Man blows up his dog because he thought it was a host of demons

[kramerfan86]

Why do you say that? Isn't is a bit ridiculous to claim someone ranting and raving about literature is not strongly literately inclined?

Literature isnt a belief system, and its fairly common for people to be obsessive over one work. Look in the modern age how many people are obsessed with Twilight or Harry Potter but have 0 interest beyond that. I dont particularly consider loving one book being literary inclined. on the other hand how many people do you know with a deep concern over demonic possession who have absolutely no concern for religion beyond demonic possession? obviously there are no statistics on such a thing but Id be willing to wager that sort of narrow focus is considerably rarer than people honing in on isolated works in literature, film, etc.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Literature isnt a belief system, and its fairly common for people to be obsessive over one work. Look in the modern age how many people are obsessed with Twilight or Harry Potter but have 0 interest beyond that. I dont particularly consider loving one book being literary inclined.

The man is raving about literature, what other evidence do you need that the man really loved literature? Are you really going to doubt that a man ranting a raving about literature doesn't like literature? Or are you doubting we can extrapolate from the second hand statements of a schizophrenic the entirety of his thoughts?

obviously there are no statistics on such a thing but Id be willing to wager that sort of narrow focus is considerably rarer than people honing in on isolated works in literature, film, etc.

So you're quite confident that this man has...I don't know, some concrete ideas about the nature of Transubstantiation, Advaita Vedanta and the works of Chesterton and Tolstoy?

 

[kramerfan86]

Most likely not, but at the same time its fairly well established from a cultural norm/definitional standpoint that someone is "deeply religious" by merely being passionate about one religion, if I had to guess in this particular case Christianity. By the same token culturally I think its fairly normal to not consider one a literature buff because you love one book, but maybe Im wrong on that Im just going from personal experience.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Most likely not, but at the same time its fairly well established from a cultural norm/definitional standpoint that someone is "deeply religious" by merely being passionate about one religion, if I had to guess in this particular case Christianity.

So I'll limit the question to Tolstoy, Chesterton and Transubstantiation.

 

[kramerfan86]

So I'll limit the question to Tolstoy, Chesterton and Transubstantiation.

That just loops back around to my original point, ignorance isnt the same thing as not being passionate about it. Islamic terrorists clearly missed the plot, but I dont think you can argue they arent incredibly religious, even if their ignorance of the thing they are so fanatical about makes them dangerous to society.

I just personally find it hard to believe that a fairly non-religous person would have delusions about demonic possession. Delusions the dog is evil, the dog is talking to me, voices told me to get rid of the dog, etc would be to me relatively non-religious delusions, but demons are a very religious idea that implies to me that his illness was building on a pre-existing belief system. Obviously just an opinion though, I dont know the guy personally.

 

[ParkCungHee]

That just loops back around to my original point, ignorance isnt the same thing as not being passionate about it.

If that's the case, why can't you be passionate about literature after reading one book, or passionate about

Islamic terrorists clearly missed the plot, but I dont think you can argue they arent incredibly religious, even if their ignorance of the thing they are so fanatical about makes them dangerous to society.

Surely though, if I asked an Islamic terrorist his opinion of say, the Nahj al-Balagha he'd at least be able to give me an intelligible opinion on it.

I just personally find it hard to believe that a fairly non-religous person would have delusions about demonic possession. Delusions the dog is evil, the dog is talking to me, voices told me to get rid of the dog, etc would be to me relatively non-religious delusions, but demons are a very religious idea that implies to me that his illness was building on a pre-existing belief system. Obviously just an opinion though, I dont know the guy personally.

Mental illness doesn't work like that though. You're assuming that it is simply an extension of our rational thought process, rather than a abrogation of that thought process.

This isn't pleading to the idea that truly religious people can't do awful things. I'll fully acknowledge an Islamic Terrorist as being a religious individual. But this story has all the hallmarks of schizophrenia, and it's not just a misunderstanding of religion, but a misunderstanding of schizophrenia if you think the delusions are an outgrowth of an underlying belief system.

