On Using Demons to Explain Personal Struggles

[Warning: This is a ‘rantish wordy’ post, not a ‘pictures with amusing captions’ post]

Earlier I wrote a quick post about some fundamentalist loonies blaming demon sex as the cause of some people’s homosexuality. While I think it is easy to dismiss these particular arguments as the unfounded and misguided sputum that they are, it nevertheless got me thinking about how often demons are genuinely invoked as having an effect on people in the real world.

Like many of the things that I object to in religious thinking, the idea of demons as an explanation for any problems we have appears too easy and convenient an answer. It seem to clearly human in its motivation. Sure this kind of explanation may have held water when our species lived in the ignorance of the Bronze Ages, much like how gods could be invoked to explain thunder; because we didn’t know any better, and it was easier. These days however, relying on such external agents as demons to explain away personal struggles and mental problems is just a cop out.

You see this all the time when people talk about battling their demons, whether it be in the form of alcoholism, depression, or any other negative aspects of their lives. It is a handy way of making it seem like the problem you are having isn’t something intrinsic to you, but rather something happening to you. In this sense it isn’t your fault.

Doing this you effectively externalise your problems, and can even further romanticise this by calling the process a struggle. It allows a certain level of detachment from responsibility, and can also make the whole thing seem less futile. To some, battling a demon is something that can be won, whereas dealing with an inherent problem within yourself can seem like an impossible task.

To a certain extent, these externalisations are not all bad things; however I think this approach gets more wrong, than it does right. This demopomorphising (can I copyright that term?) of ones problems can actually make a lot of sense when you consider the fact that in many cases, these are things that are simply beyond our control. We don’t choose to be depressed, nor do we choose in the strictest sense to be alcoholics.

In many instances things like mental illnesses are a fact of life, and so they can in effect take on the same attributes as some mysterious external force acting upon us.

But I can’t help feel that it is much better to accept that these forces which are external to us can nevertheless be contained entirely within our physical body, and that they don’t require a supernatural explanation. Our brain can work against us, without our consent, or knowledge, and bring about conditions that affect who we are, without necessarily having to be considered an intrinsic part of who we are.

Of course I realise that many instances of evoking demon battling is done in a purely figurative manner. It is however important to realise that a good deal of the public actually do believe in demons actively influencing people’s lives in the literal sense. And there are the more amorphous concepts of demons out there that others adopt. 

A man I previously worked with surprised me one night by revealing that he was a Buddhist. I had heard there were many around these days, but to have a live one in front of me seemed like quite an occasion. Much like when I manage to find a real Christian amongst the throng of unbelievers, and even though I know that Australia is apparently rife with them, they so seldom make their presence known.

Anyway, this real life Buddhist co-worker replied in the affirmative when I asked him if he believed in demons, as I had heard many Buddhists do. As I prepared to place my arguing hat on, and steeled myself for a rhetorical battle to defend reason, I was slightly dismayed when he explained that these demons weren’t supernatural beings. “It’s more like accepting that alcoholism is something that can affect all our brains, it’s something that we are all susceptible to.  There are others too; other things which can affect us negatively in similar ways. And these things are also like demons”

While this explanation doesn’t really sit quite well with me, it was nevertheless a more rational response that I was used to hearing.

Fine, I suppose if you want to refer to these negative aspects of the human condition as demons, I guess I can’t stop you.

But at the end of the day it still seems to me that to describe these negative aspects of our lives as demons just adds unnecessary nomenclature to the situations, which muddies up the waters. Similar to the folly of an atheist talking of the soul, when what they are really just referring to is their inner convictions or mind. Or when people invoke the analogy of ones heart as the seat of their emotions, rather than a muscle to pump blood. Just cut out the superfluous terms and stick to more direct explanations, it often will not only lead to less confusion, but also give a more accurate understanding of what is really at play.

I think Douglas Adams made a fine point of it when he remarked on one of his own mental quibbles, in this instance lacking confidence;

"I have terrible periods of lack of confidence [..] I briefly did therapy, but after a while I realised it was like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can't fix the weather – you just have to get on with it"

Mental problems are things to be dealt with as best we can. They generally aren’t there due to any fault of the person in question, nor are they there for some esoteric religious or mythological sense. They just are.

