Comments on: The Devil in Me http://friendlyatheist.com/2007/09/11/the-devil-in-me/ Atheism with Positivity Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:24:57 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Joel Sax http://friendlyatheist.com/2007/09/11/the-devil-in-me/comment-page-1/#comment-68249 Joel Sax Wed, 12 Sep 2007 02:08:44 +0000 http://friendlyatheist.com/2007/09/11/the-devil-in-me/#comment-68249 When I was going through partial hospitalization program, I knew a few people who insisted that they had had personal contact with angels and demons. When vetting this out, I realized that this was their ~sane~ aspect, that when they felt their disease, they lost their faith. I feel that the demons and the angels were of their imaginations. I have met -- before and since -- people who did not appear to suffer from a mood disorder or schizophrenia who believed in these critters. When I heard the story of the medium and her assistant, running the "lecture" like a sideshow, I thought of these people I have known. The belief functions as a kind of comfort. And if you challenged it in them, they did not drop the belief as Dickerson did, but found some fantastic way to continue to justify holding them. It's not so easy as to introduce a doubt, the moral of the story goes. You have to provide methadone for this opiate of the people. When I was going through partial hospitalization program, I knew a few people who insisted that they had had personal contact with angels and demons. When vetting this out, I realized that this was their ~sane~ aspect, that when they felt their disease, they lost their faith.

I feel that the demons and the angels were of their imaginations. I have met — before and since — people who did not appear to suffer from a mood disorder or schizophrenia who believed in these critters.

When I heard the story of the medium and her assistant, running the “lecture” like a sideshow, I thought of these people I have known. The belief functions as a kind of comfort. And if you challenged it in them, they did not drop the belief as Dickerson did, but found some fantastic way to continue to justify holding them.

It’s not so easy as to introduce a doubt, the moral of the story goes. You have to provide methadone for this opiate of the people.

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