 

[El_Machinae]

One can also get religious ideas and inclinations due to their schizophrenia. He might not have been religious, but you'd think of him as religious if he now deeply believes in demons, etc.

 

[Samson]

Where in the story did it say he was 'ranting and raving'?

Again, being sick in the head and having a psychotic episode with religious themes doesn't prove that the person was 'deeply religious'. Point being, having a religious obsession simply isn't the same as a person being 'deeply religious'.

He may have been 'deeply religious' or he may not have been. The media doesn't really address that particular point to any degree for the simple reason its really not pertinent to the case.

And as of today they are adding animal cruelty charges as well.

What this still leaves is the question that started this 'sub-thread'. It is posstulated that these statements are true:

• This guy killed his dog because he thought it was possessed
• You believe possesion to really happen
• You believe this guy to mad because of what he did

The question was asked what is it about this case that allows you to say that this is a case of madness rather than real possesion.

 

[Formaldehyde]

This isn't pleading to the idea that truly religious people can't do awful things. I'll fully acknowledge an Islamic Terrorist as being a religious individual. But this story has all the hallmarks of schizophrenia, and it's not just a misunderstanding of religion, but a misunderstanding of schizophrenia if you think the delusions are an outgrowth of an underlying belief system.

Are all those who believe in demons and possession schizophrenic?

How do you know this particular person "has all the hallmarks of schizophrenia" based on what little we do know?

Granted, it isn't exactly rational behavior to blow the head off a doggy. But it isn't exactly rational behavior to believe in demons or possession either.

 

[Kyriakos]

I tend to think, though, that most of the religious people who believe in any pronounced way in demons are quite more unstable than the average religious person, given that it would seem horrible to live while being afraid of demonic beings lurking near or in some shadowy corner of the mind or matter.

From what i heard, schizophrenia is quite often linked to belief in demons, probably because it often involves wild hallucinations which can become quite sinister. So it would make "sense" as a defence mechanism for one who happens to see from time to time some monstrous form in his chair, to think it was a demon, instead of thinking that he is really in very deep trouble at the moment, mentally.

 

[bhsup]

Believing in the existence of demons does not mean living in fear of demons lurking in corners. Where did you even get that idea?

Though I do confess that when I was in 6th grade and watched The Exorcist on tv, I slept on the floor of my older brother's room for like a week after that!

 

[Kyriakos]

Believing in the existence of demons does not mean living in fear of demons lurking in corners. Where did you even get that idea?

Though I do confess that when I was in 6th grade and watched The Exorcist on tv, I slept on the floor of my older brother's room for like a week after that!

If you read my post again you'll see that i included some sort of clue that i meant a belief which is rather on the active side of things Ie if one just believes demons exist, a bit like the foreign and potentially dangerous in a collision with the earth, masses in space exist but are destroyed before reaching it due to the nature of the solar system, then obviously he would have little reason to think much of the subject.
But if one believes demons are very near, and even behind any ill that is happening to him, much like many notable saints believed, then i am sure his life would be a lot more difficult to handle.

 

[El_Machinae]

got a link? I am not schizophrenic (except in a database or two), but I have taken plenty of their meds, and there certainly seems to be another new atypical antipsychotic arriving every couple of years. Google gives me http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...phrenia-drug-met-clinical-trial-goals-2-.html and http://frx.investorhq.businesswire....esent-data-cariprazine-and-levomilnacipran-ph about a new one that may get approved soon.

It's just something I know from being close to the industry. Remember, bringing a new drug online means that the foundational research was done ~10 years ago. That is the area that Big Pharma is abandoning. I can see how there're some drugs that will have a bit of Phase III momentum (the part where the drug is tested widely to see if patients respond better than placebo). But here's an article on the topic.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/348115/description/No_New_Meds

Not a single drug designed to treat a psychiatric illness in a novel way has reached patients in more than 30 years, argues psychiatrist Christian Fibiger of the University of British Columbia in Kelowna, who described the problem in a 2012 Schizophrenia Bulletin editorial.
...
Despite a dire need for better treatments and a large market — one in four Americans suffers from a diagnosable mental illness in any given year — many drug companies are retreating. Though some small, targeted efforts remain in place, pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and Novartis recently shuttered their main brain drug discovery programs.
...

