Are psychopaths posesssed by the devil?
there is no devil ... same way there was no magic when chemists did something cool in the dark ages
No, and they in no way deserve the kind of stupidity that some christians would inflict on them, in pursuit of this mistaken and entirely baseless assumption.
some people just have head injurys and birth defects and that causes them to be strange. But I do think some people are possessed by the devil.
There is not evidence to suggest that. Evidence strongly supports that psychopathy is caused by brain injury or deformation. The most famous cases are Phineas Gage and Chris Benoit. Phineas Gage was a construction excavator in the 1940's a freak explosion shot an iron rod into his head. Incredibly (especially given the lack of antibiotics at the time) he survived the removal of the rod and lived for several years after that. It was noted that he showed increasingly sociopathic and psychotic behavior soon after the accident. Chris Benoit was a pro wrestler who began showing signs of mental instability after a botched wrestling stunt gave him a serious concussion (one of several in his life of high impact pseudo-sports). In 2007 he went full on psycho, strangled his children and wife, then hung himself. These are just two famous cases that support the idea that head injuries, not demons cause psychopathic behavior. In the absence of head trauma the likely culprit is a congenital birth defect or injury in the brain area. Religion, OTOH, will only make it worse. A psychopath who believes in demons due to a religious upbringing will interpret the symptoms of psychopathy AS demonic influence or torment and may not seek the ideal treatment and they to pray away the brain injury instead.
