From: ed@somewhere.in.the.uk   
      
   Borax Man wrote:   
   > On 2025-04-07, x  wrote:   
   >> On 4/7/25 13:24, oldernow wrote:   
   >>> In Christian nomenclature, a sinner isn't a person that   
   >>> does bad things.   
   >>>   
   >>> It's a person, period - where personhood implies a   
   >>> separation equipped with a will free to act apart from   
   >>> all not-person person is seemingly separate from.   
   >>>   
   >>> And pride is simply the conceit that such is so.   
   >>>   
   >>> And suffering is ongoing attachment said delusion,   
   >>> which plays out as an ongoing war between the illusory   
   >>> free-willed being and ineffable reality.   
   >>>   
   >>> It's a mental illness, clear and simple.   
   >>>   
   >>> For all mental is illness inasmuch as it requires a person   
   >>> to possess it.   
   >>   
   >> So are 'minds' capable of being 'possessed' by 'angels',   
   >> 'spirits', 'daemons', or 'demons'?   
   >>   
   >> Are 'lesser gods' in 'polytheist' religions the same as   
   >> 'angels' in some Abrahamic religions or is that totally   
   >> different?   
   >>   
   >> Are the 'memes' of Dawkins the same as 'angels' or   
   >> 'spirits' for various religions?   
   >>   
   >> If several exorcists were to try to 'expel the demon   
   >> of atheism' from Dawkins could he fight back with   
   >> a 'vast barrage of memes', and would that be pretty much   
   >> the same thing?   
   >>   
   >> Who can really know, who can understand?   
   >>   
   >>   
   >   
   > I think minds can be possessed, in some way or another.  If not   
   > necessarily by demonic spirits, but by ideas, or thought processes which   
   > can take over and short circuit other parts of the brain.  Possession is   
   > an apt description, and I'm sure many of us have seen people who do   
   > appear to have been overcome by "something else" from time to time.   
   >   
   > Whether they are or are not literall demons, I don't think makes a huge   
   > practical difference.  That person is detached from themselves, and   
   > operating to something external (a cult, a political idea, hedonism),   
   > which much be purged (exorcised).   
      
   Quite so.   
   Obsessive compulsive disorder is prevalent.   
   Epileptic fits, schizophrenia, clinical depression, paranoia,   
   agoraphobia etc.   
   To which you must add other behavioural abnormalities;   
   Cannibalism, killing prostitutes, superstitions such as not walking   
   under ladders or on cracks in the pavement etc.   
      
   Mental disorders are as numerous as are physical ones.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)