To try and pin meaning, or intent, onto the things that befall us leads to confusion, halts any real and effective treatment, and places blame in all the wrong places.

Of course this is all just my opinion, and I have absolutely no grounding in any of the relevant sciences in order to make these statements with even the ghost of authority (an I realise that I kind of ended up aiming this rant in the direction of mental illnesses). But hell; isn’t this what the internet is for?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments, particularly if anyone out there has any actual expertise in this area (if this even is an area one can be expert in).

Cheers,

MM

A Brief Post on Demon Sex Turning You Gay

Sometimes I hate the catchy brevity of news article headlines as they attempt to surmise their points in as few words as possible, often to the detriment of the English language. Other times however, I really enjoy the stark contrasts they can bring about. Take today’s article of interest for example:

“Christian group says demon sex makes you gay”

I love how simple it makes the whole prospect seem, and how well it highlights the inherent absurdity of the claim. Though perhaps I must also caution myself against forming an opinion too rashly; after all they might have some good points backing this claim up if one looks at their argument in its entirety.

Then there is the subheading:

“A Christian magazine warns that homosexuality is caused by sex with succubi -- and that's just the beginning”

I guess this could conceivably turn you off women...

Well I suppose I was right in that there is more to it,though I had hoped for something more than just specifying which type of non-existent being could turn your straight parts bent.

To be fair, the article I read was based on an article from a Christian magazine whose preface to the story in question began with the proposition “Can demons engage in sexual behaviors with humans?”. So at least they had the pretence of scepticism present (even if it is only in their headline).

The article quickly goes on to assert that yes these things can happen, and quote Contessa Adams, a former stripper and now minister, who herself battled with demons (literally, she would have us believe; not figuratively) which threatened to turn her into, of all things, a lesbian.

Admit it, after reading the name Contessa Adams, this is who you pictured

Indeed Contessa was once possessed by sexual demons (which apparently isn’t as fun as it sounds), and was quoted as saying “Anybody that has been attacked by them will tell you … they’re worried [that] they could not find that pleasure with mortal people,” If anything, it reminds me of the first season of True Blood, when we discover that not only are vampires real, but they are apparently adept at showing mortals quite a good time.

An actual billboard for true Blood in New Zealand. Sums up the show quite nicely.

Seriously though, it is worth noting that the group of extreme American Christians who believe in demons stalking the land to turn people homosexual are the same group that encourage and fund the current homicidal regime intention killing gays in Uganda.

On Republican Gaffes, God Sanctioned Rape, and the Dangers of Divine Plans

Well what do you know, another month goes by, and another Republican politician in the United States confounds the public with his views on rape. Last time it was Todd Akin who showed his ignorance of human physiology when he asserted that women physically cannot fall pregnant if it is ‘legitimate rape’, which then has people wondering what the corollary to this term could possibly be (illegitimate rape?). This time we have Richard Mourdock from Indiana, who dropped this interesting quote during a debate:

“I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realise that life is that gift from God, and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something God intended to happen.”

Mourdock is an anti-abortion candidate, which is an odd enough concept that begs us to consider the converse side; a pro-abortion candidate. But in this instance he was outlining why he believes that abortions performed after rape should be outlawed, and the only time such procedures be allowed is when the mother’s life is in jeopardy.

Now I find the abortion issue to be a contentious one at the best of times, but moving past the inherent grey areas that this inevitably invokes, I can’t help but think that the backlash faced by Mourdock because of his words is a somewhat undeserved and hypocritical reaction by a lot of people who would generally consider themselves a Christian.

Don’t get me wrong here; I think that the idea of a divinely sanctioned rape reaches for the heights of absurdity. But that being said, the view he is expressing is far from inconsistent with mainstream Christians thought.

How many times, upon hearing some bad news, or even in general discussions with Christians, do you hear the plan of a god invoked as the ersatz explanation. We may find it hard to face the capricious nature of things such as cancer striking down people seemingly at random, and thus hope to find solace in some reason for this happening. But the fact of the matter is that some things in this world are not only beyond our control, but also beyond meaningful interpretation.
By this I mean that not everything has a purpose, and though it might seem easier to bear the hand that life has dealt us if we are willing to take on faith that everything has a purpose, this view not only has the bulk of history working against it (why I ask you was the holocaust necessary?), but it also has a lot of dangerous implications.

