The Exorcism Exercise...

So if I tune in to Action News tonight at eleven, I can hear about actual exorcisms being performed in my area...

No, I am not a time traveler from the first century CE, I swear. At least, that's what the Matrix is telling me.

Seriously folks, exorcisms? Now, don't get me wrong. I believe there are "spirits," ghosts, if you will, even atmospheric multidimensional phenomenon that, as of right now in today's day and age, we cannot explain, whether that be other sentient beings here on earth in another dimension, whether that be "souls" of people that have "passed on," or maybe even the power of the mind to produce, or create, phenomenon outside of ourselves... who knows?

But are you seriously going to tell me that evil demons, monster spirits who are servants of the great horned beast named Lucifer, are actively seeking out people, inhabiting their bodies, and causing them to scratch their own eyes out? If you ask me, it sounds like they need a good dose of Ritalin or Zoloft, but not being a scientist or a psychologist, I lack the credibility or credentials to say whether something is or isn't psychosomatic...

However, I think we cross a dangerous line when we validate the unknown by giving it a religious label and attribute powers that we hold within ourselves to a "power," whether evil or good, that simply has no basis in science....

Stick with me here, and I'll try to explain why this is not a religious bashing (Or maybe it is and I am simply a tool of the devil who is using me to send more souls to hell [incidentally, how does the devil make out in this deal anyway? The more human souls he gets into hell, he gets frequent flier miles to travel outside of hell every now and then to an air-conditioned room?]).

It used to be assumed that the earth was flat.... Why? Well, no one had seen the "edge" of the world, as it were. No one knew you could start at China and... end up back at China again simply by continuing to sail east (while detouring around the continents, of course). Of course, Columbus, the Vikings, and many other discoverers and scientists figured out the world was, indeed, round (or at least elliptical), and the church called it heresy. Of course, there are still people, believe it or not, that still believe the Earth is flat... whacko's.

It used to be assumed that the sun revolved around the Earth.... Why? Well, it says in the Bible:

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Joshua 10:13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. [Is] not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.
Habakkuk 3:11 The sun [and] moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, [and] at the shining of thy glittering spear.

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This, said the church, was incontrovertible proof that Galileo was a heretic...

Of course, science has since shown that the past's perceptions of our world, literally, were not correct, but since religion had attributed certain "otherworldly" power to these concepts, it became "wrong" to state against these conclusions.

Of course, there are still those who believe that anything unknown is not meant to be known, and therefore, must be attributed to some "higher power" or "god" that has a plan and a knowledge of the innermost workings of our world and lives...

I'm reminded of a book I read once, and forgive me, as I read so many books in such a short amount of time that I don't remember the name or author, but the premise was something like this: God was the narrator, and he said something to the effect of:

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Hey, God here. I have to say, you humans amaze me! You figure out all these cool things, how they work, how it happens... I mean, look at me. I say, Hmm, I want a blue whale, and Poof! There's a whale! But then you guys, you know, you just kind of take my whale and say, "Oh look, this is how he breathes, and this is how he swims, and this is what they do to make such-and-such happen... You make me amazed by what I do!

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Cracked me the hell up!

And I think it can be proper to suppose there may be a god or gods, there may be some things that may never be explainable by our standards of science and methods of learning, I think it wrong to simply say, "It's of the devil!" Or "It's of God!" and prey on the poor souls who don't know any better, whether that be through willful ignorance or blissful ignorance... God may or may not be behind our unexplained phenomenon that we "see" and "experience," but I think we do that god a disservice by putting actions and miracles in his mouth... Know what I mean?

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Incidentally, this whole "souls" thing had me wondering... you know how fundie Christians like to say that as soon as an egg it fertilized it has a soul? Well, and correct me if I'm wrong, does that mean identical twins share one soul? I mean, twins can separate anytime from fertilization to up to 3 months before birth (the later the separation occurs, the higher likelihood that they will be Siamese twins...). Unless the soul isn't "implanted" by god until later, which would then mean that abortion isn't "murder"...

Well, I'll just digress on this one for now...