catholic establishment to perform
the ceremony they sincerely want? Is this as bad as an adult Jehovah
Witness refusing blood transfusion, given an ethical Catholic priest would
hopefully try to steer the parishioner to the mental health community if
they aren’t capable of effective psychotherapy themselves.

Are there out of control exorcism mills out there casting demons for
profit? I know there have been pill mills slinging oxys to people addicted
to pain meds who turn to street heroin when their scripts run dry. That is
a fact the medical establishment has saddled us with thanks to
pharmacology.

Does silly rites by priests rise to that level of socially onerous
destruction? Opiate demon possession is real and caused by doctors.

[Glenn]

"Mark Isaak" <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote in message news:pje2lq$qd3$1...@dont-email.me...

Some think atheism is an evil spirit.

"The advocacy of atheism by some of the more violent exponents of the French Revolution, the subsequent militancy of Marxist–Leninist atheism and prominence of atheism in totalitarian states formed in the 20th century is often cited in critical assessments of the implications of atheism. In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke railed against "atheistical fanaticism". The 1937 papal encyclical Divini Redemptoris denounced the atheism of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, which was later influential in the establishment of state atheism across Eastern Europe and elsewhere, including Mao Zedong's China, Kim's North Korea and Pol Pot's Cambodia. "

"Chesterton holds that "[h]e who does not believe in God will believe in anything."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_atheism

How is that working out for you?

I hold that atheists will say anything.

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 20:15:03 -0700, Mark Isaak

That is your opinion and you are fully entitled to it. You *may* even
be right but just because something seems clearly right to you doesn't
actually make it fact,

>Furthermore, it is a particularly heinous superstition, in that it
>invariably hurts people and, by distracting from effective treatment and
>instilling PTSD, frequently causes long-term harm.

Can you give any actual examples of such harm caused by exorcisms
*officially* carried out by the Catholic Church, following the laid
down procedures of that Church.

>Every instance of
>exorcism is an atrocity. Every. Single. Case.

Claiming something to be true *in every single case* when you don't
even know anything about a significant number of single cases let
alone every single one, is pure aggrandisement.

[Mark Isaak]

Tajima-Pozo et al., "Practicing exorcism in schizophrenia", _BMJ Case
Rep. 2011 Feb. 15, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22707465
From the abstract: "The patient was led to believe by priests that her
psychotic symptoms were due to the presence of a demon. This was
surprising because some of the priests were from the Madrid archdiocese
and knew the clinical situation of the patient; however, they believed
that she was suffering from demonic possession, and she underwent
multiple exorcisms, disrupting response to clinical treatment."

Pietkiewicz & Lecoq-Bamboche, "Exorcism leads to reenactment of trauma
in a Mauritian woman", _J. Child Sex Abus._ 26(8): 970-992 (2017).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28952898
The abstract (all that is available online) does not say whether this
was done by Catholic exorcists, but the principle should apply generally.

>> Every instance of
>> exorcism is an atrocity. Every. Single. Case.
>
> Claiming something to be true *in every single case* when you don't
> even know anything about a significant number of single cases let
> alone every single one, is pure aggrandisement.

Can you give a single clinical trial to test the efficacy of exorcism?
I have looked, and I cannot. If there are none, then at the very least,
exorcism is health fraud.

[Mark Isaak]

Perhaps ironically, I do see benefits in much shamanistic healing. That
healing, however, is overtly supportive to the patient, explicitly
involving the patient's family and friends. Exorcism, from what I have
read of the practice (no, I have not seen the movie), is
confrontational, designed to make matters uncomfortable for the
possessing spirit, which usually means uncomfortable for the patient too.

And it is medical fraud, along with homeopathy, alternative cancer
cures, and innumerable other forms of snake oil sales.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Does exorcism as practiced by Catholic priests represent itself as a
medical intervention?

[Mark Isaak]

Good points. I would say the Catholic priest who does not first steer
the applicant to mental health community is as bad as the JW refusing
blood transfusion to someone else, and the priest who does not cooperate
closely with the mental health professions who are involved is also
guilty of malpractice. I will grant that a mild exorcism (i.e., one
that does not torture the patient) can be a comforting panacea and
sometimes a placebo in conjunction with medical care. That is not
always a good thing, though, since the benefits are likely to be
short-lived while the underlying problem persists indefinitely. And
yes, there have been psychiatrists who were as bad as the worst
exorcists, but that does not excuse the exorcists. I still believe that
exorcisms, along with a host of other alternative "medicines", do more
harm than good, and that Churches generally are remiss for not
condemning the practice.

[*Hemidactylus*]

How much overlap is there between clergy and licensed counselors? I could
see a benefit to clergy counseling parishioners. I would draw the line at
conversion therapy as that is an odious practice. And I do not view
exorcism positively, though I am wondering how benign it could be.

I do believe in a cognitive form of demon possession as a play on words.
Addiction applies as do subroutines that are easily triggered and take over
the victim’s behavioral repertoire. Idee fixes are a subset. I have
effectively killfiltered a local monomanic victim of a four letter acronym
demon. Took some time to figure that out. Boarding my windows against
zombies.

[Martin Harran]

On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 11:09:00 -0700, Mark Isaak

And such a priest would be directly contravening the procedures laid
down by the Catholic Church.

[Mark Isaak]

Many minister and priests (in fact, most of the few I personally have
encountered over the last few years) get training in counseling and/or
social services as a routine part of their religious training.

> I would draw the line at
> conversion therapy as that is an odious practice. And I do not view
> exorcism positively, though I am wondering how benign it could be.

A problem with pastoral counseling is that the counselor's religious
community is likely to support his or her biases, and so you get things
like conversion therapy or wives counseled to submit to their
wife-beating husbands. On the other hand, the pastors tend to be
trusted and easily accessible, so people come to them with problems that
would never get addressed otherwise. My impression is that pastoral
counseling does FAR more good than harm.

[Martin Harran]

On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 10:33:32 -0700, Mark Isaak

Reading too much into abstracts can be misleading; I hate doing
someone else's homework for them but in this case, the full paper is
readily available - there is a link marked "Free Full text" on the URL
you gave!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3062860/

I have a number of issues with the paper.

#1
In several places, including the abstract you quoted, the authors
refer to priests/religious clerics from the Archdiocese in Madrid but
they never identify who these priests were and, in particular, whether
these were priests who had any official standing to speak on behalf of
the Archbishop of Madrid.

#2
In their Case Presentation the authors state "Some months later the
patient contacted a clergyman via a website. The clergyman was a
renowned expert on exorcisms and a frequent guest on TV programs on
paranormal phenomena."

Contacting a TV personality through a website is categorically NOT the
way that exorcisms are arranged through the Catholic Church. It seems
very unlikely to me that this particular exorcism was carried out in a
manner laid down by the Catholic Church - particularly, a priest
acting with the explicit permission of his bishop.

#3
In conclusion, the authors state "We conclude that religious
professionals should encourage appropriate psychiatric treatment and
increase their knowledge of mental illnesses." They are asking for
something that is already in place within the Catholic Church!

#4
It is not quite clear to me what the authors are actually complaining
about in this particular case. They don't actually mention any undue
side effects from the exorcism; on the contrary, they report that "the
patient … described deeper sleep and feeling more restful" and "the
patient believed some symptoms, particularly mood, had improved."

The only real gripe that the authors seem to have is that the exorcism
interrupted the medical treatment the patient already was receiving
but which, by their own admission, seems to have failed have any real
impact on the patient.

I would be uneasy about some of the things mentioned in that article,
particularly in regard to how the exorcist was selected and how
exactly the priests they talk to reacted, but it is far from the
example of exorcism causing the long-term harm that you have been
ranting about and that I asked for an example of.

>
>Pietkiewicz & Lecoq-Bamboche, "Exorcism leads to reenactment of trauma
>in a Mauritian woman", _J. Child Sex Abus._ 26(8): 970-992 (2017).
>https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28952898
>The abstract (all that is available online) does not say whether this
>was done by Catholic exorcists, but the principle should apply generally.

As I already pointed out, it is risky trying to read too much into any
abstract and, as you admit, it is not clear that the Catholic Church
had any involvement in that particular case and it is the Catholic
Church we have been specifically discussing in this thread.

The authors do note in the abstract that "How [changes in behavior and
identity] are interpreted and handled usually depends on local culture
and beliefs." By a funny coincidence, I actually know first-hand quite
a bit about Mauritian culture as I spent six months living and working
there some years ago. It is a real hotchpotch of cultures and
religions primarily Hinduism, Buddhism and Catholicism mixed in with a
bit of Buddhism and native African traditions, all overlapping with a
tolerance between them that I wish the rest of world could follow. In
that environment, I would be wary of assuming it to have been a
typical Catholic exorcism.

Leaving those reservations aside, the authors in the abstract state
that "exorcisms are potentially retraumatizing … during this ritual",
they don't make any mention of long-term harm which is what you
claimed.

Again too, like the previous paper, they recommend that "exorcism
seekers could benefit from additional clinical assessment by
professionals experienced in the dissociation field" which is exactly
the approach already taken by the Catholic Church.

>
>>> Every instance of
>>> exorcism is an atrocity. Every. Single. Case.
>>
>> Claiming something to be true *in every single case* when you don't
>> even know anything about a significant number of single cases let
>> alone every single one, is pure aggrandisement.
>
>Can you give a single clinical trial to test the efficacy of exorcism?
>I have looked, and I cannot. If there are none, then at the very least,
>exorcism is health fraud.

Yet again, you ignore the long-standing principle regularly invoked
by people on the scientific side in this newsgroup that *he who makes
the claim must prove the claim*.

I have made no claims whatsoever about the efficacy of exorcism; to be
honest I don't know enough about exorcism and its impact to make any
judgement on its efficacy.

All that I have done is to challenge *your* claims that exorcism "is a

particularly heinous superstition, in that it invariably hurts people
and, by distracting from effective treatment and instilling PTSD,

frequently causes long-term harm. Every instance of exorcism is an
atrocity. Every. Single. Case."

You have been unable to produce any reputable or credible evidence
whatsoever to support those claims.

I'm pretty sure I've said this to you before, but I'll say it again.
When you have firmly held opinions that are challenged and you can't
produce a single piece of evidence to support them; when, despite
being someone who espouses the importance of good scientific evidence,
you have to turn to titillating sites like Ranker, you really should
consider whether those opinions are genuinely well-formed or are the
result of ingrained bias.

[Martin Harran]

On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 16:59:01 -0700, Mark Isaak

I can't speak for other denominations or religions but within the
Catholic Church, ALL priests get that training as part of their study
for the priesthood. From the little that I do know about other
denominations, I get the impression that the same applies to all the
mainstream Christian ones.

>
>> I would draw the line at
>> conversion therapy as that is an odious practice. And I do not view
>> exorcism positively, though I am wondering how benign it could be.
>
>A problem with pastoral counseling is that the counselor's religious
>community is likely to support his or her biases, and so you get things
>like conversion therapy or wives counseled to submit to their
>wife-beating husbands.

What a dreadful allegation to make about a group of people of whom you
have no direct knowledge!

> On the other hand, the pastors tend to be
>trusted and easily accessible, so people come to them with problems that
>would never get addressed otherwise. My impression is that pastoral
>counseling does FAR more good than harm.

And yet again you reach a conclusion - emphasised with capitalisation-
for which you have no actual supporting evidence.

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 28 Jul 2018 14:34:17 +0100, Martin Harran
<martin...@gmail.com> wrote:


Sorry:

" It is a real hotchpotch of cultures and religions primarily
Hinduism, Buddhism and Catholicism mixed in with a bit of Buddhism and

native African traditions..."

should have been

" It is a real hotchpotch of cultures and religions primarily

Hinduism, ISLAM and Catholicism mixed in with a bit of Buddhism and
native African traditions..."

[Mark Isaak]

I expect naming names in the context of a medical article would be
considered a gross breach of ethics.

I have shown that some exorcisms cause death. I have shown that the
Catholic Church not only condones the practice of exorcism, it in fact
considers exorcism sometimes advisable. You accept both of those points.

What you don't seem to get is that they are connected. Suppose a parent
has a teenage child exhibiting signs of demonic possession. The parent
goes to her priest, who says he knows nothing about the subject.
Perhaps the priest drops the case, perhaps he writes a letter and
someone else drops it. Either way, very few parents will get
satisfaction through "official" channels. So what is a parent to do?
Option 1: Find an exorcist through the internet ("categorically" THE way
to shop for something unfamiliar). Option 2: Do it yourself. You
oppose both of those methods, but you forget to add that the Catholic
Church, by selling exorcism and not providing, is helping to make those
methods a reality.

As for other long-term harm, the evidence I have is not focused on
exorcism per se, but on medical quackery in general. On that subject,
there is abundant evidence of long-term harm, including deaths and
monetary costs. I would consider every single case of selling a
homeopathic treatment to be an atrocity, too, if instead of a few
seconds and a couple dollars, the transaction cost a couple hundred
dollars and a full day's emotional commitment.

[Mark Isaak]

On 7/28/18 6:42 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 16:59:01 -0700, Mark Isaak
> <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
>

>> [...]

>> A problem with pastoral counseling is that the counselor's religious
>> community is likely to support his or her biases, and so you get things
>> like conversion therapy or wives counseled to submit to their
>> wife-beating husbands.
>
> What a dreadful allegation to make about a group of people of whom you
> have no direct knowledge!

I met that wife personally, and conversion therapy has been all over the
news.

>> On the other hand, the pastors tend to be
>> trusted and easily accessible, so people come to them with problems that
>> would never get addressed otherwise. My impression is that pastoral
>> counseling does FAR more good than harm.
>
> And yet again you reach a conclusion - emphasised with capitalisation-
> for which you have no actual supporting evidence.

Did you read what I said, or did you assume you knew what I was going to
say and read that?

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 28 Jul 2018 09:38:12 -0700, Mark Isaak
<eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

>On 7/28/18 6:34 AM, Martin Harran wrote:

[匽

>> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3062860/
>>
>> I have a number of issues with the paper.
>>
>> #1
>> In several places, including the abstract you quoted, the authors
>> refer to priests/religious clerics from the Archdiocese in Madrid but
>> they never identify who these priests were and, in particular, whether
>> these were priests who had any official standing to speak on behalf of
>> the Archbishop of Madrid.
>
>I expect naming names in the context of a medical article would be
>considered a gross breach of ethics.

Possibly, but without those names - or at least identification of what
authority they had to represent the Archbishop - the article has no
value or relevance in terms of evaluating the role of the Catholic
Church in the matter.

[...]

>> All that I have done is to challenge *your* claims that exorcism "is a
>> particularly heinous superstition, in that it invariably hurts people
>> and, by distracting from effective treatment and instilling PTSD,
>> frequently causes long-term harm. Every instance of exorcism is an
>> atrocity. Every. Single. Case."
>>
>> You have been unable to produce any reputable or credible evidence
>> whatsoever to support those claims.
>>
>> I'm pretty sure I've said this to you before, but I'll say it again.
>> When you have firmly held opinions that are challenged and you can't
>> produce a single piece of evidence to support them; when, despite
>> being someone who espouses the importance of good scientific evidence,
>> you have to turn to titillating sites like Ranker, you really should
>> consider whether those opinions are genuinely well-formed or are the
>> result of ingrained bias.
>
>I have shown that some exorcisms cause death.

No, you have not. You produced a list of examples from a questionable
site which mostly show deranged or unstable people blaming the devil
for their actions. Of the 15 examples in that article, only one even
involved priests and the procedures they followed were clearly not
those laid down by the Church - unless you want to claim that the
exorcism procedure of the Catholic Church involves starving a young
girl to death over a 10-month period.

> I have shown that the
>Catholic Church not only condones the practice of exorcism, it in fact
>considers exorcism sometimes advisable.

There has been no need for you to *show* that - the Catholic Church is
open about the fact that it carries out exorcism in what it believes
are appropriate circumstances.

>You accept both of those points.

Nope, as I said your first point doesn't stand up.

>
>What you don't seem to get is that they are connected.

You have not shown any connection between those examples and the
Catholic Church. When I asked you to produce examples from a reputable
reliable source, you produced two examples, one of which you admitted
you did not know for sure involved the Catholic Church. In both cases
nevertheless there was no long-term harm identified to the people
involved, let alone death.

>Suppose a parent

{snip - I'm not interested in "suppose" scenarios, only what we know
for fact]

>As for other long-term harm, the evidence I have is not focused on
>exorcism per se, but on medical quackery in general.