If you do take the view that a god does have a plan, and that we are all slowly meandering through life on paths set in advance by the almighty, then you have to accept the full implications of this position. If there is a plan, then things such as rape, cancer, murder, the holocaust and so on; all these things must be a part of this plan. After all, if they weren’t a part of the plan, then surely they would have had a massive butterfly effect on things by now.

Not only do I find the divine plan way of thinking unsatisfactory, and uncaring, but I also see the inherent dangers in living your life on what is essentially an amusement park ride; where you have no control, and are just along for the trip.

Something that can be used to retroactively permit and explain any action can also be used in the present to justify any future actions. This is where the danger lies. Accepting things that have happened as a part of a god’s plan strips you of any responsibility of your own; it leads to fatalism, and to an acceptance of whatever situations arise.

The idea of a divine plan is untenable at the best of times, and dangerous at the worst. It can offer consolation, but as we have seen in the case of Mr Mourdock, it can also offer a twisted sense of justification and acceptance after the fact.

Let me know what you think in the comments, especially if you are a Christian (or otherwise) who hold to the view that everything happens for a reason.

Cheers,

MM

Dad Tip: Teaching Evolution

[I am thinking this will be a semi-regular thing on my blog now. Sure I am not the greatest Dad in the world, and my experience is limited to a single son; but at the end of the day every little step along the way is an important one, and perhaps some of my experiences will have merit beyond my own doorstep. Let me know what you think in the comments below.]

In my six odd years of having a son, I have discovered that one of the hardest things to try and explain to him is the concept of evolution. I see this as a bit of a problem, as being a dinosaur nut like his old man, evolution is vital to his understanding of these creatures.

From our recent trip to the Melbourne Museum, where Harrison could finally tell me most of his favourite dinosaur's names. #DadPride

This problem can be doubly difficult because at its most basic level, the theory of evolution is a very simple concept, however it relies on a lot of concepts and grounding that is just out of reach of young children.

Saying to your child that evolution is how animals change over time to adapt to their surroundings can lead to a lot of misunderstandings of how exactly they change, and how they adapt. I often found myself getting exasperated trying to explain through simple examples such as a giraffes neck; explaining how having a longer neck helps them reach higher food, but then being sure to stress that the individual didn’t get a longer neck because they want one, but that their children, if born with a slightly longer neck, will pass that trait on down.

Before you know it, your explanation has gone on longer than you wanted it to, and has included too many new words and concepts for your child to really stick to the point.

Don’t get me wrong, my son is one bright kid. Ask him what light is made of and he has two answers; a joke one (light is made from torches), and the real one (light is made of photons). It is just that getting kids’ minds to work on the scale of evolution takes a lot of mental effort on their part. Kids very rarely want to think of the consequences of their actions beyond the days play, let alone the consequences of animal’s actions across the generations.

Over the years my son’s understanding of the natural world has progressed quite well, and I am very proud when he talks about biological features as evolved, and ponders what their purpose is in helping the animal survive. But it was just the other day when we were discussing evolution (yes this is what my son and I do sometimes) that I hit on a better way to explain it to him.

I don’t quite recall how we got onto the subject, but I shocked Harry by telling him that our dog was descendant from wolves. Now perhaps this isn’t the most surprising fact for a child, but consider my dogs appearance:

This is why when i write of my dog, i often put inverted commas around the word 'dog'....

 “That’s a wolf?!” He exclaimed (with an inflection well worthy of an interrobang).

I explained that back when man was still living somewhat in the wild, we domesticated wolves for companionship and to help make our lives easier.

I reminded him that a lot of traits in animals can be inherited from their parents (he is aware that he got half his DNA from me, and the other half from my wife, but luckily he hasn’t asked how they got mixed yet…), then asked him what would happen if we picked the ‘nicest’ wolves, got them to have babies, and then keep picking the nicer, friendlier, ones to have around us. He was pretty quick in understanding how these traits could be selected, and bred into the population. It was working a treat.

