Why did God let people think demons cause epilepsy?

[robvalue]

Imagine if god was giving a driving test?

One minor (fruit) fault and not only do you fail, everyone ever fails and gets punished. Punishment may include anything at all at any time, and everyone deserves it somehow.

[John V]

@ Nope: He did - I gave some of them above. 

[Nope]

@ Nope: He did - I gave some of them above. 

You provided no verse that says that epileptic children aren't demon possessed. Could you have accidentally put it in the wrong thread? I have done that before so it would be an easy mistake to make.

[John V]

You provided no verse that says that epileptic children aren't demon possessed. Could you have accidentally put it in the wrong thread? I have done that before so it would be an easy mistake to make.

Post #9. If diseases were all caused by demon possession, you wouldn't say that he cast out demons AND cured diseases. You'd say one or the other. It's clear that they are two different things.

Note that symptoms can overlap. A person could have epileptic symptoms due to disease or demon possession.

Further, casting out demons Biblically was not torturous or deadly. So, the African exorcisms are not Biblically based.

[polar bear]

so how, exactly, are we supposed to know if we are demon possessed, we have a disease or some kind of hybrid you have described?

[John V]

so how, exactly, are we supposed to know if we are demon possessed, we have a disease or some kind of hybrid you have described?

IMO it's going to be disease. All the instances of demon possession that I can think of involved Jesus and his disciples. Two possible explanations for this:

- it's not something demons typically want to do, but Satan had them doing it at that time to challenge Jesus

- god generally prevents it, but allowed it at that time so Jesus could display his greater power

---

BTW, I've been frustrated myself by Christians who see demons behind everything. Once, after questioning some beliefs in a church I had been attending for a short time, they laid hands on me to try to cast out the demon of intellectualism that was in me. I didn't go back, and have since found a church where intelligence and logic are considered good things. 

[polar bear]

Seriously?  You believe that load of crap you are trying to sell

If it looks like bullshit, smells like bullshit....probably IS bullshit

[Razzle]

You provided no verse that says that epileptic children aren't demon possessed. Could you have accidentally put it in the wrong thread? I have done that before so it would be an easy mistake to make.

Post #9. If diseases were all caused by demon possession, you wouldn't say that he cast out demons AND cured diseases. You'd say one or the other. It's clear that they are two different things.

Note that symptoms can overlap. A person could have epileptic symptoms due to disease or demon possession.

I didn't allege that the Bible claimed that all diseases are always caused by demons. My criticism is that it talks about demon possession as at least one of the possible causes of certain symptoms and conditions, and in the case of some specific symptoms and conditions, doesn't bother to point out that most of the time (and as most Western Christians now seem to think, the vast majority of the time) they're going to be caused by something else, or give advice about how to tell the difference. It gives vague enough descriptions of people with demon possession that people we successfully treat for psychosis, mania, epilepsy, Tourette's Syndrome and more, are inevitably going to be put in the same category by people who don't know any better.

Here's another example, Mark 5:1-13:

Jesus Heals a Demon-Possessed Man

5 So they arrived at the other side of the lake, in the region of the Gerasenes.[a] 2 When Jesus climbed out of the boat, a man possessed by an evil[b] spirit came out from a cemetery to meet him. 3 This man lived among the burial caves and could no longer be restrained, even with a chain. 4 Whenever he was put into chains and shackles—as he often was—he snapped the chains from his wrists and smashed the shackles. No one was strong enough to subdue him.5 Day and night he wandered among the burial caves and in the hills, howling and cutting himself with sharp stones.

6 When Jesus was still some distance away, the man saw him, ran to meet him, and bowed low before him. 7 With a shriek, he screamed, “Why are you interfering with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In the name of God, I beg you, don’t torture me!” 8 For Jesus had already said to the spirit, “Come out of the man, you evil spirit.”

9 Then Jesus demanded, “What is your name?”

And he replied, “My name is Legion, because there are many of us inside this man.” 10 Then the evil spirits begged him again and again not to send them to some distant place.

11 There happened to be a large herd of pigs feeding on the hillside nearby.12 “Send us into those pigs,” the spirits begged. “Let us enter them.”

13 So Jesus gave them permission. The evil spirits came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the entire herd of about 2,000 pigs plunged down the steep hillside into the lake and drowned in the water.

These symptoms are exactly the sort of thing you commonly see in people with conditions such as schizoaffective disorder and multiple personality disorder - including obsession with religious themes. When there is no effective treatment available to people with psychotic illnesses, as there wouldn't have been for anyone (except some lucky Romans, who got benefit from bathing in "sacred" waters containing lithium salts) until the last few centuries, and as there is still not for large numbers of people in the third world today, cases become this severe very often. This sort of behaviour in public would be a much more common sight until just a few hundred years ago, and still in isolated villages of Africa today, than it is to us with our abundant hospitals and medications. The human brain is by far the most complex object known to science, and so is the organ most prone to faults. At least 1 in every 100 people has some kind of psychotic illness, we're just sheltered from their high frequency nowadays.

Knowing this, why would God not make it perfectly clear how people might go about determining whether someone was demon-possessed or had one of the far more common causes of these symptoms?

Further, casting out demons Biblically was not torturous or deadly. So, the African exorcisms are not Biblically based.

I didn't mean to imply that the Bible told people to do the specific practices happening today. However, it is the case that if he is omniscient, he knew in advance that people would be misdiagnosed with demon-possession because the examples in the Bible describe symptoms identical to those of common neurological conditions, and he knew that when the exorcisms inevitably failed, some people would go to more and more extreme lengths and develop their own superstitious rituals for getting the demons out, rather than concluding it's not a demon afterall. He could prevent that by simply including a line such as "if you order a demon to leave and the symptoms remain, it's not a demon, it's a problem with the brain".

[robvalue]

Insistence on undemonstrated ideas like demon possession also get in the way of real diagnosis, and real treatment.

[John V]

@ Razzle: Yes, you did say all and always in the OP.