No, you have not focused on medical quackery, and you don't get to
change the goalposts just like that. You made claims specifically
about exorcism and on the Catholic Church's use of exorcism in

particular. Just to remind you of some of what you actually wrote:

"The Catholic Church probably could not put an end to all deaths and
torturers by exorcism, but it could make a huge dent in their number
if it released a statement saying, "Although we ourselves engaged in
the practice in the past, we now recognize that exorcism is a
superstition which does far more harm than good, and we reject its use
under any and all circumstances. Individuals showing overt signs
supposed to be possession should instead receive state-of-the-art
medical and psychological treatment. Compassionate and effective
treatment of the accused should be the highest priority." Instead,
the Vatican actively promotes exorcism. It fuels the fire that leads
to such stories as those in the post."

and

"All exorcism is superstition. That the Church cannot see that says

only bad things about the Church. Furthermore, it is a particularly

heinous superstition, in that it invariably hurts people and, by
distracting from effective treatment and instilling PTSD, frequently

causes long-term harm. Every instance of exorcism is an atrocity.
Every. Single. Case"

If you now want to change your attack to medical quackery in general,
that's fine, I would have no quarrel with you about the dangers and
risks and damage done by medical quackery in general. If, however, you
want to include exorcism by the Catholic Church in that medical
quackery, then you need to make a case justifying that rather than
trying to make it into an a priori assumption.

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 28 Jul 2018 09:42:30 -0700, Mark Isaak

<eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

>On 7/28/18 6:42 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 16:59:01 -0700, Mark Isaak
>> <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
>>
>>> [...]
>>> A problem with pastoral counseling is that the counselor's religious
>>> community is likely to support his or her biases, and so you get things
>>> like conversion therapy or wives counseled to submit to their
>>> wife-beating husbands.
>>
>> What a dreadful allegation to make about a group of people of whom you
>> have no direct knowledge!
>
>I met that wife personally, and conversion therapy has been all over the
>news.

So you know of one case where problems were related to pastoral
counselling yet you have no qualms in expanding it to a general issue
among pastoral counsellors.

>
>>> On the other hand, the pastors tend to be
>>> trusted and easily accessible, so people come to them with problems that
>>> would never get addressed otherwise. My impression is that pastoral
>>> counseling does FAR more good than harm.
>>
>> And yet again you reach a conclusion - emphasised with capitalisation-
>> for which you have no actual supporting evidence.
>
>Did you read what I said, or did you assume you knew what I was going to
>say and read that?

What part of "My impression is that pastoral counseling does FAR more
good than harm" did I not read?

[Mark Isaak]

On 7/29/18 8:17 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Jul 2018 09:38:12 -0700, Mark Isaak
> <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
>
>> On 7/28/18 6:34 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>

> […]

Oh, good grief. I already told you I had heard of two of those cases in
other (mainstream) news sources, and you could look up others if you
were not so intent on keeping your head in the sand.

Another one is referenced here (along with other abuse):
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/06/exorcists-catholic-evangelical-church-child-abuse-new-inquisition
But let me guess: You will find reasons not to consider the Guardian a
reputable news source.

You apparently won't be satisfied with any evidence less than someone
dying during an exorcism you yourself are participating in.

>> What you don't seem to get is that they are connected.
>
> You have not shown any connection between those examples and the
> Catholic Church. When I asked you to produce examples from a reputable
> reliable source, you produced two examples, one of which you admitted
> you did not know for sure involved the Catholic Church. In both cases
> nevertheless there was no long-term harm identified to the people
> involved, let alone death.
>
>> Suppose a parent
>
> {snip - I'm not interested in "suppose" scenarios, only what we know
> for fact]

The Catholic Church encourages belief in demonic infestation and belief
that said demons can be riven from the body. Do you honestly think that
encouragement does not bleed over onto non-Catholics?

And I'm curious what *you* would do if you knew for certain (in your
mind, at least) that a loved one was possessed by demons, and you found
it impossible to access a Board-certified Catholic exorcist. I am also
curious if you grok that that situation describes *at least* several
hundred thousand people, and probably millions.

Those are not rhetorical questions.

What change of subject? Exorcism is and always has been a proper subset
of medical quackery. What part of that do you disagree with? That
exorcism is medical? Do you think abdominal pain ceases to be a medical
condition if someone deems it was caused by a curse? Exorcism's
purpose, as I understand it, is to improve the wellbeing of a person
showing aberrant and dysfunctional mental and physical symptoms. If so,
then exorcism is by definition a medical treatment. I suppose you could
make the case that the purpose of exorcism is to torture an innocent
person to satisfy some people's superstitious prejudices, and if you
wish to make that your standard, I withdraw the "medical" claim.

Or do you disagree that it is quackery? Then you should be able to show
how it has been clinically tested, which you can't. It is superstitious
nonsense on par with -- no, make that identical to -- witch burning in
its rationale, and on par with bloodletting in its charity to sufferers.
Exorcism is atrocity.

[Mark Isaak]

On 7/29/18 8:30 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Jul 2018 09:42:30 -0700, Mark Isaak
> <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
>
>> On 7/28/18 6:42 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>> On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 16:59:01 -0700, Mark Isaak
>>> <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>> A problem with pastoral counseling is that the counselor's religious
>>>> community is likely to support his or her biases, and so you get things
>>>> like conversion therapy or wives counseled to submit to their
>>>> wife-beating husbands.
>>>
>>> What a dreadful allegation to make about a group of people of whom you
>>> have no direct knowledge!
>>
>> I met that wife personally, and conversion therapy has been all over the
>> news.
>
> So you know of one case where problems were related to pastoral
> counselling yet you have no qualms in expanding it to a general issue
> among pastoral counsellors.

No, I said it happens. Expanding it to a general issue was done by
Martin Harran.

>>>> On the other hand, the pastors tend to be
>>>> trusted and easily accessible, so people come to them with problems that
>>>> would never get addressed otherwise. My impression is that pastoral
>>>> counseling does FAR more good than harm.
>>>
>>> And yet again you reach a conclusion - emphasised with capitalisation-
>>> for which you have no actual supporting evidence.
>>
>> Did you read what I said, or did you assume you knew what I was going to
>> say and read that?
>
> What part of "My impression is that pastoral counseling does FAR more
> good than harm" did I not read?

The "My impression" part. I have lived a few decades now, and read and
traveled widely, and I am allowed to consider my life experience in
making judgments. That you find something wrong with my doing so is --
well, I had best leave that unsaid, lest by my intemperance I invite
demons into my body.

[Mark Isaak]

And here's a case of death at the hands of Roman Catholic exorcists:
"Bizarre exorcism draws suspended prison terms," _Press-Courier_, 22
Apr. 1978,
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AcJdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QF4NAAAAIBAJ&dq=anneliese%20michel&pg=5443%2C5231320

[Öö Tiib]

The Catholic priests have caused lethal accidents and even committed
crimes during rites and otherwise. They are humans. So they are
confused and fallible like everybody else.

[jillery]

On Sun, 29 Jul 2018 23:18:58 -0700 (PDT), ضِ Tiib <oot...@hot.ee>
wrote:

"Everybody else" is held liable for negligence. Even if exorcisms
could be shown to have some degree of efficacy, the exorcists are
still obliged to avoid doing unnecessary harm in consequence. And if
exorcists can't show exorcisms actually work, then they are liable for
fraud.

--
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Attributed to Voltaire

[Ernest Major]

On 30/07/2018 05:14, Mark Isaak wrote:
> and on par with bloodletting in its charity to sufferers

There are actually legitimate uses for bloodletting (or therapeutic
phlebotomy). It is a treatment for hemochromatosis and polycythemia
vera, and is used for avoid blood pooling after surgery.

--
alias Ernest Major

[Burkhard]

That goes back (alt east) to the early 20th century, and in particular
Anton Boisen who founded the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education
in1925. How much CPE a degree course entails differs, can be from 1-4
years for a member of the Association of Professional Chaplains, the
upper end comparable to the training a psychiatrist would get.

It's part of the degree in divinity, at least in Edinburgh,under the
"pastoral care" label and at least in the past jointly done with
psychology and social health. There was historically a strong connection
between the divinity departments at universities in Scotland and the
psychotherapy community - while Freud and his followers where generally
highly skeptical of religion, the counseling and psychotherapy offerings
in Scotland in the 20th century were more often than not initiated by
the educators in pastoral care - a typical example was Winifred
Rushforth wh founded and let the Edinburgh-based Davidson Clinic for
Medical Psychotherapy (in existence from 1941-1973).

