yup, "frailty" is the title......
check this out.... www.imdb.com/title/tt0264616
well, bill paxton is the dad. apparently, he can sense if someone is a "demon." a demon, in his opinion, is someone who is an etxerme sinner. (ie; drug dealer, pimp, hooker, a violent husband, etc😉
he thinks that he is empowered by god to kill these demons. he can sense them, then, upon touching them, can see their sins they have comitted. he and his two sons (they are like 11 and 9), lurethe demons to an isolated location, usually their barn, and the dad kills them with a big axe. in the end, the older brother rises up and kills the dad with the axe.
matthew mconaughey plays one of the brothers in modern times. he has been arrested for the murders, and he is telling the officer (powers boothe) all about the murders, via flashback. as he is telling the story, he is telling it as if he is the older brother, who doesnt really believe in the whole demon theory. he is an innocent victim, forced to play along because his dad made him. the younger brother, however, is more easily influneced and will follow in his dear old dads footsteps.
after the older brother kills the dad, the brothers go their seperate ways.
well, the officer wants to see where they buried the bodies. matthew takes hi mto an isolated location, and there is a hole in the ground. he pushes the officer in. the officer is like "WTF?"
matthew looks at him and says "are you a demon?"
it turns out that matthew was, in fact, the YOUNGER brother, the more dedicated one. he had tracked down his older bro and killed him. now, he has led this cop out to the middle of nowhere and killed him with the same axe his dad used. it turns out that when matthew touches him, he sees that the cop had killed his own mother and covered it up years prior.
then, the last secne is matthew in sherriff uniform. he is the sherriff of the small town he was raised in and is married with two kids.
even if you are not a believer in christ, its a good movie. check it out.
Mental Illness or Demon Possession?
There are some things that not even medical science can explain because they fall outside of the realm of science. For example, demon possession cannot be diagnosed through medical science because it is not a biological phenomena, it is a spiritual reality. A person who is demon possessed can never be delivered from his/her condition through medical treatment or prescription drugs because the problem is a spiritual one not a psychological, physiological, or biological problem. According to the Bible Jesus encountered a number of people who manifested physically bizarre behavior or conditions, but who were demon possessed. A person who is demon possessed has certain earmarks that a person who is mentally ill does not have. Some characteristics include but are not limited to extraordinary strength (which is inconsistent with the age and development of the person), manifesting a voice or voices that are completely foreign to the person (i.e. not their own, but separate and distinct entirely), strong aversion for anything that pertains to God (this is not ordinary atheism, but intense hatred for God or anything holy, and sacred that pertains to Him), an acrid, horrible, body odor, stench or smell of sulphur (which is associated with Hell based on the Bible and the testimony of people who have been there). For more characteristics I will defer to another source. This student wrote a paper on demonic possession that I find very useful. She does not have any “religious” bias, but she discusses demon possession and compares and contrasts it with current medical scientific, medically diagnosed conditions. She mentions Tourette Syndrome, Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), and Schizophrenia. Here is what she writes:
A possessed individual is typically characterized by having strange physical ailments or disfigurements; verbal outbursts, mostly obscene or sacrilegious in nature; violent behavior and vulgar behavior; bodily spasms and contortions; ability to speak languages never before studied; self-mutilation; "superhuman" abilities such as psychic abilities, abnormal strength, or an ability to perform behaviors out of the realm of human possibility such as levitation; cessation of normal bodily functions for periods of time, including breathing and heart beat; and a pronounced revulsion to symbols, places, people, objects, and ceremonies having any religious context. Other phenomena associated with the presence of a demon include an acrid stench; marked decrease in the temperature of the room which a possessed individual occupies; writing appearing out of nowhere; sounds and voices arising from nowhere; and objects moving on their own and destruction of objects in the room, without anyone having laid a hand upon them ((2), (3).
The resemblance between several of these criteria and demonic possession is rather striking. The inappropriate emotional displays seen in psychoses correspond to those frequently documented in cases of demonic possession where the possessed individual expresses either flattened affect or outbursts of extreme affects; a possessed individual will often laugh at situations which are morbid, such as injury to another individual, or crying and screaming when there appears to be no appropriate stimulus for such a response, such as being presented with a crucifix or holy water (6).
However, there is quite a bit about supposed demonic possession which cannot yet be explained by biology. This category includes such phenomenon as levitation, wounds appearing upon the victim that have not been inflicted by the self or another concrete source, knowledge of languages never before studied, sometimes never even heard, and psychic abilities such as knowing facts about other individuals that have never been met. In addition, the accompanying situations related to the area around possessed individuals do not seem to be explainable in terms of the brain or any aspect of biology; science cannot yet explain the distinct decrease in temperature of the room the individual occupies, the appearance of writing and sounds from an unseen force, and the movement of objects on their own (2).
--Melissa A. Bromwell, Demonic Possession, http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro99/web3/Bromwell.html
The following is Part One of an excerpt entitled
"A Brief Handbook of Exorcism".
