Why do some consider New Age spirituality worse or on the same level as atheism or agnosticism?

[Cadian]

You said: “Everything you say is against the first commandment.” Actually I’m agreeing with the first commandment. I believe there are other gods and that we should not worship them.

What do you believe the very first commandment means, if you deny the existence of other gods? What’s the point? Why the priority in the list of commandments, if indeed there isn’t anybody else to worship? And how do you suppose that your believing that there are no other gods makes you a better Christian than me; when God Himself seems to state that there are other gods who we are not supposed to worship?

There are no other “gods”. There never were. The first commandment means you will have no other “gods” period. The “before me” language does not acknowledge that there are other “gods” nor that one can worship any of these “imaginary gods” AND God if you just put God first.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

There is nothing sincere in your post. There never is. You hide behind faux sincerity and politcally correct language. Trolling is trolling as are all your posts and I will treat them as such. It is YOU who continue to want to engage with me. After I posted yesterday that I was done arguing with you, I ment just that. I am done. I don’t argue with trolls.

I wish you had meant it yesterday when you wrote that. I see you’ve graduated into full-fledge name-calling now.

I love you too.

Alan

 

[Tobias65]

There are no other “gods”. There never were. The first commandment means you will have no other “gods” period. The “before me” language does not acknowledge that there are other “gods” nor that one can worship any of these “imaginary gods” AND God if you just put God first.

I really don’t have that big of problem with your interpretation of what “other gods” means. I have suggested that perhaps Athena is an angel. Are angels gods? Or what about Saints, can they become gods?

If indeed there are no other gods, then every mention of “other gods” in the entire Bible must refer to non-god-like creatures that people have worshiped by mistake.

The only difference between us IMO is that you prefer to insert your theology into OT scripture, while I’m simply quoting it using the original words and thoughts it portrays. When God said “don’t worship other gods” I’m certain that “other gods” includes Athena. I refer to her sometimes as a goddess, because history and society have classified her as such. And I believe God has called beings such as herself “gods” in the Bible.

But she most certainly is not a being on equal footing with the Lord God!

So what’s the point of all this? I think people run into problems with Neo-paganism when they do in fact encounter pagan deities as real entities. This theology that “there are no other gods” starts to look like Christian ignorant foolishness to anybody who actually encounters them! Couple that with the immediate excommunication (that I have already been ever so nicely offered in this discussion for saying that Athena is real), we loose people simply because we elevate our theology over the actual method that God talked to pagans in the Bible. 9 times out of 10 in the OT God doesn’t tell the worshipers of other gods that their deities are not real. He simply restates His command that He alone is to be worshiped!

What is wrong with following God’s example?

 

[Cadian]

I really don’t have that big of problem with your interpretation of what “other gods” means. I have suggested that perhaps Athena is an angel. Are angels gods? Or what about Saints, can they become gods?

If indeed there are no other gods, then every mention of “other gods” in the entire Bible must refer to non-god-like creatures that people have worshiped by mistake.

The only difference between us IMO is that you prefer to insert your theology into OT scripture, while I’m simply quoting it using the original words and thoughts it portrays. When God said “don’t worship other gods” I’m certain that “other gods” includes Athena. I refer to her sometimes as a goddess, because history and society have classified her as such. And I believe God has called beings such as herself “gods” in the Bible.

But she most certainly is not a being on equal footing with the Lord God!

So what’s the point of all this? I think people run into problems with Neo-paganism when they do in fact encounter pagan deities as real entities. This theology that “there are no other gods” starts to look like Christian ignorant foolishness to anybody who actually encounters them! Couple that with the immediate excommunication (that I have already been ever so nicely offered in this discussion for saying that Athena is real), we loose people simply because we elevate our theology over the actual method that God talked to pagans in the Bible. 9 times out of 10 in the OT God doesn’t tell the worshipers of other gods that their deities are not real. He simply restates His command that He alone is to be worshiped!

What is wrong with following God’s example?

First off God is always refferred to in the masculin. There is not one refference to God being refferred to otherwise. Talk about “interjecting one’s theology”. sound the irony bell

Second the “gods” that were reffered to in the bible were not “anything” they were errors of peoples understanding of the supernatureal.

There is only the Triune God. There was only the Triune God. There will only ever be the Triune God.

Your “thought processes” are why there is a magisterial teaching arm of the church. Your “reason” is lacking and you perform the error of eisegesis.

TLDR;
God is NEVER refferred to in anything else but the masculine. There was, is, and every shall be, only one Triune God.

 

[Kevin12]

Re priests who “spice up” the official religion - I was referring to one of the comments linked in my post (“At my parish they have Zen-Meditation courses every week”, said the Swedish poster), not to the Latin Mass.
I suspect that the ironic paradox with the Latin Mass is that it is revived and promoted precisely to restore the old structure of Catholic worship and faith, “purged” of Protestant and pagan elements, but in fact it ends up by attracting precisely the young people who yearn for all things intense, exotic, elitist and mysterious - quite the stuff many people who are into New Age spirituality are attracted to. But does it mean that New Agers have a greater chance to become Traditional Catholics? From what I gather (but maybe I’m wrong), New Agers cherish freedom and informality, while Trad Catholics want the opposite - discipline and strict rules.