This intersection between theology and psychotherapy led to a somewhat
different approach to psychotherapy as well - an emphasis on communal
activities and group therapy long before if became generally
fashionable. It also was the backbone of a maybe unusual coalition
between secular university based psychotherapist and religious
practitioners against the "quantitative" and "positivist" schools of
intervention that came out of the medical schools - i.e. the drug based
intervention.

By and large I'd say a hugely positive impact, though the tightly
knitted connection between the two fields can, as you indicate below,
also have problems, in particular when it comes to the "medicalisation
of difference" - until fairly recently the classification of
homosexuality as a mental disorder, and before that
"nymphomania/Satyriasis" (according to Kinsey, the illness of "having
more sex than you do), though this survives to a degree in the diagnosis
of hypersexuality

[Burkhard]

Don't know one for exorcism as practices by the RCC, but there is quite
a bit of literature that is almost more relevant for the OP. There is
some very interesting research in the cultural anthropology of mental
illness.

Some of the studies of exorcisms in African folk religions (that's the
true and undiluted old religions, not the dangerous fusion of
Christianity with traditional beliefs as in the OP) do describe positive
mental health outcomes. Examples include e.g. H. Englund, Death, trauma
and ritual: Mozambican refugees in Malawi. Social Science & Medicine, 46
(9) (1998), pp. 1165-1174 - in that example, we have a community of
deeply traumatized survivors of persecution who often were not able to
bury their relatives who got murdered. The result is a high prevalence
of PTSD and other mental health problems. When these were classified as
"possession by the spirits of unburied relatives" and communal exorcism
practices performed, that allowed people to make sense of their
condition and also provided a communal way forward as a resolution. You
get similar results in S. Eppel Reburial ceremonies for health and
healing after state terror in Zimbabwe The Lancet, 360 (2002), pp.
869-870. There is also an interesting study by Igreja
‘Why are there so many drums playing until dawn?’ Exploring the role of
Gamba spirits and healers in the post-war recovery period in Gorongosa,
Central Mozambique. Transcultural Psychiatry, 40 (4) (2003), pp. 459-487
- he compares the positive effect of communal exorcism/spirit
intervention in Mozambique with the hidden (because illegal) form on
Uganda, where it makes things worse.

Generally, the biggest problems seem to be in "syncretic" belief systems
that combine the monotheistic religion of the colonial power (either
Christianity or Islam) with the typically polytheistic belief systems of
the indigenous populations. As in the example the OP gave, this seems to
be an unhappy merger when it comes to spirit possession. (so e.g. the
very influential, if now somewhat dated, work by Iona Lewis, Ecstatic
Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession)

Another researcher who found that exorcism can be very efficient was
William Sargant - and you can make of this what you will... You may know
him as one of the fathers of scientific "brainwashing", hos book,
Battle for the Mind, was subtitled " physiology of conversion and
brainwashing". It uses extensively studies from religious groups, from
christian Methodists to African indigenous religions. So if you accept
this (and he has been of course very controversial for all sorts of
reasons, including a tendency to stick with discredited therapies), then
yes, there is quite a bot of evidence that exorcism works - and that
might just be the worst aspect of it :o)

On a somewhat different note, all these studies on the benefits of
exorcisms for mental health are so to speak parasitic on the idea that
spirit possession a) exists and b) is a bad thing. So they may have
therapeutic effect only if the society of the patient and the patient
himself believe in possession. At best you'll get something like: if
people who have e.g. schizophrenia (in secular terms) think of it as
possession, then carrying out an exorcism can alleviate also the
underlying condition. There is however also a very different approach
that accepts a) but not b) and treats it has something positive. E.g the
"oracles" in Greek mythology, forms of shamanism etc etc. So if a
society understands a mental illness as essentially a blessing from the
gods, and gives the carrier social status and a purpose, then this too
can have obvious beneficial effects for their well-being - while I
would not argue that all mental illness are social constructs, they
more than any other condition have a strong elements of this. To speak
of "patients who need treatment' presupposes a very specific attitude,
in the West often shared by religious and secular society, which then
shapes responses. A different understanding can be much more benevolent
for the person afflicted.

[Burkhard]

Pentecostals, in this case, but the problem would be the same: touching
and restraining by a man, when the underlying trauma is sexual abuse.

However, the article is very nuanced indeed - and you must remember that
"reenactment" is often also used a therapeutic intervention in secular
counseling, so don't assume this is necessarily meant as a bad thing. A
lot of psychotherapy is after all about rediscovering suppressed memories.

As a result, the paper does also document the positive potential of
"externalising internal conflict". It emphasizes though that it should
not be at the expense of medical intervention (so a real problem when
the religious group in question also actively discourage using the
medical service as this shows a "lack in belief - but this was only
marginally an issue here, as the patient in the most problematic case
did not trust the priest or believed in the efficacy of exorcisms to
start with, and participated because of social pressure to "give it a
try". And secondly, it points out that his type of intervention can
indeed be dangerous, which also holds true for the secular forms - and
therefore what we know about dangers needs to be integrated in the
exorcism practice. So in this case, obviously, a man touching the female
patient in the laying of the hands would be a no no.

[Mark Isaak]

Recovering suppressed memories is also an atrocity. The people who
perform it claim it is "empowering", but I know of no evidence of
benefits, and it has led to murders and suicides, not to mention
lawsuits and families torn apart, based on the false memories it
invariably creates.

> As a result, the paper does also document the positive potential of
> "externalising internal conflict". It emphasizes though that it should
> not be at the expense of medical intervention (so a real problem when
> the religious group in question also  actively discourage  using the
> medical service as this shows a "lack in belief - but this was only
> marginally an issue here, as the patient in the most problematic case
> did not trust the priest or believed in the efficacy of exorcisms to
> start with, and participated because of social pressure to "give it a
> try". And secondly, it points out that his type of intervention can
> indeed be dangerous, which also holds true for the secular forms - and
> therefore what we know about dangers needs to be integrated in the
> exorcism practice. So in this case, obviously, a man touching the female
> patient in the laying of the hands would be a no no.

Thank you for the further info.

[Öö Tiib]

Are there countries where Catholic priests are not held liable for
their negligence? Fraud is usually defined as deliberate deception with
intention to result with some financial or personal gain. Exorcists are
likely confused themselves and believe that they help victims
to battle dangerous demons. Also what is the material gain from it?

[jillery]

On Mon, 30 Jul 2018 12:28:24 -0700 (PDT), ضِ Tiib <oot...@hot.ee>

wrote:

>On Monday, 30 July 2018 14:10:03 UTC+3, jillery wrote:

>> On Sun, 29 Jul 2018 23:18:58 -0700 (PDT), ?? Tiib <oot...@hot.ee>

My impression is, your statement above is meant to excuse damage by
exorcists as understandable human error, that death is a necessary and
acceptable risk to exorcisms. If that isn't what you meant, perhaps
you could rephrase to clarify.

>Fraud is usually defined as deliberate deception with
>intention to result with some financial or personal gain. Exorcists are
>likely confused themselves and believe that they help victims
>to battle dangerous demons. Also what is the material gain from it?

My impression is, as persons who present themselves as having
expertise doing exorcisms, exorcists are held to higher legal and/or
ethical standards in its practice. On that basis, they should know
what are the demonstrated risks and benefits. If they don't, then
their fraud is in presenting themselves as experts. IOW they aren't
allowed to kill someone and then just go "oops".

[Öö Tiib]

No, I do not want to excuse anyone. The situation just isn't that black-
and-white. The mentally defective people already carry risk to life of
their own and others. The proper, medical treatment of such people is
often missing, expensive and carries temporary effect at best. Lot of
such people are just kept isolated from society that is also expensive.
So no wonder that the relatives search alternative ways. Now when some
priest tries to cure such people by exorcism and causes death then he
will be held liable for his mistake like anyone else.

> >Fraud is usually defined as deliberate deception with
> >intention to result with some financial or personal gain. Exorcists are
> >likely confused themselves and believe that they help victims
> >to battle dangerous demons. Also what is the material gain from it?
>
>
> My impression is, as persons who present themselves as having
> expertise doing exorcisms, exorcists are held to higher legal and/or
> ethical standards in its practice. On that basis, they should know
> what are the demonstrated risks and benefits. If they don't, then
> their fraud is in presenting themselves as experts. IOW they aren't
> allowed to kill someone and then just go "oops".