It is taken from Malachi Martin's 1976 classic work on
the subject of possession and exorcism called,
"Hostage To The Devil".
Among other things, the 477 p. book also contains an
in depth analysis on the recent possessions of 5
"ordinary" Americans.
For further information on the subject, the reader is
invited to consult the book. It is published by Perrenial
Library of New York.
Note: Italicized words are represented through
use of 'single' quotation marks.
“In the records of Christian Exorcism from as far back
as the lifetime of Jesus himself, a peculiar revulsion to
symbols and truths of religion is always and without
exception a mark of the possessed person. In the
verification of a case of possession by Church
authorities, this "symptom" of revulsion is triangulated
with other physical phenomena frequently associated with
possession -the inexplicable stench; freezing temperature
; telepathic power about purely religious and moral
matters; a peculiarly unlined or completely smooth or
stretched skin, or unusual distortion of the face, or
other physical and behavioral transformations;
"possessed gravity" (the possessed person becomes
physically immovable, or those around the possessed are
weighted down with a suffocating pressure); levitation
(the possessed rises and floats off the ground, chair,
or bed; there is no physically traceable support);
violent smashing of furniture, constant opening and
slamming of doors, tearing of fabric in the vicinity of
the possessed, without a hand laid on them; and so on.
When this triangulation is made of the varied
symptoms that may occur in any given case, and medical
and psychiatric diagnoses are inadequate to cover the
full situation, the decision will usually be to proceed
and try Exorcism.”
-- Malachi Martin, Hostage To The Devil (A Brief Handbook of Exorcism) http://hem1.passagen.se/conclave/Exorcis1.txt
The main point to understand about the characteristics of a demon possessed person is that these manifestations occur during the period that the person is demon possessed, but completely cease once the person is delivered from the demon. In addition, some or all of those signs may occur in a demon possessed person. Demons are real entities that can and do take over a person’s mind and body. All demons are fallen angels. Some demons are in Hell, some are awaiting judgment in Tartarus, some are in the domain we refer to as outer space, and some are among us in this world. But demons are not visible because they are spirit creatures. The best defense against becoming a victim of demon possession can be found in the following links:
http://diskbooks.org/part2.html#hs2a3 (Why you should avoid Harry Potter books, Pokemon things, and other types of occulted materials)
http://www.rsglh.org/demon_possession.htm (Are all non-Christians are under the dominion of the devil?)
http://www.bible.ca/su-demons.htm (Is a demon simply a disease?)
http://www.rapidresponsereport.com/briefingpapers/DemonPossession30.pdf (Some--not all--medical conditions i.e. illnesses, ailments, disfigurements, etc. are attributable to demons)
http://www.prairieghosts.com/exorcist.html (The True Story of the 1949 Exorcism of Robbie Doe)
I'd say social facilitation plays a much more significant role than mental illness...
In the majority of cases of "demonic possession" I've heard of, it is a friend or family member that diagnoses the person as being possessed, which leads many people to be labeled "possessed" for just acting in socially unacceptable ways.
It is likely the mixture of extreme religiosity in a community or social group mixed with some form of disorder, then exacerbated through some very traumatic events.
You should ask Sithsabre about this. His church seems to have disproportionate number of members that are ex-gays, victims of demonic possesion, people who've had their most desperate prayers answered, guest speakers who can see the future through god's divine intervention, born again virgins and people who claim to have heard the voice of god.
unfortunately, something can't be considered a mental illness if it is part of the culture. /shrug
So technically, having a personal, speaking relationship with God cannot be a symptom of a mental disorder.
My personal feelings on this (which are absolutely irrelevant) are that if a child, whose brain is still physically developing based on his experiences, is subjected to cultural phenomena that would otherwise be considered delusional then that child is at risk of developing neural systems that exist as though reality is the fantasy that has been forced into it. Basically, that the child can acquire mental disorders due to their experience with religion, only they aren't mental disorders, because they are cultural.
Originally posted by Darth Jello
i suppose that eating rye containing ergot cultures,
nope, that one is narcotic use
Originally posted by Darth Jello
and epilepsy are not considered mental illnesses anymore?
yes, but speaking with God is not an admissible symptom of having epilepsy. that is, TECHNICALLY 😉 (and I'm not really sure if auditory hallucinations are a sign of epilepsy)
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Really?
yup, according to the DSM, which is the thing used to diagnose people with mental disorders.
I disagree, but who knows, if culture could be delusional we would all have mental illness, and further, the most important measure in diagnosing a patient with a disorder is how much it impairs their ability to function in society. In this light, a rational person in a delusional society fits the bill of mentally disabled easier than the delusional ones.
I did a brief literature search and could find nothing that really addressed the rate of mental illness in religious communities vs normal communities, but if mental illness can manifest itself in socially acceptable ways within certain communities, it would be next to impossible to study (socially accepted behaviour is never seen or reported as strange)