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News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyMay 16th, 2012
Get back, Mr. Demon!
Some time back I presented you with Reverend Bob Larson and his $9.95 online demon test:
Taking the Demon Test® may be the most important spiritual decision you make. This Test is the result of more than 30 years of research and thousands of hours in personal ministry with troubled souls. Through this vast experience we have been able to design this test so that we may quickly determine an individual’s spiritual condition.
I promised if I could get just one of you to sponsor me in the next AIDS/LifeCycle for $10 (or more), I would take the Demon Test® and report back on it.
So here’s the result: I don’t have a demon. Seriously. Rob Tisinai, confirmed homosexual, gay blogger, not a Believer an any conventional sort of diety, and one of the officially designated “homomafioso of Queer, Incorporated who oversee the image of Faggotry love.” And I don’t have a demon.
Not even me.
The test, obviously, is a fraud. Also, it shows how sadly mundane the Rev. Larson is. You can see a screenshot of the questions here, but a bunch of them sound like they come out of a standard psychological exam:
1) Do you sometimes exhibit uncontrollable outbursts of anger or violence?
7) Have ever attempted or contemplated suicide?
Others are more cliche:
2) Have you experimented with two or more forms of the occult?
13) Have you asked Satan to take your life in exchange for something?
And a few are just funny:
6) Do you commit immoral or illegal acts, contrary to your customary values?
See it only counts if they’re contrary to your customary values. But If your values usually tend toward the immoral and illegal, then apparently you’re fine.
I answered the questions honestly and came back at “low risk for demonic oppression/possession.” I experimented a bit, and realized that to get a high-risk diagnosis, I’d have to be so effed-up that I wouldn’t be capable of clicking a mouse. I began to suspect the test is rigged to reassure people that they’re okay. Where’s the angle in that? I wondered. But if the best advertising is word-of-mouth, then you might want to let people brag: I don’t have a demon; the test told me so. I’m not sure about you. And that’s when I realized:
This test was written by a demon.
Perhaps I’m too much under the influence of slacktivist and C.S. Lewis, but I think one of the best strategies for ruining a soul and sending it to Hell would be to make a person smugly secure of their own salvation. Especially if you’re pushing them into a hateful and intolerant attitude. And here the trifecta: Especially if their hateful and intolerant attitude is the very thing makes them smugly secure of their salvation.
This test isn’t really hateful, but smug security does look to be its goal. So I wondered: What would a real demon test look like, one that tried to expose the damnation strategy I outlined above? Here’s what I came up with:
If you answered yes to a few of those questions, then you may have a demon. If you answered no to all of those questions, then you certainly have a demon. It’s better to know your demons and wrestle them than to pay $10 for assurance they aren’t there.
Which takes me back to where I started. If you like my version of the Demon Test better, then please help support AIDS research and prevention by donating $10 — or 100, or 1000, or even just 1 — to my AIDS/LifeCycle effort. It’s an extraordinary event, a week of 2000 regular people bicycling 540 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles, in a huge tented community of love and support.
And I ought to admit one selfish thing: I spend a lot of time blogging in a state of high moral dudgeon, but I’m a better man the week of the LifeCycle than any other week of the year, and writing this test has only fortified my grasp of how much a guy like me needs experiences like that.
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Timothy Kincaid
May 16th, 2012
Rob,
It’s good to hear that you don’t have a demon. But should one appear, I can introduce you to my father who has experience in attempting to cast out demons. Ah, the happy memories of youth.
Oddly enough, your ‘real demon test’ will tie in nicely with a project I’m working on. Surprisingly nicely.
Maybe it was divine intervention of the unconventional deity form.
TampaZeke
May 16th, 2012
How clever that the demon in you knew to answer the questions in such a way as to make him/herself undetectable. Those damned demons are just so crafty!
Hyhybt
May 16th, 2012
Well, you have to admit #13 makes sense :)
Ian
May 17th, 2012
The format’s so obvious that i knew how to get ‘possessed by demons’ at the first glance, its like one of the quizzes you take for free to tell you more about yourself; only that this is easier than most of those quizzes and it costs $9.5.
Paul
May 17th, 2012
delicious and gluttonous?
Well, no. I stop after delicious.
Rob, I think the demon test you came up with does a much better job than the original. Thanks for writing.
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