I don't think that there are countries where they can really go "oops"
totally unpunished when they actually kill someone. Demons are not
legal subject and so can't be taken as official cause of someones death.

[marcel....@gmail.com]

All of a sudden direct knowledge, rather than empirical inference, is required?

Here's a funny thing: whenever I see arguments by apologists for religion, my opposition to it gets stronger. The more time in their life they have spent crafting their arguments so as to appear reasonable and rational so they can push back hard at non-believers in public forums, the less I think of them. And I know I'm not the only one.

[jillery]

On Mon, 30 Jul 2018 23:39:42 -0700 (PDT), ضِ Tiib <oot...@hot.ee>

wrote:

>On Tuesday, 31 July 2018 04:00:02 UTC+3, jillery wrote:

>> On Mon, 30 Jul 2018 12:28:24 -0700 (PDT), ?? Tiib <oot...@hot.ee>

IIUC you are now saying that Catholic priests' humanness and confusion
and fallibility, even though shared by everyone else, are *not* a
basis for dismissing the priests' responsibility for the lethal
accidents which happened during exorcisms. If so, I'm glad you
cleared that up.

>> >Fraud is usually defined as deliberate deception with
>> >intention to result with some financial or personal gain. Exorcists are
>> >likely confused themselves and believe that they help victims
>> >to battle dangerous demons. Also what is the material gain from it?
>>
>>
>> My impression is, as persons who present themselves as having
>> expertise doing exorcisms, exorcists are held to higher legal and/or
>> ethical standards in its practice. On that basis, they should know
>> what are the demonstrated risks and benefits. If they don't, then
>> their fraud is in presenting themselves as experts. IOW they aren't
>> allowed to kill someone and then just go "oops".
>
>I don't think that there are countries where they can really go "oops"
>totally unpunished when they actually kill someone. Demons are not
>legal subject and so can't be taken as official cause of someones death.

Correct, the cause of death is not the nonexistent demons, but instead
is the lethal exorcisms and the fraudulent priests who performed them.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Saturday, July 28, 2018 at 12:45:03 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 7/28/18 6:42 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> > On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 16:59:01 -0700, Mark Isaak
> > <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
> >
> >> [...]
> >> A problem with pastoral counseling is that the counselor's religious
> >> community is likely to support his or her biases, and so you get things
> >> like conversion therapy or wives counseled to submit to their
> >> wife-beating husbands.
> >
> > What a dreadful allegation to make about a group of people of whom you
> > have no direct knowledge!
>
> I met that wife personally, and conversion therapy has been all over the
> news.

Which of the two do you think is worse -- conversion therapy for those
who voluntarily and eagerly seek it, or wife-beating that is NOT done
to a willing masochist by a sexual sadist?

Do you base your opinions only on personal experience and what is
all over the news? If so, you are probably oblivious to the
Catholic support group "Courage" which plays a similar role to
homosexuals who want to remain celibate as Alcoholics Anonymous
does to alcoholics who want to stay on the wagon.

Do you think "Courage" should be outlawed, the way therapy
aimed at modifying one's sexual orientation has been outlawed
in California and other states? [California is the
state that is "all over the news" for this.]

> >> On the other hand, the pastors tend to be
> >> trusted

Where? I certainly didn't trust the majority of Roman Catholic pastors
I've encountered during my long life. Civil people, but at least one
out-did the Puritans in his attitude towards sex (and he was a political
liberal known as "the Labor Priest"!) and I don't think any of them
could have helped me with The Achilles' Heel of Christianity, the
problem of hell. Some would have actually exacerbated it, had I
trusted THEIR advice.

> >> and easily accessible, so people come to them with problems that
> >> would never get addressed otherwise.

In the RCC most of them come in for a superficial quick fix under
the rubric of Confession.

> >> My impression is that pastoral
> >> counseling does FAR more good than harm.

I take it you have only talked to easygoing pastors who have long
ago divested themselves of belief in hell -- maybe even of belief
in a life after death, and of supernatural beings including the
Christian God.

I've recently remarked on the thread about Pastafarians that the
Unitarian Universalist Church is labeled by a double -- perhaps triple,
now that I stop to think about it -- oxymoron.


Martin Harran had retorted:

> > And yet again you reach a conclusion - emphasised with capitalisation-
> > for which you have no actual supporting evidence.
>
> Did you read what I said, or did you assume you knew what I was going to
> say and read that?

Did you have any supporting evidence to provide?


Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina

[Don Cates]

[Piggybacking]

> On Saturday, July 28, 2018 at 6:45:03 AM UTC-7, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 16:59:01 -0700, Mark Isaak

[big snip]

>>> On the other hand, the pastors tend to be
>>> trusted and easily accessible, so people come to them with problems that
>>> would never get addressed otherwise. My impression is that pastoral
>>> counseling does FAR more good than harm.
>>
>> And yet again you reach a conclusion - emphasised with capitalisation-
>> for which you have no actual supporting evidence.
>

Not a conclusion, he specifically labels it a personal "impression". And
that impression is that it does 'MORE GOOD than harm', which is
emphasized, as you note' with "FAR". So what is your complaint?


--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)

[Mark Isaak]

On 7/31/18 2:53 AM, jillery wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Jul 2018 23:39:42 -0700 (PDT), Öö Tiib <oot...@hot.ee>

"Fraudulent" is the wrong word. The priests (typically) do not do
exorcisms with any false pretense or intent to deceive, nor are they
doing it for personal gain (except perhaps to gain a sense of
accomplishment and/or reputation). "Neglectful" is, I think, more apt,
and it applies not just to the priests, but to the church as a whole.

[Mark Isaak]

On 7/31/18 6:48 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Saturday, July 28, 2018 at 12:45:03 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 7/28/18 6:42 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>> On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 16:59:01 -0700, Mark Isaak
>>> <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>> A problem with pastoral counseling is that the counselor's religious
>>>> community is likely to support his or her biases, and so you get things
>>>> like conversion therapy or wives counseled to submit to their
>>>> wife-beating husbands.
>>>
>>> What a dreadful allegation to make about a group of people of whom you
>>> have no direct knowledge!
>>
>> I met that wife personally, and conversion therapy has been all over the
>> news.
>
> Which of the two do you think is worse -- conversion therapy for those
> who voluntarily and eagerly seek it, or wife-beating that is NOT done
> to a willing masochist by a sexual sadist?

Do you think one being worse makes the other less bad?

> Do you base your opinions only on personal experience and what is
> all over the news? If so, you are probably oblivious to the
> Catholic support group "Courage" which plays a similar role to
> homosexuals who want to remain celibate as Alcoholics Anonymous
> does to alcoholics who want to stay on the wagon.
>
> Do you think "Courage" should be outlawed, the way therapy
> aimed at modifying one's sexual orientation has been outlawed
> in California and other states? [California is the
> state that is "all over the news" for this.]

If monks want to be celibate, let them be celibate. Pressuring someone
to be celibate, however, is abominable. I don't know if "Courage" does
that or not. It sounds like something you would do.

>>>> On the other hand, the pastors tend to be trusted
>
> Where?

Most places. If this were not the case, churches would not long exist.

[jillery]

On Tue, 31 Jul 2018 09:27:40 -0700, Mark Isaak
<eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

>On 7/31/18 2:53 AM, jillery wrote:

>> On Mon, 30 Jul 2018 23:39:42 -0700 (PDT), ضِ Tiib <oot...@hot.ee>

Either word applies here IMO. Everybody has one.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Tuesday, July 31, 2018 at 12:45:03 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 7/31/18 6:48 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Saturday, July 28, 2018 at 12:45:03 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> >> On 7/28/18 6:42 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> >>> On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 16:59:01 -0700, Mark Isaak
> >>> <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> [...]
> >>>> A problem with pastoral counseling is that the counselor's religious
> >>>> community is likely to support his or her biases, and so you get things
> >>>> like conversion therapy or wives counseled to submit to their
> >>>> wife-beating husbands.
> >>>
> >>> What a dreadful allegation to make about a group of people of whom you
> >>> have no direct knowledge!
> >>
> >> I met that wife personally, and conversion therapy has been all over the
> >> news.
> >
> > Which of the two do you think is worse -- conversion therapy for those
> > who voluntarily and eagerly seek it, or wife-beating that is NOT done
> > to a willing masochist by a sexual sadist?

