You are absolutely correct Truett. It's not philosophical at all it's factual. You're being too kind to Larry A.

My statement pertains to inquiry into religious belief not scientific facts. In science you can trust repeatable experiment and observation.

You also have properly skilled people debating the explanations given for the conclusions.

Religious belief doesn't work that way. - those questions are answered more subjectively. If a person adopts a philosophy that miracles are not possible then for that person the idea that Christ rose from the dead is a closed issue. In Paul's thinking, they are foolishness to that person.

For those that accept the possibility of miracle - that unique historical events could happen - maybe they are not probable but possible - that person may be open to doing an investigation into the claim. The person might not come to the conclusion that it did happen but at least they would be open considering the question.

So I do think the presuppositions a person holds does matter. there are plenty of people holding advanced degrees in fields like science, law and philosophy today who believe and plenty that don't. Those that do at least often if not almost always - lets say often - apply their critical skills to the examination of their beliefs. There are many theologians/philosophers who write for peer reviewed journals and are believers. Also many that have like credentials and are not -

So there would be lots involved - past personal experience whether good or bad - and I think their philosophical assumptions would be an important part of whatever the mix is.

Here is something I came across recently. I would be very interested in what you think of it.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

To help counter modern bias and to try to place consideration of this material on a level
playing field I will excerpt the testimony of Dr. William P. Wilson. At the time Dr.
Wilson wrote he was on the faculty of Duke University, Durham North Carolina as
Professor of Psychiatry.
The excerpt is contained in a book entitled Demon Possession: Papers Presented at
the University of Nortre Dame edited by John Warwick Montgomery.
The papers were presented at the University of Nortre Dame January 8-11, 1975.
The editor Dr. Montgomery has several degrees in the areas of law, philosophy and
theology and is the author of many books and articles. Readers are encouraged to look
his resume up on the web.
This excerpt is from pages 225-226 of the book.
“This 32 year old twice married female was brought in because of falling spells which
had been treated [ with medications] She was examined on the neurosurgical service
and after all examinations including EEG, brain scan, and a pneumoencephalogram
were negative, she was transferred to the psychiatric service. Her mental status
examination was unremarkable and all of the staff commented that she seemed normal
until she had her first “spell.”
While standing at the door of the room she was violently thrown to the floor bruising
her arm severely. She was picked up and carried to her room all the while resisting
violently. when the author arrived eight persons were restraining her as she thrashed
about on the bed.
Her facial expression was one of anger and hate. [The italics are Dr. Wilson's.]
Sedation resulted in sleep. During the ensuring weeks ,the patient was treated
pschotherapeutically and it was learned that there was considerable turmoil in her
childhood home, but because she was”pretty” she was spoiled....
she remarried and the second husband was a “nice” but unexciting man. She continued
to associate with her “high living” friends when her husband demanded that she give up
her friends and her parties, she started having the “spells.”
The usual psychotherapeutic treatment for hysteria including interviews under sodium
amytol only aggravated her spells. Seclusion in the closed section brought her assaultive
and combative behavior to an end but she would have spells in which she became mute,
especially when religious matters were discussed. More dramatically, when the names
Jesus or Christ were mentioned she would immediately go into a trance. On one
occasion while in a coma , in desperation, a demon was exorcised and her spells ceased.
She subsequently accepted Christ as her savior and has been well since.”

Thanks for the analysis. I don't the ward she was in assumed anything about the demonic - the doctor treating her was a Christian but
he seems to have been very reluctant to do an exorcism and seems to have been perplexed afterward. he related the story to other
credentialed and thoughtful people to explore the issue.

I am not arguing with you and do appreciate your reply.

I wrote the paper I clipped from myself and own the book , though I haven't read more than this one story. Its not a topic I my interest but I did find this one story interesting.

Do you have a medical background / credentials or something to bolster your credentials as a researcher in this area?

Where di you find the attachment?

I like to do my own research when possible.

These questions are not suggestive of any intention on my part to argue with you or of any attempt to try to refute your theory

I appreciate your matter of fact and thoughtful approach to this specific post.

Yours is one theory that deserves thoughtful consideration but like I said I own the book and would need to read the discussions contained in the book.

I was in Vietnam in the late 60s and my kids were born in the 70s - this isn't like ancient times - this was and era of advanced medicine and when the doctors had a lot of training , knowledge and equipment - sure there have been advances since then but we are still talking about modern times.

I am old enough that this is contemporary to me.

Also these people were gathered to honestly discuss the issue of demonic possession from several different angles according to the back cover, they were circumspect in their scholarship - they were not interested in making use of this to win converts or push their views on the public - in fact they must have had an agreement that the papers not be published until the 50 years has elapsed.

Missionaries to third world countries report about this and I attended a church service one time where a person who had been a witch doctor in the Amazon talked about being freed. So demon possession on the mission field was a topic as well as in the BIble and other literature and in psychiatric treatment.

