Talk:Exorcism: Difference between revisions

Browse history interactively ← Previous edit Next edit →Content deleted Content addedVisual WikitextInline

Revision as of 07:55, 8 December 2014 editBladesmulti (talk \| contribs)15,638 edits →pseudoscience ← Previous edit		Revision as of 08:06, 8 December 2014 edit undoAd Orientem (talk \| contribs)Administrators76,578 edits →pseudoscience: Check your agendas and prejudices at the door please.Next edit →
Line 103:		Line 103:
	:::: Are we seriously saying that no religiously motivated claims can be pseudoscientific? THis is political correctness at its worst. ] (]) 06:06, 8 December 2014 (UTC)		:::: Are we seriously saying that no religiously motivated claims can be pseudoscientific? THis is political correctness at its worst. ] (]) 06:06, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
	::::: Not these claims are. These are pre-science and they have later helped scientific theories to develop. Exorcism dates back to ], and it started from 3300 BCE, while psychiatry was already evident from 500 BCE in Indian subcontinent and later other regions of the world. That's why it is historical revisionism when you are calling it pseudoscience. It is also known that these theories have evolved throughout these centuries. ] (]) 06:15, 8 December 2014 (UTC)		::::: Not these claims are. These are pre-science and they have later helped scientific theories to develop. Exorcism dates back to ], and it started from 3300 BCE, while psychiatry was already evident from 500 BCE in Indian subcontinent and later other regions of the world. That's why it is historical revisionism when you are calling it pseudoscience. It is also known that these theories have evolved throughout these centuries. ] (]) 06:15, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
	{{outdent}}After some consideration I believe that we cannot reasonably apply the term pseudoscience to exorcism because the practitioners as far as I am aware have never laid any claim to science to explain or defend the act. Biblical creationism does not become pseudoscience until its proponents claim that it can be proven by scientific methodology. By adopting the radically expansionist interpretation of pseudoscience offered up by ] we would have to apply the term to all manner of hitherto purely religious beliefs and practices. Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians believe that ] is miraculously transformed into the ACTUAL BODY AND BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST. By Steeletrap's definition this must be a form of pseudoscience. What about the Muslim belief in the physical ascension of the Prophet Mohamed into heaven,or the very ~~simialr~~ belief by Christians about Christ? Sorry, but this proposed interpretation does not comport with what I understand to be pseudoscience, and I believe it runs counter to established consensus on Misplaced Pages. -] (]) 06:31, 8 December 2014 (UTC)		{{outdent}}After some consideration I believe that we cannot reasonably apply the term pseudoscience to exorcism because the practitioners as far as I am aware have never laid any claim to science to explain or defend the act. Biblical creationism does not become pseudoscience until its proponents claim that it can be proven by scientific methodology. By adopting the radically expansionist interpretation of pseudoscience offered up by ] we would have to apply the term to all manner of hitherto purely religious beliefs and practices. Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians believe that ] is miraculously transformed into the ACTUAL BODY AND BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST. By Steeletrap's definition this must be a form of pseudoscience. What about the Muslim belief in the physical ascension of the Prophet Mohamed into heaven,or the very similar belief by Christians about Christ? Sorry, but this proposed interpretation does not comport with what I understand to be pseudoscience, and I believe it runs counter to established consensus on Misplaced Pages. -] (]) 06:31, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
	::: The only reason we don't consider religious beliefs that entail empirical theories about cause and effect in the real world not to be pseudoscientific, is because it is politically incorrect to do so, given the status of Christianity in our society. Alchemy is considered pseudoscientific even though many forms of it have religious origins; I expect both of you would be arguing it wasn't pseudoscientific if it were tied to some "mainstream" (read: Western) religious doctrine. There is no principled epistemic reason not to label exorcism pseudoscience. ] (]) 07:48, 8 December 2014 (UTC)		::: The only reason we don't consider religious beliefs that entail empirical theories about cause and effect in the real world not to be pseudoscientific, is because it is politically incorrect to do so, given the status of Christianity in our society. Alchemy is considered pseudoscientific even though many forms of it have religious origins; I expect both of you would be arguing it wasn't pseudoscientific if it were tied to some "mainstream" (read: Western) religious doctrine. There is no principled epistemic reason not to label exorcism pseudoscience. ] (]) 07:48, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
	::::How many times I have to tell you that we don't want to hear your pseudohistorical revisionism because this is not the right place for your ]. If one concept is considered as pseudoscientific, doesn't means that any other unrelated one would be considered as well. ] (]) 07:55, 8 December 2014 (UTC)		::::How many times I have to tell you that we don't want to hear your pseudohistorical revisionism because this is not the right place for your ]. If one concept is considered as pseudoscientific, doesn't means that any other unrelated one would be considered as well. ] (]) 07:55, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
			::::] you need to check your anti-religious ] at the door and confine yourself to policy and guidelines. To the extent that Alchemy claims to be scientific, it is pseudoscience. No such claims are made on the part of exorcists. Your attempt to revise the definition in order to suit your openly declared prejudice is grossly inappropriate. And I am frankly disturbed that you may not understand this. -] (]) 08:06, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Revision as of 08:06, 8 December 2014