Next example I used was the domestication of the cow. I explained how we domesticated them from Aurochs, creatures that were twice as big, and quite nasty customers. Picking the smaller, more docile ones each time and having only those in your paddock, I was able to show how this selection can likewise change a population over time.

Perhaps I should have caught onto utilising artificial selection as a way of explaining this long ago after all Charles Darwin, the great man himself, used this introduction to his theory of evolution in On the Origin of Species.

Once this fundamental concept is understood, it is pretty easy to cross from artificial, to natural selection. All that has to be explained then it how animals in the wild aren’t selected by people because of the traits they want to propagate, but instead the individuals are ‘selected’ by nature, because they are the ones that survive better and have more kids.

It is a great feeling to see that you have successfully explained something to your kids, when you see that little click of comprehension, and the pride they feel having learnt something new. The only thing that worries me now is that he is garnering all of this information at a rate that much exceeded my own at his age. If our generation isn’t careful, these guys will be taking over in twenty to thirty years……

MM

Write What You Know

Write what you know. This is often advice given to people who want to write, but don’t quite know where to start. Some may have ambition to spare, but can’t quite get things rolling, or when they do, they find it careening off in a direction that they are unhappy with. To write what one knows is supposed to help corral ones prose into a direction that they can competently remark on, and give a detailed, and hopefully cogent, piece of writing at the end of the day.

This, like many things, is all good in theory.

I love writing, and I want to write more and more as the days go on. I find myself in the curious situation of wanting to write, and (I think) improving my writing every day, and yet I have nothing to write about. I am not in school or university anymore, I don’t have a job that requires me to utilise any of the things I have been learning about the proper application of the English language (indeed, I have been told to tone down my use of ‘big words’, lest people don’t know what I am talking about).

So in the past when I didn’t want to write, I had essays demanded of me. Yet now when I have a desire to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard), I have an annoying lack of venues to expend this on.

That is of course, how things look on the outside. Luckily for me, there is this wonderful thing we call the internet, and the proliferation of tools now available to help me write and put my words out there, regardless of the lack of interest, and lonesome chirping of crickets that await me.

But again I face the conundrum of what to write.

So far I have managed to fill the page with three hundred words of blather, yet a growing word count doesn’t give the same sense of satisfaction as it did in the old days, when I judged my writing solely on its ability to reach the teachers prescribed word limit. Now I want my writing to have a purpose.

So I fall back on to the mantra of writing what I know, only to realise that like a more true to the point Socrates, I know next to nothing. I am aware of the limitations of my knowledge, but this awareness doesn’t really offer any further avenues for me to traipse down.

I know a little about a lot of things, but there are a lot of things I know little about. Two statements that appear very similar, but paint contrasting pictures.

Perhaps this is why for my last NaNoWriMo I focused on a science fiction setting. True there can be a lot of reality packed into such tales; they are after all generally populated by people, with the same virtues and vices known to us. But at the end of the day if you are so inclined you can cram your story full of spaceships, robots and other such distractions in order to invent your own field of expertise. In this sense it is now only important to know what you write, as once thing that is paramount for such self-contained and speculative worlds is a firm sense of consistency.

And so, with my ersatz relaunching of this blog the past day, I will seize this opportunity to refocus the purpose of my blog more explicitly. It is not just an outlet for my thoughts, or a place that I can share some latest news story with my unqualified opinion. Rather it is a place for me to indulge in my passion for writing, and hopefully to help me find what it is I should be writing about.

Thus I am taking a somewhat converse and convoluted position from the title of this post; I am writing in order to find out what I know, so that I can write more effectively.

I hope this will be in some way enjoyable for you too valued reader, and look forward to hearing from you, should the need arise.

Cheers,

MM

Here It Goes Again

Well, this was quite a hiatus for me from the world of blogging. It has been a tumultuous time of late, working two jobs for a while, buying a house, and so on. And sometimes once you have broken the chain, it is hard to but the links back together again, so for a while I gave up on updating this blog. Slowly the postless days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, until before you knew it I had gone five months without a single post springing forth from my clumsy fingers.

