Why are the New Age movement and other exotic ideas so attractive?

[StTommyMore]

I think you oversimplify neopaganism, “New Age,” or whatever religion or faith or spritualtiy you are describing.

Christianity is actually much easier than other traditions because Christians are told what to believe.

All you have to do is follow.

Seeker

Christianity was not tried and found wanting. It was found difficult and not tried–Chesterton

 

[OrdinaryMelkite]

Meh, I would consider being reborn as a roach to be just as horrible as burning inside the infamous tombs of the 6th circle.

On the other hand, I’ll take our Christian heaven over being reborn as another human being in the upper hierarchy since no matter how richer I might be, I would not risk the possibility of being inside a girl’s body. (I may sound sexist right now but seriously, the idea just grosses me out.)

 

[AntiTheist]

Well, you look at religions and see scatter shot, random and fixed points. I look at them and see both points and lines and some struggling movement. There is more order than disorder.

Alright, then. Name several conflicting claims made by different religions from around the world and explain how they could be simultaneously true.

 

[AntiTheist]

My faith doesn’t think the others are deluded, except perhaps in their delusion of believing that all others are wrong. What each person perceives to be God, or lack thereof are just synapses of the mind. They are not God. They are perceptions. Each person has their own experience, and each experience is valid as an experience. Since God is present in all things, these experiences or synapses of the mind are epiphenomenon of God as well, and in being so, are valid, even if they see no God.

And that claim you’ve just made – that every person experiences God in different ways – cannot be true at the same time as the claims of other religions that believe you to be wrong.

 

[AntiTheist]

So your reasoning is that because they can’t all be true at the same time then none are true.

No. I specifically went out of my way – in the very post that you quote – to say, " Now, this dichotomy doesn’t at all prove that there’s no god(s) …]"

I have never heard a religious person say they believe because it “spices up” their life.

Of course not. You’re also not going to hear a New Age “spiritual” person say that believing in tarot cards and magic crystals and past lives “spices up their lives,” but it doesn’t make it any less true that it does.

Well, as a Catholic, yes, I believe there is only one Church which contains the fullness of truth. However I do not believe that other Christians are deluded in any way. They also possess truth, but we do not believe they possess the fullness of truth. As for non-Christian religions, for the most part, they consist of people in search of truth and certainly contain truth to one degree or another, otherwise no one would follow them.

So then you’re in agreement with me: you believe that your religion is right and that the claims of other religions are wrong, although they might contain some things – like maybe some aspects of some of their moral codes – that you consider to be true.

Furthermore, you must believe that at least some other Christians are deluded. What do you call it when a Christian from another sect has a vision that tells him the Pope is the AntiChrist? You don’t consider that a delusion? What do you call it when a Christian from another sect has a vision where God tells him that consubstantiation, not transubstantiation is the true doctrine?

My point, then, is that you think that the inner spiritual experiences and beliefs of a large number of other people on the planet are delusions, and, incidentally, they likely think the same about your inner spiritual experiences and beliefs. It seems that when it comes to these spiritual experiences, it’s pretty difficult to determine the criteria for “delusion” and “not delusion,” doesn’t it? How do you go about making sure that it’s not you and members of your group that are the delusional ones, which is exactly what you think of members of other groups and what members of other groups think about you?

I would say, really, that the only completely deluded persons are atheists, who, in their pride, discard the possibility of anything or anyone greater than themselves.

There are a lot of things greater than me, as should be obvious to anyone who takes more than ten minutes to study the natural world.

 

[AntiTheist]

as much as I’m inclined to believe separating the internal and the external, there is still a clear relationship between the two. As a student of language, I know that relationship cannot be constant but that relationship still exists. Furthermore, it doesn’t mean neither is any more “real” than the other.

Of course the “internal” and the “external” are both equally real. If I have an internal experience of being hungry or being in love, it’s a real internal experience, despite the fact that only I can experience it. Similarly, if I get clocked on the head and have a hallucination of Barney the Purple Dinosaur, it’s a real hallucination that I’m experiencing.