This article has not yet been rated on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

Christianity: Jesus / Catholicism / Charismatic Mid‑importance

	Christianity portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Christianity, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Christianity on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChristianityWikipedia:WikiProject ChristianityTemplate:WikiProject ChristianityChristianity
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is within the scope of the Jesus work group, a task force which is currently considered to be inactive.
	Catholic Church portal This article is supported by WikiProject Catholicism (assessed as Mid-importance).
	This article is supported by WikiProject Charismatic Christianity.

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

[REDACTED]

Paranormal Mid‑importance

[REDACTED]	This article falls under the scope of WikiProject Paranormal, which aims to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to the paranormal and related topics on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, you can edit the attached article, help with current tasks, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and discussions.ParanormalWikipedia:WikiProject ParanormalTemplate:WikiProject Paranormalparanormal
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

Religion Top‑importance

	Religion portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Misplaced Pages's articles on Religion-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.ReligionWikipedia:WikiProject ReligionTemplate:WikiProject ReligionReligion
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Skepticism

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Archives

This page has archives. Sections older than 180 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 1 section is present.

"Modern-day" Roman Catholic View of Exorcisms

I changed (and reverted) the Roman Catholic section to note that the Rite of Exorcism was renewed in January of 2000, as the previous versions impressed that the practice of exorcism is outdated in the Church. Quite the contrary - though advances in the sciences have aided in the differentiation between demonic possession and mental illness, as Roman Catholics are aware, it indeed remains a recognized and accepted practice of the Church. For a better flow in the article, I also moved the historical information regarding the position of exorcist.

Also, the Second Vatican Council should be capitalized; it is a title, such as the Council of Trent.

17:17, 26 August 2005

On the Nature of the Jinn

The Following paragraph in the section.. "On the nature of the Jinn", needs a citation from a reliable Islamic source:

A Jinn might also do it for revenge. Jinn are said to be quick to anger, especially when they believe themselves to have been harmed on purpose (since Jinn are usually invisible to humans, a person can accidentally injure a Jinni not knowing that one is there). --Haroon Nizar--

This section should be removed and any appropriate material moved to the Jinn entry.

in Islam

The Hanbali sect is the main Sunni sect that believes in Jinn being capable of possessing humans and exorcism. Otherwise, the 3 other sunni sects don't believe in that.

I removed the section on removing Jinn by vising graves and wearing amulets. It is a controversial topic, not adopted by orthodox Islam and has no references attached

A cross reference is needed

Since the page mentions the movie of The Exorcist, the page of

http://en.wikipedia.org/Edward_Hughes

should be cross referenced in my view.

To my knowledge, all the cases of the angry ghosts or devils attacking the worldly human beings are the direct consequece of the inproper human's action incurred to them in the past.

In the case of Edward Hughes encountered in 1949, which I noticed is 4 years after the World War II and I'm 90% sure that the devil is the victim or collective angry consciousness related to the World War II if one closely watches the movie and pay attention to what is scarred on the boy's chest. Again, karma will never stop manifesting what has happened and will happen to the world. As long as human being has ego views on enemies, war will never end.

Phrase?

This phase does not sound good at all

"the Holy Water especially is comparable to acid to the demon."