This is effing, effing frustrating to me. Nearly no one gives money. It's an 'out of sight, out of mind' disease, where people trust 'the system' to lock up and sequester those suffering from the illness. It's prevalence is higher than Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson's Disease combined.

ps: The 'schizophrenia' in your sig seems to be fubared, it shows as a link, but points nowhere.

Yeah, I didn't know what to say. Loved ones were recently restruck with the personal horror of a family member re-suffering the consequences of this disease in their son. "personal horror" is the right word; but I don't know how to talk about it. And the median life expectancy for someone like him is another 30+ years. That's a lot of trauma.

 

[Archbob]

How do we know the dog was not in fact, demon possessed?

 

[Kyriakos]

How do we know the dog was not in fact, demon possessed?

AFAIK the man was also an amateur sculptor, and it turns out the police asked him to create a model of what, to his eyes, the dog looked like in its final day:

 

[Archbob]

Now, if the dog does look like that, it either is demon-possessed or has rabies. If it indeed is demon-possessed that means the ex-girlfriend did indeed put a demon inside the dog and give it to him and you know what that means....

 

[Formaldehyde]

Oh, indeed we do.

 

[sanabas]

It's just something I know from being close to the industry. Remember, bringing a new drug online means that the foundational research was done ~10 years ago. That is the area that Big Pharma is abandoning. I can see how there're some drugs that will have a bit of Phase III momentum (the part where the drug is tested widely to see if patients respond better than placebo). But here's an article on the topic.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/348115/description/No_New_Meds

This is effing, effing frustrating to me. Nearly no one gives money. It's an 'out of sight, out of mind' disease, where people trust 'the system' to lock up and sequester those suffering from the illness. It's prevalence is higher than Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson's Disease combined.

Don't have time to read right now, but the first underlined part of the quote isn't such cause for alarm, I think. No new novel methods is different to no new drugs. Heavy duty painkillers are still opiates after a lot of years, anti-depressants have basically only gone tricyclics-SSRI-SNRIs, etc. The novel change was from the older antipsychotics (e.g. Thorazine) to the newer, atypical antipsychotics. But there are quite a few of the newer ones, doing subtly different things, binding to different receptors, etc.

Yeah, I didn't know what to say. Loved ones were recently restruck with the personal horror of a family member re-suffering the consequences of this disease in their son. "personal horror" is the right word; but I don't know how to talk about it. And the median life expectancy for someone like him is another 30+ years. That's a lot of trauma.

I don't know what the link used to point to. But that sucks.

 

[El_Machinae]

Don't have time to read right now, but the first underlined part of the quote isn't such cause for alarm, I think. No new novel methods is different to no new drugs.

That's true. The real alarm is due to the cessation of research funding. As you know, many patients respond very poorly to the current drugs, and the process of trying out the various drugs can be fairly hellish.

 

[Kyriakos]

That's true. The real alarm is due to the cessation of research funding. As you know, many patients respond very poorly to the current drugs, and the process of trying out the various drugs can be fairly hellish.

Given the current state of knowledge of the brain, it is quite understandable that such drugs cannot function in very specific ways, that is highly related to the particular patient's case. I guess, in a way, their effect could be likened to dealing with the problem of one having fallen to a low level in some edifice, and the drugs effectively filling up the whole lower level with water, so that the person can return to the previous height without having to find himself a real exit he can follow through.

You can fall from a chasm, but not really climb back if it is way too steep. But the water will go away too, when the drug is not active anymore in the patient, so if he remains immobile it is to be expected that he will just fall into the chasm again, along with the residing water, only less dramatically.

From my own discussion with psychiatrists (although i am not schizophrenic) i found that they pretty much agree that the drugs act only as a sort of helping hand, or a push to some athlete. If the athlete relies on them, even if they do work for him, he still has not regained his own dynamics of moving and sustaining his healthy pace.