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To: who_would_fardels_bear
Oh, thank you for these questions.

I could write all night.

Demonic possession, when it was thought to have happened, was not considered a fault of the, ah, possessee — unless s/he had called on the demon.

For around 500 years the normal Catholic official wisdom about possession was that one should only conclude that when medical reasons had been ruled out. The failures were in the undeveloped natural philosophies. The theoretical/theological side was pretty much in order.

However, it IS true that there remain some superstitious jerks among Christians.

I would not say that ALL “defects of will” can be medicated away. For example, you're the second person I've encountered today who has based some negative opinions about the Church on ignorance of what the Church officially teaches and prescribes. I don't think there is yet a medicine to address basing judgments on what amounts to poorly substantiated or unsubstantiated rumor.

I WILL say this about the generosity and compassion of the modern scientists dubious about theism generally and Christians specifically:

When my kid was 15 months old, I was told she would die a slow and lingering death as a destructive epilepsy trashed her brain. (At least some of the scientists were wrong on that one. She turns 30 this November.)

At the time I was an Episcopal priest. (I am now a Catholic lay-D00d.) We had recourse to the local pediatric neurology gods, among whom was a certain Dr. Dreyfus. The usual routine was that he would schedule an appointment right slap in the middle of nap time. Then he would be 45 minutes late. Then, when my kid cried as he examined her, he would call her “spoiled.”

So,one day I showed up with my kid, and I had come from “work” so I was wearing my “clericals” (black suit and shirt, backwards collar.) This meant that I got to listen to how Christians in the middle ages thought epilepsy was demonic and were just SEW superstitious and all.

While my kid was, according to him, dying.

I'm sure there is some good, scientific, anti-church explanation about why, when a father's only child is dying it is good to call him a jerk.

38 posted on 07/28/2013 5:27:12 PM PDT by Mad Dawg (In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in aeternum.)
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To: Mad Dawg

Well Dawg, you got to see what happens when scientific pursuit worships itself and forgets the roots it once had in the pursuit of the divine. We can have valid arguments over “HOW” God did something, but not over “WHETHER” God did something, unless we want to try to wrench ourselves artificially out of the hands of God.


43 posted on 07/28/2013 8:32:10 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Whatever promise that God has made, in Jesus it is yes. See my page.)
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