But my internal experiences cannot by themselves confirm claims about the external world. No matter how strong my experience of Barney is, actual investigation into the matter – including gathering evidence from independent eyewitnesses – will quickly reveal that there’s no Barney there in the external world. Similarly, no matter how strongly I have an “internal experience” that there’s a conspiracy out to get me, it cannot demonstrate that a conspiracy really exists outside of my head.

It’s exactly the same with all this god business. A person’s deep inner experience of a god – whether that god is Shiva, Zeus, Jesus, or any of the other thousands of deities worshipped throughout human history – is a perfectly real inner experience, but that inner experience cannot demonstrate by itself that the god in question really exists in the external world.

Take historical evidence for instance. Do we have a record and detailed biography of every single soldier’s life in every war of man’s history?

No, so if you went around making detailed claims about one specific soldier that couldn’t be confirmed by any record, then I’d be well within my rights to doubt your claims until you could produce some evidence for them.

Can you really kid yourself to believe that, for instance, that one person you have in mind existed in that mass? There’s as good a chance that he didn’t.

What on earth are you talking about?

What about cases where a certain document shows up that challenges a current historical position of a certain event?

What about it? If there’s only one document that completely contradicts a well-supported understanding of an event, it probably wouldn’t do much to change our understanding of the event. If, however, all of a sudden there was a massive amount of corroborating evidence that turned up, all of it confirming this new account and drastically contradicting what we thought to be the case, then we’d revise our understanding of history.

That’s how evidence-based inquiry works: it generates the best tentative conclusions based on the best evidence that we have at the time, always subject to change. No one – at all – claims it to be “infallible” or “perfect.”

There’s none of this “faith” in our “fallible means” of whatever the heck you’re babbling on about. We make the best conclusions we can based on the best evidence we have, and we modify our conclusions when we find better evidence. If you want to misdescribe that as “faith,” then knock yourself out, but don’t expect anybody to be fooled by such a silly equivocation.

Go back and read post 87 in this thread for my take on the lunacy of trying to make everything into “faith.”

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

It’s exactly the same with all this god business. A person’s deep inner experience of a god – whether that god is Shiva, Zeus, Jesus, or any of the other thousands of deities worshipped throughout human history – is a perfectly real inner experience, but that inner experience cannot demonstrate by itself that the god in question really exists in the external world.

Okay you’re really contradicting yourself. First you say, they are both equally real yet at the same time, you deny one aspect of the “internal” in favor of the “external”. You cannot say they are both equally real if you’re gonna do that.

Secondly, you are still ignoring the fact that the relationship itself still exists. So long as you have that relationship, you cannot just say one cannot prove the other. That would instantly cut off whatever relationship the two things have. The images in your head of “Barney” may not prove “Barney” is real but they’re proof of a hallucination. See, there is a connection. Then again, there are other cases where one cannot just rule out the images of the internal. There’s a standard for that area too. Hence, I find that you have really nasty habit of oversimplifying things just in your rush to make an assertion.

No, so if you went around making detailed claims about one specific soldier that couldn’t be confirmed by any record, then I’d be well within my rights to doubt your claims until you could produce some evidence for them.

What on earth are you talking about?

Indeed but who is to say, really, that such a soldier didn’t exist? My point is the possibility of the unreliability of certain types of evidence. They can’t tell you everything. There are many holes in history and yet you think evidence is the perfect answer for everything.

That’s how evidence-based inquiry works: it generates the best tentative conclusions based on the best evidence that we have at the time, always subject to change. No one – at all – claims it to be “infallible” or “perfect.”

Well the way you make it sound as if it has the answers to everything sure makes it sound infallible. Again, stop kidding yourself.