Sure I had material along the way, and wrote some half-arsed posts on the new Spiderman film, or our recent robotic mission to Mars (yes NASA, take that; I am claiming everything you do for humanity as a whole), but none of it ever manifested as an actual resolve to posting.

Slowly I began to lament my lack of blogging, and worse yet, I realised that whenever I did post next, I would have to explain my absence (which I recall doing multiple times in the past; not a good sign). Not only that, but my first post back should surely be a momentous one; one to distract from my previous neglect. And so I was further dissuaded from posting by my own eccentricities, but then today I had an epiphany.

Who cares?

My blog isn’t really that important, hell it isn’t even that good; it’s just my inner musings, distorted and extracted from my mind by my novice writing abilities for the public to see (but for most of them to ignore entirely). So why was I bothering to worry about the reception my new posts received?

The important thing after falling off a horse isn’t to vault back on Cossack style it’s just to get back on the damn thing, no matter the fashion.

So here I am, dusting off the reins, and strapping myself back in.

Hopefully some of you out there are looking forward to this, perhaps you enjoyed my posts in the past, and as I had no real talent or expertise to let wane over my absence, you can be assured that the same quality (or lack of it) will remain in future posts.

I’m looking forward to it.

Cheers,

MM

[Interesting sidenote: During my hiatus I was still getting around 15 daily views of my blog, so if anything at least this break has provided me with a nice benchmark to winkle out the bot visits, and focus on the people really drawn to my musings.]

Preparing Young English Boys, and Lawsuits

Some of you may remember this little meme from a previous post of mine that found its way astonishingly quickly onto the internet after the Dawkins/Pell ‘debate’ on the cusp of this year’s Global Atheist Convention.

[Before I go on here, just a quick note to point out that though I previously indicated my mate Sam Dekok as the originator of this meme, he was merely an agent through which this cultural gene proliferated. Considering the furore created by these thin skinned, lawyered up believers, I thought it might be worth mentioning on here.]

I am reiterating this because apparently the innocuous piece of photoshop didn’t escape the attention of Mr Pell, who promptly threatened to sue Twitter for defamation and loss of reputation, after comedian Catherine Deveny tweeted a link to the 'offending' image. As if his own performance on the night, whether it be questioning the intellectual capacity of ancient Jews, or stating that man evolved from Neanderthals, didn’t do more harm to his reputation.
Now my opinion of people hiding behind the ability to take offense at anything they are opposed to has been well documented on here, but I couldn't help writing a quick rant in response to this.
The theory behind Pell's litigious paroxysm is that the aforementioned image suggested either that Pell was a paedophile himself, or that he was complicit in the sexual abuse of children. One would think that given the state of affairs in the Catholic Church at the moment, Pell’s mere mention of involvement with children is suspect enough, and that any overt suggestions of a link, are only there to highlight the preexisting connection between the Catholic Church and child abuse.
Perhaps it is worth noting here that I am not insinuating that all Catholic clergy are latent abusers; I am just pointing out that the link between Catholic Clergy and the abuse (let’s call it what it is; rape) of children is so ingrained in the public conscious to the point that one hardly needs to remind people explicitly of this connection.
But you have to wonder how it could get to the point where one party can be threatened with legal action simply for redistributing something that another party said, regardless of if it was a mere snippet of the original, and could be taken out of context.
I mean, wouldn’t the joke work pretty much the same even if the ‘for communion’ kicker were thrown in? After all, the joke does not rely on the omission of the communion part of the anecdote in order to get its laughs. Rather it simply rests upon the dubious notion of Catholic priests ‘preparing’ children in any circumstances. The verb ‘prepare’ is not where the negative association lies, nor would the supposedly slanderous implications inherent in this half quote somehow be negated by the addition of the boys being prepared ‘for communion’. Instead, the Catholic Church takes the brunt of the irony in this situation, as the unfortunate state of affairs at the moment mean that the mere mention of Catholic clergy, in particular around children, inevitably brings about the notion of abuse.
And with good reason.
If Pell and his cronies don’t want to have their religion and its employees associated with such slanderous possibilities, then perhaps they should reconsider policies that have not only helped to cover up abuse in the past, but which also facilitate further abuse and the circumvention of justice, by knowingly ferrying rapists across the country.
Just a quick rant tonight.
MM