I'm still waiting for an answer. Your question doesn't even
come close to being about the same issue:

> Do you think one being worse makes the other less bad?

I don't think the first is bad at all, in fact, to suppress it
is a great infringement on the right that three Supreme Court
justices said was fundamental (in Casey v. Planned Parenthood):

At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of
existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life,...

And I didn't think YOU, of all people, would take exception to this.

Yet it's ironic that mostly political conservatives attack it,
because at the heart of Justice Kennedy's at-the-heart statement
is the essential message of political conservatism, and that is
personal liberty.

http://libertymagazine.org/article/justice-kennedys-notorious-mystery-passage

FTR, though, I disagree with the "because" rationale. In my experience,
it is liberals who are most concerned about personal liberty when
it comes to "values" issues. One relevant one is the liberty of
transgenders to have their definition of themselves give them
free entry to locker rooms, public restrooms, dressing rooms etc.
reserved to members of the opposite biological, chromosome-determined sex.

> > Do you base your opinions only on personal experience and what is
> > all over the news?

<crickets>

> > If so, you are probably oblivious to the
> > Catholic support group "Courage" which plays a similar role to
> > homosexuals who want to remain celibate as Alcoholics Anonymous
> > does to alcoholics who want to stay on the wagon.
> >
> > Do you think "Courage" should be outlawed, the way therapy
> > aimed at modifying one's sexual orientation has been outlawed
> > in California and other states? [California is the
> > state that is "all over the news" for this.]

Again you duck the question:

> If monks want to be celibate, let them be celibate.

But outlaw all efforts by them to get help from professionals?

Are you so out of it that you think only monks want to be celibate?

If so, Joseph Prever [who also used the pen name Steve Gershom]
is a mostly celibate homosexual who has a lot to teach you about sexuality. In fact he has a lot to teach to almost everyone, both gay AND straight.

Here is an essay that goes to quite a lot of detail about what it is
for him to be both Catholic and gay:

http://www.stevegershom.com/2015/11/the-business-of-being-human-ud-talk-part-i/

> Pressuring someone
> to be celibate, however, is abominable. I don't know if "Courage" does
> that or not. It sounds like something you would do.

To you, maybe, but not to anyone who reads what I write with an open mind.

>
> >>>> On the other hand, the pastors tend to be trusted
> >
> > Where?
>
> Most places. If this were not the case, churches would not long exist.

I'd like to see how you are using the word "trusted" here. It looks
like you are being very minimalist about it, whereas it seemed as
though you were talking about getting guidance about some things
that really mean a lot to a person.

That's what I meant by trusting -- trusting to get accurate
guidance about the fundamental things that one's own church
is supposedly all about.

___________________ repost of text snipped by you_____________________

______________________ end of repost ____________________


Did you do that deletion because you were intimidated by Martin
Harran AND me soliciting evidence from you?

If so, maybe you should consider moving on to blogs where your
kind is a lot closer to a monopoly than here in talk.origins.

If you go away and come back after about five years, talk.origins
might have devolved enough for your dreams to have come true.
Just look at the attrition rate of decent posters like Arkalen,
Dana Tweedy, Inez, deadrat, etc.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina

http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

[Martin Harran]

On Sun, 29 Jul 2018 21:14:41 -0700, Mark Isaak

What on earth are you on about? I responded to the actual links you
gave; are you really suggesting that it's up to me to somehow prove
*your* case by hunting down other stories that you only vaguely
remember.

It is you who are keeping your head in the sand; you made specific
claims about exorcism by the Catholic Church causing harm and death
yet you have not produced a single piece of evidence to back them up.

>
>Another one is referenced here (along with other abuse):
>https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/06/exorcists-catholic-evangelical-church-child-abuse-new-inquisition
>But let me guess: You will find reasons not to consider the Guardian a
>reputable news source.

Of course the Guardian is a reputable news source although, as pointed
out by many on the science side of the debate here, news sources
always have to be treated with a degree of caution when it comes to
scientific matters.

In this case, have you even bothered to check who the author of the
particular article is? The Guardian, like many newspapers, invites
people in the public eye to publish opinion pieces. The author of this
particular opinion piece, Deborah Hyde, just happens to be a leading
skeptic and editor of The Skeptic magazine, hardly an unbiased
contributor!

Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that despite her antipathy
towards religion, the author makes no claims whatsoever about the
Catholic Church causing harm or death through exorcism - unless, that
is, you want to go back to 1609!

On the contrary, she explicitly states "These days the most egregious
cases of abuse associated with exorcism are from evangelical
churches." Her primary suggestion for dealing with exorcism abuses is
to make charging for exorcism services which she admits 'wouldn't
affect Catholic services, but it could be used against independent,
evangelical "pastors" '.

Despite her personal rejection of exorcism, what she is attacking is
not exorcism itself, it is the way it is open to abuse by anyone who
wants to label themselves as an exorcist without any formal training
or qualification.

>
>You apparently won't be satisfied with any evidence less than someone
>dying during an exorcism you yourself are participating in.

Now you're getting hysterical about your own inability to produce any
evidence to support your claims.

>
>
>>> What you don't seem to get is that they are connected.
>>
>> You have not shown any connection between those examples and the
>> Catholic Church. When I asked you to produce examples from a reputable
>> reliable source, you produced two examples, one of which you admitted
>> you did not know for sure involved the Catholic Church. In both cases
>> nevertheless there was no long-term harm identified to the people
>> involved, let alone death.
>>
>>> Suppose a parent
>>
>> {snip - I'm not interested in "suppose" scenarios, only what we know
>> for fact]
>
>The Catholic Church encourages belief in demonic infestation and belief
>that said demons can be riven from the body. Do you honestly think that
>encouragement does not bleed over onto non-Catholics?

Sorry, what I have challenged you on is your claims about the Catholic
Church; I have no interest in debating what non-Catholics might and
might not do.

>
>And I'm curious what *you* would do if you knew for certain (in your
>mind, at least) that a loved one was possessed by demons, and you found
>it impossible to access a Board-certified Catholic exorcist. I am also
>curious if you grok that that situation describes *at least* several
>hundred thousand people, and probably millions.

As I've already told you I'm not interested in debating hypothetical
situations.

>
>Those are not rhetorical questions.

Yes they are, in an thinly veiled attempt to change the goalposts.

Says who?

>What part of that do you disagree with? That
>exorcism is medical? Do you think abdominal pain ceases to be a medical
>condition if someone deems it was caused by a curse? Exorcism's
>purpose, as I understand it, is to improve the wellbeing of a person
>showing aberrant and dysfunctional mental and physical symptoms.

I'm surprised at your lack of understanding at this stage. The purpose
of exorcism is to drive out an evil spirit that has taken possession
of a person is not to provide some form of alternative medical
treatment or deal with a medical problem; on the contrary, within the
Catholic Church, exorcism is only meant to be attempted when medical
problems had been fully investigated and ruled out.

> If so,
>then exorcism is by definition a medical treatment. I suppose you could
>make the case that the purpose of exorcism is to torture an innocent
>person to satisfy some people's superstitious prejudices, and if you
>wish to make that your standard, I withdraw the "medical" claim.
>
>Or do you disagree that it is quackery?

I honestly don't know to what degree it might or might not be
considered as quackery, but unlike you, I am unwilling to make
definitive claims about its effects without something to support those
claims.

>Then you should be able to show
>how it has been clinically tested, which you can't.

No, Mark, *you* are the one making the claims the onus is on *you* to
produce the evidence that supports the claims.

> It is superstitious
>nonsense on par with -- no, make that identical to -- witch burning in
>its rationale, and on par with bloodletting in its charity to sufferers.
> Exorcism is atrocity.

And you continue with the claims despite your total failure to produce
any supporting evidence so far.

[Martin Harran]

On Sun, 29 Jul 2018 21:51:19 -0700, Mark Isaak

<eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

>On 7/29/18 9:14 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 7/29/18 8:17 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>> On Sat, 28 Jul 2018 09:38:12 -0700, Mark Isaak
>>> <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 7/28/18 6:34 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>>

>>> [匽

FFS, Mark, do you make no effort at all to check out your sources
before citing them? That is the exact same story as was number one on
your list from Ranker and which I have already described as the "only
one [that] even involved priests and the procedures they followed were

clearly not those laid down by the Church - unless you want to claim
that the exorcism procedure of the Catholic Church involves starving a
young girl to death over a 10-month period."

So far, you have:

- Produced a list of 15 examples from a somewhat dubious website of
"exorcism gone bad" of which only one would qualify as an exorcism
carried out as people would normally regard an exorcism.

- In response to my request that you give properly sourced examples of
death caused by exorcism carried out by the Catholic Church, you gave
two links; one of them has nothing to do with the Catholic Church and
neither of them refers to any lasting harm from the exorcism, let
alone death.

-You have produced an article claiming it as coming from a reputable
source, seemingly without being aware that was an opinion piece by the
editor of The Skeptic magazine; even leaving that aside, the article
was focused on exorcisms by self-appointed evangelicals, not the
rituals of the Catholic Church.

- Now you have produced an article which you presented something new
when it is just a rerun of one of the 15 examples you give at the very
start.

It really, really irritates me when people who place so much emphasis
on the need for a scientific approach, one which to the best of my
knowledge involves careful scrutiny of supporting cites, wilfully cast
that approach aside in order to attack religious belief.

[Martin Harran]

On Sun, 29 Jul 2018 21:21:07 -0700, Mark Isaak

[Martin Harran]

On Sun, 29 Jul 2018 23:18:58 -0700 (PDT), 嘱 Tiib <oot...@hot.ee>
wrote:

>On Monday, 30 July 2018 07:55:02 UTC+3, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 7/29/18 9:14 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> > On 7/29/18 8:17 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> >> On Sat, 28 Jul 2018 09:38:12 -0700, Mark Isaak
>> >> <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> On 7/28/18 6:34 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> >>

>> >> [匽

Of course they are human and they do make mistakes.

It is categorically reprehensible for anyone to allow a young girl to
starve to death over a 10 month period, however good their intentions
were.

When some people, however, misuse some type of human knowledge or
activity, that in itself does not make the knowledge or activity bad
or evil. When some people use chemistry to make bombs that kill
people, that does not make chemistry bad or evil; when some people use
the theory of evolution to justify things like eugenics, that does not
make the theory of evolution bad or evil; when some people misuse
exorcism resulting in harm to people, that does not make exorcism bad
or evil.

[Martin Harran]

On Sun, 29 Jul 2018 21:21:07 -0700, Mark Isaak

<eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

>On 7/29/18 8:30 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Sat, 28 Jul 2018 09:42:30 -0700, Mark Isaak
>> <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On 7/28/18 6:42 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>>> On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 16:59:01 -0700, Mark Isaak
>>>> <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> [...]
>>>>> A problem with pastoral counseling is that the counselor's religious
>>>>> community is likely to support his or her biases, and so you get things
>>>>> like conversion therapy or wives counseled to submit to their
>>>>> wife-beating husbands.
>>>>
>>>> What a dreadful allegation to make about a group of people of whom you
>>>> have no direct knowledge!
>>>
>>> I met that wife personally, and conversion therapy has been all over the
>>> news.
>>
>> So you know of one case where problems were related to pastoral
>> counselling yet you have no qualms in expanding it to a general issue
>> among pastoral counsellors.
>
>No, I said it happens. Expanding it to a general issue was done by
>Martin Harran.

I suggest you go back and read what you actually wrote:

"A problem with pastoral counseling is that the counselor's religious

community is LIKELY TO [my emphasis] support his or her biases, and so

you get things like conversion therapy or wives counseled to submit to
their wife-beating husbands."

Notwithstanding Churchill's remarks about two nations divided by a
common language, I think most people would regard something *likely to
happen* as having a greater chance of happening than not happening -
in other words, true for the majority.

>
>>>>> On the other hand, the pastors tend to be
>>>>> trusted and easily accessible, so people come to them with problems that
>>>>> would never get addressed otherwise. My impression is that pastoral
>>>>> counseling does FAR more good than harm.
>>>>
>>>> And yet again you reach a conclusion - emphasised with capitalisation-
>>>> for which you have no actual supporting evidence.
>>>
>>> Did you read what I said, or did you assume you knew what I was going to
>>> say and read that?
>>
>> What part of "My impression is that pastoral counseling does FAR more
>> good than harm" did I not read?
>
>The "My impression" part. I have lived a few decades now, and read and
>traveled widely, and I am allowed to consider my life experience in
>making judgments. That you find something wrong with my doing so is --
>well, I had best leave that unsaid, lest by my intemperance I invite
>demons into my body.

I have no problem whatsoever with you or anyone else stating their
impression or opinion as long as they accept that that is what they
are posting; my issue is with people stating their opinion as if it
were some sort of fact.

In this case, you clearly did describe it as an impression but the
fact that you went on to describe it as "FAR [your emphasis] more
harm" seemed to take it beyond a simple impression, especially as
right throughout this thread, you have consistently expressed your
opinions as if they were some sort of fact.

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 31 Jul 2018 15:50:41 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

[...]

>Did you do that deletion because you were intimidated by Martin
>Harran AND me soliciting evidence from you?

Peter, rather than trying to invoke me in yet another of your
diatribes, I would really much prefer that you would deal with my post
back on 10 July in the "I'm back" thread where you claimed that "I
post no lies, ever" and I gave three specific examples of lies you did
indeed tell about me.

Message ID: kqj8kdho0dvl9jhiq...@4ax.com

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 31 Jul 2018 02:15:51 -0700 (PDT), marcel....@gmail.com
wrote:

Sounds like a fairly typical case of self-affirmation.

[...]

[Martin Harran]

See my response to Mark a short while ago.

[Don Cates]

You mean the one where you (incorrectly) claimed he said 'FAR more harm'?

[Don Cates]

Except he didn't say 'FAR more harm', he said "FAR more good".
So, did you read what you expected rather than what was written?

[Burkhard]

Eh, he said the exact opposite?

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 01 Aug 2018 14:42:55 +0100, Martin Harran
<martin...@gmail.com> wrote:

[..]

> In this case, you clearly did describe it as an impression but the
>fact that you went on to describe it as "FAR [your emphasis] more
>harm" seemed to take it beyond a simple impression, especially as
>right throughout this thread, you have consistently expressed your
>opinions as if they were some sort of fact.

Sorry, I completely misread what you had posted in that particular
part. Please accept my sincere apologies for that.

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 31 Jul 2018 09:54:20 -0500, Don Cates
<cate...@hotmail.com.invalid> wrote:

<blush>

I completely misread what he had posted and have offered my apologies.

</blush>

[Mark Isaak]

On 8/1/18 6:25 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> [...]

> -You have produced an article claiming it as coming from a reputable
> source, seemingly without being aware that was an opinion piece by the
> editor of The Skeptic magazine; even leaving that aside, the article
> was focused on exorcisms by self-appointed evangelicals, not the
> rituals of the Catholic Church.

Did you read the linked BBC story that reported in depth about the death
from exorcism? Read it.

> - Now you have produced an article which you presented something new
> when it is just a rerun of one of the 15 examples you give at the very
> start.

And which you in the past said counted for nothing.

> It really, really irritates me when people who place so much emphasis
> on the need for a scientific approach, one which to the best of my
> knowledge involves careful scrutiny of supporting cites, wilfully cast
> that approach aside in order to attack religious belief.

You have refused to address practically every point I have made. You're
hardly in a position to complain about scrutiny.

And I am not attacking "religious belief". I am attacking a
superstition which some people associate with religion. You are the one
attacking religious belief by defending the torture and killing in the
name of religion.

[Mark Isaak]

Martin,

I would like to know what *you* would do if you knew for certain (in
your mind, at least) that a love one was possessed by demons, and you

found it impossible to access a Board-certified Catholic exorcist.

That is not a rhetorical question. It is crucial to the subject of
exorcism.

I am also curious if you grok that that situation describes *at least*
several hundred thousand people, and probably millions.

That also is not a rhetorical question. I would like to know *why* you
are avoiding the subject of *promotion* of exorcism.

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 1 Aug 2018 08:39:36 -0700, Mark Isaak
<eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

>On 8/1/18 6:25 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> [...]

>You are the one
>attacking religious belief by defending the torture and killing in the
>name of religion.

I never have and never would defend any torture or killing. By
descending to such scurrilous and unfounded insult, you have told us
far more about yourself than about me and starkly demonstrated the
futility of trying to have a rational debate with anyone who cannot
see beyond their own prejudices..

