Ugly Betty actor slays the demon.

[solja247]

But religion is such a fantastic catalyst for good people to undertake evil acts!

Nope. Me being religious or not will not make me a good/bad person. I can use an excuse, like religion. but at the end of the day I am still evil, not because of religion but me, myself.

[Minimalist]

Bullshit, Sol.

Only religion gives people this kind of moral certainty. They just KNOW their fucking god loves them for it!

Wonderful things were to be seen. Numbers of the Saracens [Muslims] were beheaded ... Others were shot with arrows, or forced to jump from the towers; others were tortured for several days, then burned with flames. In the streets were seen piles of heads and hands and feet. One rode about everywhere amid the corpses of men and horses. In the temple of Solomon, the horses waded in the blood up to their knees, nay, up to the bridle. It was a just and marvelous judgement of God, that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers.
-- Raymond of Aguilers (chronicler of the Sack of Jerusalem 1099)

[Diamond]

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder believed to be caused by an excessive amount of activity related to the excessive bioavailability of dopamine in the mesolimbic area of the brain. It's characterized by a disintegration of mental and physical functioning manifested by auditory hallucinations, disorganized speech and thinking, and paranoid or bizarre delusions. The disorder is usually accompanied by significant social dysfunction and disability and most commonly appears in the late teens or early twenties. Treatment consists of a combination of pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy, with some behavioral modification and vocational rehabilitation tossed in the mix.

Religiosity is a common theme amongst those with schizophrenia and command hallucinations such as those described by the young man in the article are also pretty common. My guess is that he'll never stand trial for the murder of his mother... he's too ill and though he would probably benefit from regular administration of some pretty decent antipsychotics, he'll be locked up for the rest of his life.

Interesting!

[Captain Scarlet]

Nope. Me being religious or not will not make me a good/bad person. I can use an excuse, like religion. but at the end of the day I am still evil, not because of religion but me, myself.

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
Steven Weinberg, quoted in The New York Times, April 20, 1999
US physicist (1933 - )

If you accept people have personal experiences of god then you cannot deny his personal experience. Allow personal experience for one, allow them all. You can find biblical authority for any act you wish to find permission for. Who knows maybe he experienced the real god?

[Autumnlicious]

When he arrived at the family's Prospect Heights apartment, Michael recalled hugging Yannick because "I knew I would never see her again."

Shortly after, Yannick knocked on Michael's door and asked her son for help in the kitchen.

When his mother asked why he wasn't doing what she asked, Michael claims she spoke with a different voice.

"I asked, 'Do you believe in God?' She said, 'No, Michael no,' and began screaming. I began slashing her like this..."

She had no idea what was building up. To her, her son was hugging her and normal. She asked for his help, and instead was consumed by his vileness.

There are no words foul in the tongues of Man enough to describe the depths of his disgusting actions.

[R-e-n-n-a-t]

It may not be religion itself; if he was an atheist he'd probably have thought that the aliens told him to kill his mom, who was actually an evil Bargsnaggle from planet X. His religion was simply one form the illness took. That being said, he's still a psycho a*****e.

[Anomalocaris]

Actually, I think even psychotics are not without doubt, inhibitions, and reasoning power within their dilusions. I think the doubts and inhibitions are created by social and intellectual norm the psychotic regularly come into contact with. So when a psychotic experiences a dilusion based on something without any widespread basis of acceptence in his social circle, like evil Bargsnaggle from planet X, the dilusion is more likely to trigger some doubt and inhibition and is therefore less likely to result in severe psychotic outward behavior as compared to a dilusion that is based on something with widespread basis of acceptence in his social circles, like gods and demons stemming from christianity.

Furthermore, I think if his dilusion is based on something that has a root in absolute good and evil, the absolute poragative of the good, and ever lasting life, then dilusional psychotic is more likely to reason out the acceptability of murderous actions. If his dilusion is based on more relativistic views of desirability and undesirability, then the dilusional phychotic is more likely to reason out the need for some inhibition in acting out his psychosis.