I became aware of it when I discovered that there is actually a medical diagnosis for this. See below.

Were you aware of this? Its framed in technical language - what's your take on it?

Larry
______________________________________________

Medical Diagnosis: Possession Trance
Physicians Diagnosis Manual:

DSM IV, section 300.14, pp 486-487, and i quote, "the diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder takes precedence over dissociative amnesia,dissociative fugue, and depersonalization disorder. individuals with dissociative identity disorder can be distinguished from those with trance and possession trance symptoms that would be diagnosed as dissociative disorder not otherwise specified by the fact that those with trance and posession trance symptoms typically describe external spirits or entities that have entered their bodies and taken control."

Just for clarification, this means that generally a person with trance/trance possession symptoms would be classified as DDNOS, but not all DDNOS diagnosis are of trance/trance possession. Its just the "catch-all" that "not otherwise defined" dissociative experiences are placed under.

Guidelines for Treatment of Dissociative Disorders (MPD), is located at:
http://www.issd.org/isdguide.htm.
Referring you to Chapter or Section V, pasted below, but first the copyright notice:

Copyright © 1994, 1997, by the International Society for the Study of Dissociation. These guidelines may be reproduced without the written permission of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation (ISSD) as long as this copyright notice is included and the address of the ISSD is included with the copy. Violations are subject to prosecution under

.

BTW this is the rest of the file and I should also mention that in the Bible and Christian thought this is often accompanied by drug use.

For that reason and from my world view I have expected to see erratic behaviors and violence become more of societal issues as drug addiction grew. Many people of around my age would agree that that expectation has not been disappointed.

But anyway - your thoughts?

Section V. The Patient's Spiritual and Philosophical Issues

Like other victims of trauma by human agency, DID patients may struggle with questions of moral responsibility, the meaning of their pain, the duality of good and evil, the need for justice, and basic trust in the benevolence of the universe. When patients bring these issues into treatment, ethical standards for the various professional disciplines specify the need to conduct treatment without imposing one's own values on patients. Although patients may experience certain personalities as demons and as not-self, therapists should approach exorcism rituals with extreme caution. Exorcism rituals have not been shown to be an effective treatment for DID, have not been shown to be effective for "removing" alternate personalities, and have been found to have deleterious effects in two samples of DID patients that experienced exorcisms outside of psychotherapy. Exorcism rituals may provide a way for some patients to rearrange images of their personality systems in a culturally syntonic manner. Education and coordination between therapist and clergy can be helpful in ensuring that patients' religious and spiritual needs are addressed.

Dissociation FAQ
http://faqs.org/faqs/dissoc-faq/part1/

In this post I will include a little more of my own bio and later try to include a strange experience I had. I would not call that one demon possession but it was a strange experience .
I see this through the eyes of faith. What do you think I should understand it?
OK, so I am on ship bound for Vietnam and I am asking myself theological questions. My mother was hosptialized in mental hosptial for months at a time several time sduring my youth - age may 7 again at around age 10 - she tried to set the hous on fire and commit suicide. mental ilness prevailed on her side of the family.
I had no religious input beyond what I goy from 1 year at a Catholic program after school at around age 6 and sometimes we read psalm 23 and
said the Our father prayer as a part of public school opening exercises. This was before the US Supreme Court outlawed these practices in 1962 and 1963.
So I had no religious upbringing - my Dad worked as a clerk in a small hardware store during the week and painted and hung wallpaper during the weekends. So I worked on Sundays with him from about age 13 on to 17. After I quit school at age 15 - 9th grade I worked for him full time - no pay,
but I was helping him out.
So here I am headed for Vietnam and I was woken up the first night and assigned gaurd duty at the bottom of stairwell outside a little room that they used as a chapel.
Every night for the rest of the voyage that's where I spent 4 hours.
So I was asking myself these questions and saw a movie about astronomy - it was produced by Moody Bible people and I became a Christian.
So before, during and after my time in the service my dad had girl friends - one in another city about a 2.5 hour ride away from the one I grew up in.
While I was in the service he married that lady. They lady was divorced and had several kids and my father was actually close to two of them - but not to me.
So this is not a good start - actually it was quite painful.
So after I got out of the service - I was distant from my mother as well - I tried to settle in the city where my Dad was. But that was miserable , so I left and went to another city to attend coummunity college. I did take a few courses there but that didn't really go well either but I stayed in that city, met my wife and we got married and had a child. At this time I had a succession of lousy jobs until i got a break and was hired to learn to be a chemical plant operator for a company that owned a small and rather special chemical plant. Only one other plant in the world made this stuff and that one had blown up. Stuff was called "sodiumborohydride" they still make it but now the plant where they do is on the other side of the USA.