Examples

The New Zealand case of a "Makutu lifting" should not be included. This was a family suffering from a combination of poor education, low intelligence, mental illness and superstitution. There was no proper basis for any suspicion of demonic possession. What they called a makutu lifting was simply torture. Please remove this "example of an exorcism".

Added the last exorcism part ii

it is the sequel to the last exorcism and is related to the article.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thearjunpp (talk • contribs) 10:30, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Psychosurgery

Psychosurgery is completely unrelated to exorcism, which is a religious ceremony. Its inclusion in the article is laughable. It is being removed unless somebody cares to back up its inclusion with solid sources. 46.7.236.155 (talk) 07:05, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

You need to obtain consensus for its removal and that means actually discussing with the community. Furthermore, I am not convinced that the section in question should be removed based on your assertion that it's completely irrelevant. —MelbourneStar☆ 07:13, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

The paper referenced, "Neurosurgical exorcism" does not even use the word exorcism outside of its title. Consensus does not override broader policy, such as need for verifiability. Please see WP:CONLIMITED.46.7.236.155 (talk) 07:20, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Also see WP:3RR. The references cited clearly point to the notability and relevance of the section in my opinion. ♥ Solarra ♥ ߷ _{♀ 投稿 ♀} 07:43, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Lead change

User:Steeletrap, not everything unscientific or merely scientific is pseudoscience, this concept predates any science thus it becomes nonsensical to recognize it as pseudoscience, just stop using your personal opinion for changing its definition. Instead try finding some reliable citations that have explicitly explained that how it is pseudoscience. Though much better if you find sources that are relevant to Excorcism. Bladesmulti (talk) 23:14, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I have added a scholarly RS. However, none was needed. The theory of exorcism is pseudo-scientific because (unlike, say theology) it makes claims about the cause of mental states: namely, that demonic possession is real and leads to bad mental states. This is an empirical claim that has been debunked by modern mainstream psychiatry and psychology. Steeletrap (talk) 06:55, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

See also The Demon-Haunted World by the late Professor Carl Sagan of the University of Chicago, a world-renowned scientist. Steeletrap (talk) 06:58, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

That book is no where stating that exorcism "is a pseudoscience" or even close to it, it only gives 1 page of description about Exorcism which is 80% similar to this page. Just making a blind search on Google books and throwing a book title(of Sagan) that is irrelevant to this subject is clearly unhelpful. Since you are making a Misplaced Pages:POINT, also violating Misplaced Pages:OR, misinterpreting citation and sticking to your original research rather than providing a valid citation that would explicitly describe how it is pseudoscience, I would call Dougweller and John Carter that what they have to say about this kind of misinterpretation. Bladesmulti (talk) 07:52, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

For the record I have pinged the Fringe Theories Noticeboard about this discussion. -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:58, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I had thought about it, but I just informed wikiprojects/boards like Christianity and Religion first. Bladesmulti (talk) 04:04, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

That's fine. My own first reaction is that trying to label exorcism as pseudoscience is a stretch. And it's not something that I think should be done without consensus. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:12, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

The source implicitly labels exorcism a pseudoscience by listing it as an entry in the encyclopedia of pseudoscience.

Please realize that I am not saying that religion is pseudoscience per se. However, religious inspired empirical claims are pseudoscientific. If I said that praying to Poseidon caused tidal shifts, that's a pseudoscientific claim, even if also religious.

Exorcism differs from theology in that it makes claims about cause-and-effect in the material world. Exorcists assert that (some) people act the way the do because they are possessed by demons. This is an empirical claim; and it is a pseudoscientific one. It is distinct from most theological or religious claims. Steeletrap (talk) 04:50, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

No it is not enough, that book no where says that it is pseudoscience, if we go by your original research then we will have to call just: everything as pseudoscience that has been mentioned in that book, including psychiatry and science itself. Apart from your nonsensical ideas, can you provide a single citation that would confirm your Misplaced Pages:POINT? Bladesmulti (talk) 04:59, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

pseudoscience

How important is science or pseudoscience with regard to this topic? I submit that science has little (or no) pertinence other than to assert that exorcism is not based in reality. Accordingly, adding any description of exorcism as being scientific or pseudoscientific is tangential to the topic and is best confined to a section or footnote. – S. Rich (talk) 04:27, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

