demonic possession

Pat Robertson: watch out for demons attached to secondhand goods!

Jason Thibeault, , , , , , , 21 Comments

Sorry again that I’ve been so silent — gigantic things are afoot in my life at the moment and it’s all I can do to keep myself from being plowed under. I’ll tell you all about ’em as soon as I can.

Pat Robertson has some helpful advice for those of you who have to buy items from thrift stores and Goodwill (wait… buying items from Goodwill? We’re not talking about the Salvation Army perchance, are we???). That advice is — you should rebuke them all before bringing them into your household in case there are demons attached to them.

Of course, buying things directly from a retail store drastically lowers your chances of getting a stray demon. You never know what kinds of demons might manifest in that pair of shoes you picked up from the thrift store, whereas with buying directly from retail, the chances are you’re only risking exposure to Mammon. So be careful when you sell all your possessions to buy a sword — that sword might be inhabited by an emissary from Hell!

Figures that the One Percent has a lower chance of getting attacked by demons. They get all the juiciest privileges, don’t they?

Pat Robertson: watch out for demons attached to secondhand goods!
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More Republicans believe in demonic possession than global warming

Jason Thibeault, , , , , , , , , 25 Comments

Yeah.

Alternet reports on a Public Policy Polling Hallowe’en poll (pdf) and cross-references this poll on global warming:

A staggering 68 percent of registered Republican voters stated that they believe demonic possession is real. Meanwhile, only 48 percent of self-identified Republicans believe in another equally if not more scary natural phenomenon: climate change.

I would say it’s more scary, because it’s real. And the evidence provided by actual scientists is ironclad.

The scientists are unanimous, as long as you include actual climate scientists and not geologists or meteorologists or other pretenders at authority on the complex subject of climate. And yet, only 45% of all people agree that scientists generally agree about global warming. The misinformation efforts by liars like “Lord” Christopher Monckton are working.

To make matters even worse, 49% of Democrats also believe in demonic possession, even while 85% of Democrats say there’s solid evidence for global warming. It’s not that they’re smarter, it’s that they’re only marginally less prone to superstitious belief and more prone to trusting scientific evidence.

I’d say “let the mouth-breathers secede”, but it’s not like they’re all Republican secessionists.

More Republicans believe in demonic possession than global warming

Exorcism: what’s the harm?

Jason Thibeault, , , , , 3 Comments

Oh, no harm, no harm at all.

A 13-year-old girl suffocated after she was strapped down and doused with water by her father and a monk who were trying to expel an “evil spirit”, according to Japanese police and media reports.
[…]
“They allegedly strapped the victim to a chair with belts and doused her face with water,” he said.

She was confirmed dead early the next day when her mother called an ambulance after the girl fell unconscious.

“The cause of death is suffocation,” the police official said.

News reports said the two men poured water over her as an “exorcism” with the father holding the girl down while the monk chanted sutras.

Reports said the girl’s parents had turned to the monk after the youngster had suffered several years of mental and physical ill health that doctors had not been able to resolve.

It doesn’t matter what religion you adhere to. The belief that sick people aren’t sick but are actually possessed by demons, evil spirits, et cetera, is empirically harmful. So why aren’t these religious services stopped before they happen? Surely they’re not happening in a vacuum — surely someone must discuss with someone else what the techniques used to purge the victim of evil spirits will be. Why did nobody suggest to this monk that this act is far more likely to purge this little girl of her, you know, LIFE?

Exorcism: what’s the harm?