Catholic church performs exorcism on screaming woman in Czech Republic

[trotsky]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/catholic-church-performs-exorcism-screaming-woman-article-1.2016080

Yes folks it's the 21st century and people still think demons are real.

[Cartoonist]

1. Who created demons?

Who created evil?
As the story goes, first, there was only God. Therefore, everything that came after, came from God. As long as people believe in God, they will believe in demons.

[trotsky]

2. Believing in an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god poses an insurmountable challenge.

Theodicy. The most advanced theological "argument" I've seen basically amounts to "trust us, there just is no other way."

My, such intellectual depth! How could we not all be converted back into the flock with such incredible logic?

[Hoppy]

3. Ya won't leave her alone?

I'll fix ya.

"Booga, Booga !"

[RussBLib]

4. someday, I would like these theo-idiots to take their exorcism "clients" into a laboratory...

...and have them examined by actual doctors and scientists.

I wonder what would happen?

I hear that there is a HUGE uptick in exorcisms being performed in the last several years. I don't believe it. I think it's a grasping at straws to try and convince everyone else that religion is still relevant.

Edited to add this quote from the article:

"If something is filmed through a keyhole, there is nothing more to say about it," he told the newspaper.

Oh, really? That's pretty hilarious.

[AlbertCat]

12. I hear that there is a HUGE uptick in exorcisms being performed in the last several years.

In movies!

[Warren Stupidity]

5. this has nothing to do with religion.

Obviously the church's priest, Marek Dunda, is suffering from psychosis. My professional armchair psychiatric diagnosis by viral video is that the priest is suffering from meth induced psychosis and that is what is causing him to torture this woman. He apparently was babbling nonsense at the time, further confirming the diagnosis. Using unfortunate incidents like this to claim that all people who have ever claimed even the slightest bit of religious faith are psychotic axe murderers who should be locked up and/or lobotomized is really over the top. Please stop.










:parody: :not serious: :this is a joke, son:

[JDDavis]

6. Yes, I got your message. And PLEASE

never use the word "deluded" again, because we religion folks and apologists who claim we are just like you, agnostics, somehow we are offended when you use words like: "delusional" to describe our deeply held religious beliefs/delusions.

Thank you for respecting my beliefs, or, if you do not respect my beliefs, shame shame shame on you. Because...

I thought you were better than that, I thought you would not stoop to offending non-believers who defend the Pope like me. I must now shame you publicly, it is the only weapon I have against such militant atheists like you.

Now I must sail on.

If you didn't get the sarcasm and irony in my post, well, tough.

[AtheistCrusader]

8. Funny thing is, one of the posters that likes to whine about some of us ascribing 'delusion'

to religious faith as only possibly being a clinical analysis and attack, is only too happy to hyuck Huck, fling it back at us.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1264&pid=5482

But only as a joke, you see.

[onager]

7. Time for another Defenestration of Prague...

The most famous occurring in 1618, during the Counter-Reformation. A trio of Catholics were thrown out a third-story window in Prague but survived:

Catholics maintained the men were saved by angels or by the intercession of the Virgin Mary, who caught them; later Protestant pamphleteers asserted that they survived due to falling onto a dung heap, a story unknown to contemporaries and probably coined in response to divine intervention claims.

That incident kicked off the Thirty Years War. After the Catholics won the battle of White Mountain in 1620, naturally they forgave their Protestant subjects and everybody lived happily ever after, singing "Kum-Ba-Yah" in Czech and politely discussing Sophisticated Theology.

Well, not exactly, according to Wikipedia...

There was plundering and pillaging in Prague for weeks following the Battle. Several months later, twenty-seven nobles and citizens were tortured and executed in the Old Town Square. Twelve of their heads were impaled on iron hooks and hung from the Bridge Tower as a warning.

I'm sure glad the believers are right and religion makes people better human beings...

[JDDavis]

9. I had not heard that word "defenestration" since high school

Yes, I remember my wonderful history teacher talking about that event.

I bet few history teachers covered that event, but my teacher did. I bet he was an atheist, when I think back to what he was saying in many of his lectures to us. Back then, I probably went to Sunday School at my church, I was not connecting the dots back then.

[RussBLib]

10. I wonder how many "exorcisms" could be connected to....

...the widespread and growing use of antidepressants, antipsychotics or other bizarre consciousness-altering pharmaceuticals.

I've had neuropathy in my feet for several years. One of the attempted treatments was Lyrica, which contains gabapentin. That drug is supposed to be an anti-spasmodic for epileptic seizures, but it allegedly works well with nerve pain.

But not with me. I heard voices - whispering voices - mumbling something I could not understand. Once, not that long ago, I had a dose of gabapentin for topical application on my feet and I started tripping my balls off. As an atheist, I felt certain that the grim reaper was about to come around the corner and take me away to...somewhere. I told my wife several times that I had died. I really felt like I had died. If my wife had not been present as a calming influence, who knows what I might have done? I will NEVER take gabapentin again.

Some of these pharmaceuticals are producing quite bizarre reactions, perhaps enough to be considered "possessed".

[onager]

11. Czech this out!

Mostly for newcomers, since I've posted it here on DU before. From the old About Atheism website.

Complaint from a missionary in the Czech Republic in 2004:

Since coming here, I have become increasing dissatisfied with the concept of Santa Claus...For all the faults Santa Claus has, at least we can poke fun of him for what he is – a tool of modern corporate America.

Czech Christmas means that a flying invisible Baby Jesus delivers presents. Czech children have a similar feeling of letdown upon discovering that it is actually not Baby Jesus but Mom and Pop who are putting the presents under the tree. The result is that I can read journals from my students that say "I believed in Jesus as a child" in the same way an American lad might bashfully remember believing in Santa Claus.

So if I tell Czechs I am a Christian, it is not something that smacks of intelligence to them. At worst, I am mocked in the way one might mock an adult who insisted on Santa Claus existing. At best, I may receive a pained expression of wanting to believe but wondering "how in the world do I believe in Santa Claus all over again, only this time as a personal God?"

With all the arguments about "delusion" recently - it's interesting that the missionary himself realizes that his beliefs sound delusional. At least to people who once believed Flying Baby Jesus delivered their Xmas toys.

The link below NO LONGER WORKS, since the Atheism About page has been re-designed. You may be able to find the whole article by poking around there:


http://atheism.about.com/b/2004/08/05/czech-republic-missionaries-having-trouble.htm