Just thinking...

My first post of 2011!  Apparently, people have been waiting to hear what I have to say.  Unfortunately, its not much.

The first thing I have to say is, Blogger's new editor sucks.  Hitting "enter" doesn't create a line break, it takes me back to the top of the entry, which is annoying.

In other news, I've been sick since Sunday night, with the longest sustained fever in the history of Meghan.  While waiting to get better I slept more than my cat, and listened to the New Testament on tape.  Which leads me to my first pondering question of the night.

It seems that in Jesus' day, there were a lot of people going around and being possessed by demons.  And not just the kind of demon possession where a reader could think, "Oh well it was a mental illness but in those days they didn't know what to call it so they called it demon possession."  These demons had personalities different from the people they were possessing, and brought to their hosts abilities humans cannot sustain, such as breaking through chains and taking gates off their hinges (yes, those stories were around long before "The Exorcist").  Having a personality disorder does not give you superhuman strength.  It also does not give you knowledge.  When Jesus encountered a demon-possessed person, the demons would declare him as "the Son of the Most High God," "the Holy One of Israel," or some other title which Jesus was not yet making public to his followers.  He would tell the demons to be quiet.  So, it seems clear to me that when it comes to demon possession, the accounts found in the Gospels are not simply misdiagnosed mental disorders.

My question is about today.  Aside from the movies, we don't see instances of demon possession.  The crazed people living in the wilds outside the city limits do not have superhuman strength.  They often have watery eyes, runny noses, and scars on their forearms.  So, where did all the demons go?  Did something happen that makes humans less vulnerable to possession?  Do the demons still possess people but have found a way to make their hosts blend into society better so that no one would suspect?  Did the demons simply find a better method to accomplish their goals (whatever those may be)?  Or is it just that all such instances of demon possession are hidden away and swept under the rug (denial of existence)?

And there were a few other things I was going to talk about but I think I'll save it for another day.