So my wife is pregnant again and they told me I was to be laid off because business was slow. But they offered me a chance to get trained and licensed as a boiler operator. It happened this way. I was working nights - midnight to 8am. They called me into the office and let me know about this and asked if I would rather be laid off or retrained. So I took the retraining. They gave me $10.00 so i could buy gas for my car, a yellow legal pad so I could take notes and a pencil and told me I had to be in a city about 30 miles away by 10 AM. The class I needed to quailfy for the license
had already been going on for a month but they would take me as a student if I was there that morning.

I had a car with a bad clutch but it got me to class for the whole of the rest of the 6 or 8 weeks time I needed to be there.

That launched a 4 year career for that company and later a 33 year career in a power plant I eventually finished up as a watch engineer in an industrail power plant. I had college grads working under my supervision for the last 5 or 6 years of that. By then I had a higher license.

I think it was the first night I was standing watch alone in the boiler room that my wife delievered the second baby by C section. She had a C section for the first one but the incision did not heal right. The doctor who performed the second operation told my wife he could look into the womb
and see the baby before he made the incision. That is not suppossed to happen and we were fortunate that the uterus did not rupture which would have killed both mother and child.

OK so I had my own emotional struggles and economic struggles - just as many people do - but by a series of decisions I came through. It seems like everything just always had to fall into place in a just so kind of way. And I made some pretty serious mistakes along the way for which I should have been fired had they discovered that it was I who made them. Not proud to admit that but it was a part of the picture.

I mean everything was close and had to work out in just so ways - and this was a repeat story for me - things that I could not control. The chemical plant closed 4 or 5 years later after I had left for the Power Plant. They built this other plant across the country and closed the one I had worked at.

Had I stayed in te city where I grew up there probably would not have been a like opportunity. That was a much poorer area without much industry.
Same for the city my dad had moved to. I had no knowledge of the opportunities I found or of how lucrative things would eventually turn out.

And I was able to do a ton of reading while at work and get some home study courses under my belt as well. My wife eventaully became a nurse and both of my kids have advanced degrees.

A lot to be grateful for. I see all of this as a blessing - as YAHWEH's taking care of me. So why shouldn't I understand my life in this way?

Ok so this is my strange experience. What to make of it?
What to make of it I do not know.
But here it is. So I have this job as a watch engineer in the power plant. We are generating megawatts of power for use in the large industrial plant.
Also we are capable of seeling power out the national electric grid - there are power generators in the building, large elctrical tranformers and
large wires that run to the outside tranformers - tons of current and extremely high voltages. there must have been elctromagnetic waves everywhere.
I am usually out in the bay where the generators are and I have a coworker under my supervision who is in a control room in another area of the building and my boss is a no nonsense kind of guy in his office - which is in the same area of the building as the control room. But there is maybe 30 feet distance from my boss to the control room.
Its about 1 or 2 AM and I go into the office to talk to my boss. I talk to him and leave. Then get called back into the office. My boss says " you know what just happened? So I say no. He says so and so just came in all excited and asked if you had been in here. I told him yes. And he said , so and so said "I knew it - I could feel his field."
This particular individual was bright and college educated and far more knowlefgable about power engineering than I was. he had been my supervisor at one tiome but left because he was having emotional difficulties. He was not a people person at all. And at the time he had all kinds of rule s- in order to get along with him I was to always be so many feet away from him and to refrain from paging him fromm my area of the buiding when he was eating. Like how am I supposed to know when he's eating?
But the look on my bosses face was precious. "This is way over my head", he says.
My boss and I conived to get him on stright days where he was happy and where his great resume actually was of better use to the plant.
But it was a strange night and one of the expereinces I will laways remember.

Larry
From reading this post you sound like very honest beautiful person. You care deeply about other people even us strangers you will probably never meet. Saying you would rather go through difficult times with Yahweh and prayer and pastors and churches makes sense. All those things used to bring so much comfort to me when I was a believer. I was so focused on eternity and I have always had this feeling I was going to die young. Eternity and caring about people by saving them from torture forever in hell were a huge focus of mine for years. My sheltered born again christian upbringing protected me from some really bad experiences but it also helped me to miss out on the truth and beauty that was all around me. As a christian I was told what to think by my parents the church but mostly the Bible. Now without being told what to think I've taken the time to read "most" of the Bible, and I have to say there is no way I would ever worship this murdering evil god. He was my love and I would have gladly died for him but luckily Yahweh showed me his character through his book. So even though life is still tough at times, I'm at peace with the fact that I'm living and participating in life now on this planet. Im finding strength in myself and others. Not from a guy in the sky offering "Fake Love" without a concern for the real atrocities that are happening here on earth.

Larry A. - The supernatural if there is one is closed to true scientific [inquiry].

The only barrier to scientific inquiry into the supernatural; is that supernatural claims seem to not be repeatable. I wonder why that is?