There’s none of this “faith” in our “fallible means” of whatever the heck you’re babbling on about. We make the best conclusions we can based on the best evidence we have, and we modify our conclusions when we find better evidence. If you want to misdescribe that as “faith,” then knock yourself out, but don’t expect anybody to be fooled by it.

The only one trying to fool people is you and the only one who has been fooled is, again, you. You just pull a bare assertion that they’re not the same and you think you can get away without explaining it? You call it “false equivocation” yet blindly equivocate the argument against you by saying it leads to some form of relativism.

I state again, there are many ways to procure/analyze evidence and discern truth which paves the way for all sorts of human error regardless if the truths in question be religious, philosophical, scientific, moral etc, etc. Thus, the only conclusion is that to believe in any of them, it does take a leap of faith.

 

[AnAtheist]

I am not sure your truncated description provides enough data for us to draw a conclusion. I realize that lack of data doesn’t stop you from making a conclusion, but some of us are wondering what you think you’ve proven.

I think it proves that a religion’s unique content shows nothing more than its uniqueness. It says nothing about that content’s truth e.g.

 

[mexilad]

Based on my experience, I think there are a numbers of factors that go into it. Many of them have already been eluded to or mentioned outright. First off, the Devil is a tireless deciever. That is a reality. Also, it sounds good. You can sin to your heart’s content. The idea of doing what you want with no accountability is very, very appealing.

I don’t recall, this being mentioned in this thread yet, but I think poor Catechism is also partly to blame. I think it is a major factor in the case of people who are raised Catholic and fall away from the Church. I was not prepared to face this fraud. Also, the fraud of new age was giving answers to questions the nuns would not address. If we as Catholics, especially Catholic educators, do not confront the hard issues and teach the full faith, people will look for the answers elsewhere, and they can fall prey to deceivers.

I do not absolve myself of responsibility for my falling away from the Church for nearly twenty years. However, I must say the watered down Vatican II approach did nothing to help me stay in the Church.

God bless you.

 

[vera_dicere]

Because folks want to avoid facing the prospect of being accountable for their life and possibly going to hell.

Reincarnation, although equally hideous if you think about it much, at least is less physically uncomfortable

Reincarnation just seems really unsatisfying if you think about it.

So you die and get reborn as a roach, so what? You live a few weeks before you get squished by some uppity house wife. Then what next? A cat who gets hit by a car. A stray dog who gets put down at the pound. A poor kid who gets adopted by Angelina?

My sister is slipping into Buddhism wiht a touch of the new age and reincarnation, it just seems empty and mindless, wandering through physical existance without any hope.

As others have said, the new age is simply about people rebelling against accountability, its that comfortable feeling that they can sin all they want and not have to pay the piper, they can feign their ignorance and have a fun time with all their hippy friends. I also think its a touch of searching for truth yet seeing God and Christianity as the “old skool” and old skool being authortarian and negative. Perhaps a way of rebelling against their parents, or probably grandparents. Like the whole tattoo and piercing thing, trying to be an individual.

Mind you, I give it more cred then scientology, heh, what a joke that is!

These people are searching for the truth, all the while denying God. They’ll never really be happy. They need our prayers.

 

[nordskoven]

Fake Christians tend to de-link people from Christianity, leaving souls ripe for New Age errors. So I need to take personal responsibility for not fasting, praying and giving alms on any but a lukewarm level. May God grant us renewed vigor. The rest is easy. The cash alone in the New Age movement means the sales pitch is going to be top-notch. Shirley MacLaine said she made more money pimping that channeled spirit (the one that counseled, “Do any despicable thing you want. You’re only expressing yourself…”) than she ever did in the movies. Gnostic books have been on the NY Times top ten list for decades. St. John Bosco warned as much in his vision of the Barque of Peter bombarded by shot and shell and books! Here’s Hannah Newman’s online book documenting the foundation of the New Age movement, “The Rainbow Swastika.” New Agers are universally led by anti-Semites, as this Israeli documents. Of course, what else would Satan do as regards the Chosen People?

philologos.org/guide/books/newman.hannah.1.htm

 

[Edward_H]

Alright, then. Name several conflicting claims made by different religions from around the world and explain how they could be simultaneously true.