[Earle Jones]

*
How would you rate pastoral counseling against parental counseling,
academic counseling, or co-equal (friend) counseling

earle
?

[Peter Nyikos]

On Wednesday, August 1, 2018 at 9:55:02 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Jul 2018 15:50:41 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
> <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >Did you do that deletion because you were intimidated by Martin
> >Harran AND me soliciting evidence from you?
>
> Peter, rather than trying to invoke me in yet another of your
> diatribes,

I take it you like to make me a target of your diatribes
far more than you like making Mark Isaak one.

After all, you seem to be letting him off the hook for
posting evidence. And I thought you cared more about evidence
than Mark does.


And, for someone who once falsely accused me of being "obsessed"
with you, you sure are going out of your way to do a diatribe
on me:

> I would really much prefer that you would deal with my post
> back on 10 July in the "I'm back" thread

You mean one of the "Re: I'm back" threads where New Google Groups
is concerned, after the original shattered into at least
six (according to Hemidactylus) such threads in NGG after it
reached the 1000 post mark five days earlier.

> where you claimed that "I
> post no lies, ever" and I gave three specific examples of lies you did
> indeed tell about me.

I looked at that post long enough to see that those weren't lies,
but misunderstandings VASTLY less significant than the misunderstanding
between Burkhard and myself on the "More Dawkins" thread. So I
put it on the back burner.

But I lost track of where I'd seen it, what with all the
crap people far less isolated than you keep flinging at me.


> Message ID: kqj8kdho0dvl9jhiq...@4ax.com

Did you pick up the trick of posting Message-IDs, which are useless
for finding posts in New Google Groups, from jillery? Did you also
pick up her trick of mercilessly flaming anyone who hasn't taken
it on him/herself to subscribe to another newsreader/server where
they can be used to find posts?

If you can give me an url for that -- something jillery consistently
refuses to give me -- I'll post a detailed reply before the week
is over. If not, I repeat what I have told you before: the wheels
of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine.

Peter Nyikos

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 1 Aug 2018 11:34:57 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos

<nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>On Wednesday, August 1, 2018 at 9:55:02 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Tue, 31 Jul 2018 15:50:41 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
>> <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> >Did you do that deletion because you were intimidated by Martin
>> >Harran AND me soliciting evidence from you?
>>
>> Peter, rather than trying to invoke me in yet another of your
>> diatribes,
>
>I take it you like to make me a target of your diatribes
>far more than you like making Mark Isaak one.
>
>After all, you seem to be letting him off the hook for
>posting evidence. And I thought you cared more about evidence
>than Mark does.
>
>
>And, for someone who once falsely accused me of being "obsessed"
>with you, you sure are going out of your way to do a diatribe
>on me:

Yes, I do have something of an obsession about people who tell lies
about me.

>
>> I would really much prefer that you would deal with my post
>> back on 10 July in the "I'm back" thread
>
>You mean one of the "Re: I'm back" threads where New Google Groups
>is concerned, after the original shattered into at least
>six (according to Hemidactylus) such threads in NGG after it
>reached the 1000 post mark five days earlier.
>
>
>> where you claimed that "I
>> post no lies, ever" and I gave three specific examples of lies you did
>> indeed tell about me.
>
>I looked at that post long enough to see that those weren't lies,
>but misunderstandings

No they weren't. If they had been misunderstandings, you would have
corrected them when they were pointed out. You didn't; on the
contrary, you doubled down on some of them. That makes them deiberate
lies.

>VASTLY less significant than the misunderstanding
>between Burkhard and myself on the "More Dawkins" thread. So I
>put it on the back burner.

I have no interest whatsoever on any alleged misunderstanding between
you and Burkhard - I simply want you to address the lies you told
about me.

>
>But I lost track of where I'd seen it, what with all the
>crap people far less isolated than you keep flinging at me.
>
>
>> Message ID: kqj8kdho0dvl9jhiq...@4ax.com
>
>Did you pick up the trick of posting Message-IDs, which are useless
>for finding posts in New Google Groups, from jillery?

No, I learned how to use Message IDs when I first learned how to use
a newsreader.

I must admit that I am puzzled how you can find it difficult to find a
post where you have been given the author and the date yet you're able
to quote from other obscure posts years ago.

>Did you also
>pick up her trick of mercilessly flaming anyone who hasn't taken
>it on him/herself to subscribe to another newsreader/server where
>they can be used to find posts?

Are you accusing me of flaming people?

>
>If you can give me an url for that

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/a4Vlg8KZH-4/lALGQC9CBQAJ

>-- something jillery consistently
>refuses to give me --

Why do you insist on bringing in your dealings with other people in
which I have zero interest?

> I'll post a detailed reply before the week
>is over.

I won't hold my breath but I will remind you.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Wednesday, August 1, 2018 at 11:45:03 AM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> Martin,
>
> I would like to know what *you* would do if you knew for certain (in
> your mind, at least) that a love one was possessed by demons, and you
> found it impossible to access a Board-certified Catholic exorcist.
>
> That is not a rhetorical question. It is crucial to the subject of
> exorcism.

You and Hemidactylus have gone on record as treating exorcism as
pure bunkum, with Hemidactylus being just a tad less emphatic
about it than you are. So your question may not be rhetorical,
but sure looks like the sort of questions Jesus labeled as attempts
to trap him.

Back in my youth, I was mightily puzzled as to why Jesus didn't
give the questioners the benefit of the doubt and treat the questions
as sincere attempts to learn. That was before I discovered Usenet
in July 1992.

Well, OK, it took a while to find out just how deceitful,
hypocritical, insincere and cowardly some highly popular
talk.abortion regulars could be. But the process was complete long before
I took a good look at talk.origins for the first time in 1995.
And I keep seeing the same things here as there.

> I am also curious if you grok that that situation describes *at least*
> several hundred thousand people, and probably millions.

If so, I do hope that Martin's standards for being sure [as per the
first question] are so high as to make your statement pure speculation.

Martin let you off the hook for a question of MINE that you didn't
dare confront, and twice ducked. But I had other questions which
he didn't leave in, and I'm still waiting for answers.

> That also is not a rhetorical question. I would like to know *why* you
> are avoiding the subject of *promotion* of exorcism.

Has it ever occurred to you that Martin could be using your own repeated
ducking of questions and issues as "protective Mark Isaak camouflage"
for ducking questions and issues that YOU raise?


Peter Nyikos

[Mark Isaak]

Let's use some common sense here. In any religious community, the
community is likely (I'm just enough of a skeptic not to say
"inevitable") to support many of each others' religious biases,
especially those of the most committed members. True? And a pastoral
counselor can be considered a committed part of that community. So the
first part of my statement that you quoted was a truism.

Those biases are multitudinous, from favorite hymns to fashion choice on
Easter Sunday to attitudes towards abortion to a wife's duties to her
husband. It is NIGH INEVITABLE [my emphasis] that the religious
community will support many of the counselor's biases; indeed, the
counselor would probably not be part of that community if it did not.
That does not mean, however, that the biases it supports will include
wife beating or conversion therapy, since it is FAR FROM LIKELY that the
counselor will even have those biases to support. If, however, the
counselor does have a bias in one of those directions, it is quite
plausible, perhaps even likely, that the community will support it.

[jillery]

More accurately, you're consistently too lazy/stupid to do your own
work. A message URL is useful only to GG users, and can only come
from GG. Not sure how you think other posters are obliged to go to GG
for you. My impression is, it's just your excuse to drop a topic you
already ran away from.

[Don Cates]

Me? My knowledge of the subject is so scanty as to be useless for
drawing any conclusion. i was simply commenting on an obvious and
ongoing misreading of another's comment.

> earle

[jillery]

On Wed, 01 Aug 2018 22:37:17 +0100, Martin Harran
<martin...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Yes, I do have something of an obsession about people who tell lies
>about me.

Yes, you definitely show your obsession when you tell lies about them.

[jillery]

On Wed, 1 Aug 2018 15:03:31 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>Back in my youth, I was mightily puzzled as to why Jesus didn't
>give the questioners the benefit of the doubt and treat the questions
>as sincere attempts to learn. That was before I discovered Usenet
>in July 1992.

As with other evils, one might wonder why Jesus allows Usenet to
exist.

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 1 Aug 2018 15:26:37 +0100, Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>
wrote:

Yes, my mistake and I have apologised. I seem to be something of a
rare bird around TO in that I have no problem admitting it when I cock
up something .