Do you believe in exorcism? Pope John Paul II performed three.

I found this at Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II ):

"According to a New York Post article of 19 February 2002, John Paul II personally performed three exorcisms during his tenure as pope. The first exorcism was performed on a woman in 1982 who writhed on the ground. His second was in September 2000 when he performed the rite on a nineteen-year-old woman who had become enraged in St Peter's Square. A year later, in September 2001, he performed an exorcism on a twenty-year-old woman."

I don't believe this. And I don't believe that Jesus threw out demons as told in the Bible. I think all of these actions are misunderstood. I also think that the Roman Catholic Church is way too superstitious for modern times.

Yes, I'm watching this hokum "Revelations" on NBC. And yes, I'm a Christian. But I'm a Christian who does not believe that all that is written in the Bible is the literal truth.

Just curious?

She's on the cover of Time Magazine. :)

I guess some people get off on that sort of thing. I don't get it. I'm nonChristian, but I get the message that not all Christians take the Bible literally. I didn't have contact with many of those growing up, unfortunately. The Bible belt is the surest way to create nonbelievers. Extremism exists here to the nth degree. There are some cool ones too. I have a Catholic friend who doesn't believe in the demon possession thing as a literal thing. Says demons are anything that is destroying you like not being able to control yourself when it comes to some things until it destroys you. His version of it all makes sense to me.

I have no experience with it, of course. :) But, I just always start thinking about how for so long people assumed people with psychological problems were assumed to be "possessed" and any thing that makes me think people are going back in that direction makes me extremely nervous.

denomation EXCEPT catholic and extreme holy roller right wing churches practice exorcism, yet they seem to have quite a few people that need it, whereas other religions that don't practice exorcism seem to have no one who needs one.

I knew someone in a Pentecostal-like independent church who told me they have exorcisms in their services EVERY WEEK!. That's a lot of demon possession for one church.

As a christian, I think its POSSIBLE that in the times of Christ there WERE demons possessing people, because it was a time of spiritual battle, so the gloves were off, but honestly there's no percentage to the devil to possess anyone in this day and age. Since most don't believe it, he would be better off to simply produce "Girls gone wild" videos and seduce a larger audience.

:smoke:

with extensive psychological and psychiatric testing before the Church declares someone possessed by a demon. Then the exorcism rite begins to kick the fiend out of the person!

You have to drill a hole in the person's skull to let the demon out.

I thought everyone knew that!

Picking up where the Catholics left off...

:evilgrin:

But they're often less likely to consider psychiatric or neurological components. "Schizophrenia? Tourette syndrome? Nonsense! That's just doctors making a buck off of you. You've got DEMONS, son! Time to cast them out!"

:eyes: