Had to come home sick today, from a bad migraine that made me throw up. So my thoughts aren't as organized as they could be.

So we just finished watching the latest episode of the new show Supernatural, which had to do with demonic possession. It was okay, though not as good as the previous two episodes I've seen. And I had a hard time taking the "demon voice" seriously -- it reminded me of Drago from The Jackie Chan Adventures.

Now, I've heard a lot of people, including one lady who came into my store and who I couldn't argue with very strongly because of her being a customer, talking about the Exorcism of Emily Rose movie as though the "Based on a True Story" tagline actually means that the events portrayed therein are those that really happened. One person even used the unfortunate figurative expression, "Well, the jury's still out about that." No, the jury ruled long ago about poor Anneliese Michel, and I for one firmly believe they were right. If the girl's parents had gotten her checked into a mental hospital, her life might have been saved.

One of the things I like to ask myself when wondering, "Should I believe in the possibility of something, even though empirical evidence is against it?" is "Will it do any harm to believe in this?" (Actually, I don't like to take iffy stuff at face value because I prefer to keep my critical thinking sharp, so the question is more "Do I disbelieve strongly enough to get into an argument about it?") The belief in God has spurred lots of people into doing horrible things, it's true, but it's also inspired many to charitable acts towards those less fortunate. Belief in the Bible as absolute fact, on the other hand, is harmful for a multitude of reasons, as some of the more sensible Catholic bishops have recently declared.

As far as I can tell, belief in demons and demonic possession has only ever been a cause of harm. If such belief isn't driving people to harm others (see here, and scroll down to "Exorcism-Related Deaths") or themselves (as seems to have been the case with poor Ms. Michel), it gets used to deny people's responsibility for their own actions (as Ron DeFeo famously attempted to do), or even, in some cases, to deny that a person might have a legitimate, human reason to act as they do (witness some fundamentalist churches' attempts to "exorcise" homosexual youths). The only good that comes from the concept of demonic possession is its use as artistic inspiration -- and that doesn't require actual belief.

For the record, I don't care much for modern stories of "angelic visitation", either. Most of those have an unpalatable air of self-congratulation about them: "The angels helped me because I'm virtuous; if they didn't help someone else in the same position, it must be because that person's just not good enough."

Some people have attempted to justify their continued belief by saying, "Well, there's good, so there must be evil." Personally, I don't believe in any cosmic absolutes of "good" and "evil". I think humanity contains the potential for great good and great evil simultaneously, and that our choices in what we act upon matter more than any supposed supernatural forces.

Also, just as a matter of philosophy, I don't really see the point of demons, except to make people feel that things don't really happen for no reason. The idea of the small-s satan, whose Yahweh-given purpose was to test humanity by tormenting them, I can get behind. (This isn't to say that I have a literal belief in such a being, just that it makes more sense to me.) But a creature whose goal is to cause strife and suffering just because...? Dude. We can do that to ourselves, and do it a lot better. I think that any demon worth its sulphur would look at the history of man's inhumanity to man and feel inadequate.

Recently Read: Realms of Fantasy Magazine October 2005
IASFM September 2005
Currently Reading: IASFM October/November 2005