This is originally your hasty and unsubstantiated assertion. Review above.

Monotheistic religions share truth (there is one God); Pantheistic religions share truth with Monotheistic religions in that there is both God and not God.

Atheists share truth with other religions in that they believe in Truth. Otherwise they wouldn’t be so adamant in their own view point. They’d be more wishy washy.

 

[Edward_H]

I think it proves that a religion’s unique content shows nothing more than its uniqueness. It says nothing about that content’s truth e.g.

Quite right. Please review the thread more closely. My original point on this sub-thread was to cast doubt on the value of using mere parallelism and comparison as a judge of truth as well.

It’s Monday morning, and we’re still left with the absolute truth that there is either a God or not a God.

 

[AnAtheist]

It’s Monday morning, and we’re still left with the absolute truth that there is either a God or not a God.

It’s Monday evening by now over here, and I am pondering the absolute truth that there may be many gods.

 

[AntiTheist]

Okay you’re really contradicting yourself. First you say, they * are both equally real yet at the same time, you deny one aspect of the “internal” in favor of the “external”. You cannot say they are both equally real if you’re gonna do that.* You’re confused on an important point here.

Let’s say that you pray and have a deep, inner feeling that you call “an experience of God.” I’m saying that the experience is totally real as an inner feeling. It exists – if it didn’t exist, you couldn’t experience it – but it exists only as an inner feeling. It’s a real inner feeling.

But that inner feeling, by itself, cannot demonstrate that there’s an external entity called God.

Similarly, let’s say that you go home and have a paranoid delusion that there’s a conspiracy out to get you. That delusion is a perfectly real experience of an actual delusion – if it wasn’t a real delusion, you wouldn’t be experiencing the delusion – but it exists only as an inner feeling.

But that inner feeling, by itself, cannot demonstrate that there’s an external conspiracy against you.

Do you see where I’m coming from?

Indeed but who is to say, really

 

[Edward_H]

It’s Monday evening by now over here, and I am pondering the absolute truth that there may be many gods.

That’s a good exercise for you. Keep at it.

 

[Edward_H]

If we just relied on the material evidence in front of us (…vs. using our imagination, our intuition, AND the collected evidence we have), would we have discovered the existence of many things in physics that we’ve discovered over the last 100 years?

 

[Scott_D_1]

I can say I followed the “new age” for quite some time in my past… Wicca, Witchcraft, Neo-paganism, and the such.
Wicca (Not to be confused with Traditional Witchcraft or Witchcraft) is a rather new the 1950s-1960s started by Gardner.
I can say the lure of the friendship may one gain in a small group, the “being free to do what one wants, as long as it harms none”, the thought of having power to change the environment around you, and just being different is all the lure.

But then there is the “power” some crave (or thought of power) and wanting to lead or have control of another goes to some people’s heads…

Looking back, I can see many similarities at a Catholic rituals and Wiccan rituals.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

But that inner feeling, by itself, cannot demonstrate that there’s an external entity called God.

Again, you do not clarify your contradictions. You do not deny the reality of either the external or the internal but claim the non-existence of something you claim can only be experienced in the internal. You also still ignore the fact that there is a relationship between the external and the internal. You say it’s confused but it’s clear that the one confused is you.

Again, take language as an example. There is a distinct separation between meaning and the form used to express that meaning. In this case, the form may not be consistent or constant but the relationship exists and neither does it deny the existence of meaning.

Evidence-based inquiry is often partial, fragmentary, incomplete, subject to faulty interpretation, and then in the end often can only come down to a question of probabilities. But it’s the only tool we have to come to knowledge.

Again, read this carefully: I don’t think that evidence-based inquiry is “perfect,” nor do I think it can tell us “everything,” but I have yet to see any other method of obtaining knowledge, which is why I asked you initially to suggest some other way of obtaining knowledge.

And yet you deny that dependence on such an imperfect means does not require a leap of faith? It does not matter if it is the only tool to obtain knowledge (which is yet another assertion you have failed to elaborate). The fact remains it is imperfect, it doesn’t have all the answers and yet you rely on it still.

You need to start reading what I actually write, rather than reacting to some vague impression you get from my words.

Sounds like you need a mirror.

Of course not. I explained it already in post #86, which I see I’m going to have to copy and paste below for you:

And I see that you’re the one who hasn’t really done much reading. Did you miss the part about you making an equivocation yourself? Hypocrite. There is nothing in your self-proclaimed “logic” that justifies that having simply faith in something means it is true. It simply means that you are no more closer to the truth than anybody else. That is where the diversity of discerning truth (which includes the procurement/analysis of evidence) should come in. It’s not because all assertions are true but simply that they both drew different conclusions from the same limited amount of evidence. Does it mean they’re both true? No. Does it mean they’re both false? Not necessarily. Does it mean the truth itself does not exist? Absolutely not.

 

[AntiTheist]

You do not deny the reality of either the external or the internal but claim the non-existence of something you claim can only be experienced in the internal.

I’m not sure how many more ways I can explain this. Maybe if I put it in terms of categories, it’ll be easier to understand.

There are some things that are only internal experiences that only exist in people’s minds. There are other things that exist independently of anyone’s mind. They both exist, but they exist in different ways.

I’m saying that something like the “inner experience of a god” is most definitely exists in the first category (as a internal experience), but that internal experience, by itself, can’t demonstrate that the god exists in the second category (independently of anyone’s mind).

And yet you deny that dependence on such an imperfect means does not require a leap of faith?

Yes, I deny it. The means is imperfect, but it takes no faith at all to say that the conclusions reached by evidence-based inquiry are the best we currently have.

Let me paint a little scenario for you. Let’s say Billy Bob goes to the top of a mountain and has a deep, inner experience of the god that he worships telling him that if he jumps off, he can fly under his own power. Gee, he thinks, should I have faith in my inner experience?

Then, he considers that evidence strongly suggests that if he jumps off the mountain he will not fly under his own power and he will, in fact, die. The evidence comes from tons of sources: accounts of falling deaths, a knowledge of how gravity works, a knowledge of biology, a knowledge of the lack of examples of anyone ever flying under their own power, etc, etc, etc.

But then, of course, he says, “Now, wait a second. Evidence isn’t perfect, and I’m just a fallible person, I may not have gathered that evidence correctly, so I need to make a decision whether or not I have faith in this evidence.”

And Billy Bob talks himself into thinking that he has to decide whether to put his faith in the evidence or to put his faith in his deep, inner feelings of the experience of his god.

So, I ask you, humble readers, whether you think that Billy Bob is right – that it’s just a matter of faith which option you choose and thus no way of objectively determining the truth of the matter – or whether you think that there is, in fact, a way of determining what is most likely the truth.

If you think BIlly Bob is right – that it’s all a matter of faith – then Billy Bob doesn’t have any reason to put his “faith” in evidence any more than he has reason to put his “faith” in his deep, inner conviction that he can fly. In fact, he might even reason that since he didn’t personally gather all of the evidence for falling deaths, biology, etc, then he’ safer trusting in what is most immediate and what, from his perspective, he has the most reason to put faith in. After all, he’s felt his god before and had faith in his god before, like that time his god led him to the spot he lost his car keys in…

Now, if, on the other hand, you think that there is actually a way to determine what’s true in this situation, you will be forced to admit that the claim with sufficient evidence supporting it is the one that any rational person should accept. This being the case, you’re admitting that “faith” – even if you insist on misusing it in a way that means “everybody has faith in everything!” – doesn’t enter into the picture here. The way we judge a claim to be true is through the use of evidence, not through the use of faith.