We can add in footnote, but only if some citation makes any claims about it. Bladesmulti (talk) 05:00, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

IMO exorcism and religion in general is pure bunk (albeit, potent bunk). Still, I can't see any WP editing rationale that justifies adding such a descriptive (e.g., "pseudoscientific") to the lede. Williams, who was mentioned by Steeletrap, is now a Further reading item. So I suggest that Williams be used WP:SUMMARYSTYLE and added as a reference. – S. Rich (talk) 05:14, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

It is a religious belief, putting pseudoscience is misleading. Scientific medical diagnosis puts it down to dissociation, schizophrenia etc. I will expand the article, here's some references:

Tajima-Pozo, K., Zambrano-Enriquez, D., de Anta, L., Moron, M., Carrasco, J., Lopez-Ibor, J., & Diaz-Marsa, M. (2011). Practicing exorcism in schizophrenia. Case Reports.
The Devil Inside: Psychotherapy, Exorcism and Demonic Possession by Stephen Diamond.
Demonic possessions and mental illness: discussion of selected cases in late medieval hagiographical literature
Possession syndrome at high altitude ( 4575 m/15000 ft ).
Dissociation and symptoms of culture-bound syndromes in North America: a preliminary study
Belief in demons and exorcism in psychiatric patients in Switzerland

Goblin Face (talk) 05:15, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Have at it. I recommend adding to the Scientific view section only, with a passing reference in the lede. – S. Rich (talk) 05:18, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

What it will be? I actually came here to read about the history of Exorcism because I have some idea about it. I just thought of resolving other dispute first. Bladesmulti (talk) 05:45, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Are we seriously saying that no religiously motivated claims can be pseudoscientific? THis is political correctness at its worst. Steeletrap (talk) 06:06, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Not these claims are. These are pre-science and they have later helped scientific theories to develop. Exorcism dates back to Indus Valley Civilization, and it started from 3300 BCE, while psychiatry was already evident from 500 BCE in Indian subcontinent and later other regions of the world. That's why it is historical revisionism when you are calling it pseudoscience. It is also known that these theories have evolved throughout these centuries. Bladesmulti (talk) 06:15, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

After some consideration I believe that we cannot reasonably apply the term pseudoscience to exorcism because the practitioners as far as I am aware have never laid any claim to science to explain or defend the act. Biblical creationism does not become pseudoscience until its proponents claim that it can be proven by scientific methodology. By adopting the radically expansionist interpretation of pseudoscience offered up by Steeletrap we would have to apply the term to all manner of hitherto purely religious beliefs and practices. Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians believe that Holy Communion is miraculously transformed into the ACTUAL BODY AND BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST. By Steeletrap's definition this must be a form of pseudoscience. What about the Muslim belief in the physical ascension of the Prophet Mohamed into heaven,or the very similar belief by Christians about Christ? Sorry, but this proposed interpretation does not comport with what I understand to be pseudoscience, and I believe it runs counter to established consensus on Misplaced Pages. -Ad Orientem (talk) 06:31, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

The only reason we don't consider religious beliefs that entail empirical theories about cause and effect in the real world not to be pseudoscientific, is because it is politically incorrect to do so, given the status of Christianity in our society. Alchemy is considered pseudoscientific even though many forms of it have religious origins; I expect both of you would be arguing it wasn't pseudoscientific if it were tied to some "mainstream" (read: Western) religious doctrine. There is no principled epistemic reason not to label exorcism pseudoscience. Steeletrap (talk) 07:48, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

How many times I have to tell you that we don't want to hear your pseudohistorical revisionism because this is not the right place for your gossiping and soapboxing. If one concept is considered as pseudoscientific, doesn't means that any other unrelated one would be considered as well. Bladesmulti (talk) 07:55, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Steeletrap you need to check your anti-religious AGENDA at the door and confine yourself to policy and guidelines. To the extent that Alchemy claims to be scientific, it is pseudoscience. No such claims are made on the part of exorcists. Your attempt to revise the definition in order to suit your openly declared prejudice is grossly inappropriate. And I am frankly disturbed that you may not understand this. -Ad Orientem (talk) 08:06, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Categories: