"Polls conducted in recent decades by Gallup and the data firm YouGov suggest that roughly half of Americans believe demonic possession is real. The percentage who believe in the devil is even higher, and in fact has been growing: Gallup polls show that the number rose from 55 percent in 1990 to 70 percent in 2007."
Wow that is scary. Intelligence is in strong decline.
That's a running thing in my mind for years. The devil can do math. So It's an incredible lost opportunity when people are being possessed and we dont go and ask them some clever questions.
> Infestation, vexation, obsession, I do thousands of those a year. I don't even keep track anymore. The real cases of demonic possession itself, I see maybe one or two or three a year on average.
I won't delve too deeply into this but to say...
Thousands a year is pretty hard to believe already. That's (at minimum) 2,000/yr: or 36k in 18 years. Or...5.5 per day (7days wk) or 7-8/day (5 days/wk). Seems physically impossible.
He's seeing 2-3 floaters a year or about 36-54 floaters in his life, so far. He's also seeing physical manifestations (snake's tongue, etc).
The Vatican clearly does not allow recordings (I remember reading this somewhere a few years back) and, to me, it's because nothing physical (manifestations, floating) is actually happening. Occam's razor: Information clamp-down (Vatican not allowing recordings, outside verification) *usually* only happens for a reason - it hurts a brand.
The Vatican say their numbers are growing. Many 3rd-party newspapers say different. As an atheist, I won't source this.
I'll just say that nothing about the exorcist's claims, his numbers, the lack of transparency... feels right. Nothing. Too many dark patterns.
Well he admits to being a catholic, so his worldview is already well-aligned with possible demonic possession. People see what they expect to see. People believe what they want to believe.
>"While the Computer Age has ushered in many advances, it has also opened yet another door through which Lucifer and his minions can enter and corrupt men's souls," the paper quotes the Reverend Jim Peasboro, author of an upcoming book, The Devil in the Machine, as saying. Demons are able to possess anything with a brain, from a chicken to a human being. And today's thinking machines have enough space on their hard drives to accommodate Satan or his pals, the paper reports. Disk capacity is an issue, however. Only a PC built after 1985 has the storage capacity to house an evil spirit, the minister explained." <g>
Here's the associated Weekly World News article, which in my opinion is way better (The Weekly World News was fake news, that's true and all -- but unlike today's media -- at least it was honest about being fake news! <g>):
I believe that there was some quote to the effect that "Any machine with more than 256K -- could host evil and/or demonic spirits" <g>, but I can't find this quote on the web anymore...
I always find it amusing how (outside of those with something like schizophrenia) that demons only attack those who are highly religious. I've yet to see an epidemic of atheists being possessed by demons, which is a bit ironic: you'd think they'd be easy pickings. But somehow not. Hmmm.
Even if only spoken of metaphorically, it's good to have people reminded of the existence of the devil. Some corner of their mind, if only momentarily, will ask, "I wonder if he really exists?"
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