Re “my way of thinking”: in my previous post I only wanted to figure out why the Church and many Christians are more reticent towards New Age than towards atheists; I don’t claim to have a firm opinion on what is more conducive to or more dangerous to Christianity.
I have personally known 1**) cradle Catholics and Orthodox whose faith has devolved into cultural Christianity and Christian atheism and who are dissappointed in their own incapacity to stick to the whole faith of their childhood and parent**s; 2) cradle Catholics and Orthodox whose faith has devolved into a funny mixture of superstitions and syncretic beliefs; 3) an atheist who converted to Catholicism a long time ago and is happy and firm in his faith; 4) a few cradle secularists who are attracted to New Age and sometimes take it seriously, but reject any organized religion, because they perceive it as oppressive. So I can’t draw a conclusion.

I think that this first one is the main issue, because there are many people who want to believe, but think because scientists like Richard Dawkins and others trumpet the incompatibility of science and religion, it must be so. This one is much more prevalent in my experience, and therefore much more pernicious.

As to Tobias, I remember in That Hideous Strength by Lewis, there was something similar to something you might have said, about the pagan gods being shadows of angels who watch over the different planets of the solar system - though the shadows themselves are depicted as being capricious and chaotic, and not to be trusted. I would only advise you, that if what you are speaking of are in fact angels, it would be better to consider them as such, or ask the saints for aid. I personally won’t deny that the saints, with their myriad patronages, act similarly to the pagan gods - but one might rather say that the gods were only the foreshadowing of the saints.

 

[Kevin12]

So what’s the point of all this? I think people run into problems with Neo-paganism when they do in fact encounter pagan deities as real entities. This theology that “there are no other gods” starts to look like Christian ignorant foolishness to anybody who actually encounters them! Couple that with the immediate excommunication (that I have already been ever so nicely offered in this discussion for saying that Athena is real), we loose people simply because we elevate our theology over the actual method that God talked to pagans in the Bible. 9 times out of 10 in the OT God doesn’t tell the worshipers of other gods that their deities are not real. He simply restates His command that He alone is to be worshiped!

What is wrong with following God’s example?

I think your problem is with terminology. I don’t think they can be called gods, because their isn’t anything like that in Christian theology besides God.

If you look at classical myth, the idea is that the first gods, Gaia and Ouranous and all the primordial deities, simply emerged from uncreated chaos, which had always existed. This is unaccepted to monotheism, because it makes the universe eternal, and grants sentience to beings that isn’t given by God. Ovid does say that Chaos was first ordered by “some [unnamed] god”, which could be thought of as God, but that doesn’t change the fact that to him it had always existed.

 

[Tobias65]

First off God is always refferred to in the masculin. There is not one refference to God being refferred to otherwise. Talk about “interjecting one’s theology”. sound the irony bell

Second the “gods” that were reffered to in the bible were not “anything” they were errors of peoples understanding of the supernatureal.

There is only the Triune God. There was only the Triune God. There will only ever be the Triune God.

Your “thought processes” are why there is a magisterial teaching arm of the church. Your “reason” is lacking and you perform the error of eisegesis.

TLDR;
God is NEVER refferred to in anything else but the masculine. There was, is, and every shall be, only one Triune God.

Ok so first off, I have never referred to God in the feminine. I don’t understand what point you are trying to make about that.

Second… Is my logic really that difficult to follow? To claim that Athena (and/or every other god that has ever been worshiped) does not exists simply because they have been called gods… doesn’t work for me. Many people believe that Mary has been worshiped, but I don’t think the accusation of worship causes a spiritual being to suddenly poof out of existence!

 

[Cadian]

Ok so first off, I have never referred to God in the feminine. I don’t understand what point you are trying to make about that.

I will retract that then … as I performed eisegesis on your prose.

Second… Is my logic really that difficult to follow? To claim that Athena (and/or every other god that has ever been worshiped) does not exists simply because they have been called gods… doesn’t work for me. Many people believe that Mary has been worshiped, but I don’t think the accusation of worship causes a spiritual being to suddenly poof out of existence!

I see how you came to your conclusion but, it doesn’t make it correct. There never was anthing being worshipped real or imagined. As to the “marry worship”, I think you said it best “Many people believe that Mary has been worshiped …” but, noone ever did. That is error propogated from those that do not understand Mary’s role or are oponents of the Catholic Church. Nothing suddenly “poofed” out of existance because those “gods” never existed in the first place.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Tobias65,

I have a question for you. What interest do you have in religion? For example, do you see it as something that can give you some serenity, at least ideally? Or maybe that there is truth that hasn’t presented itself to you so far and you want to honestly know the truth – but so far what has been presented to you hasn’t seemed worthy of investing your beliefs in?

Do you think you can decide what you believe, or do you just have to be convinced in something one way or the other? Do you find it easy to change your mind when faced with sufficiently compelling evidence of a new way to look at something? Either to add to, change, or even replace what you thought before?

Does it make you anxious that you have unresolved personal beliefs about God? I know that some people don’t believe in God and are OK with it; others don’t believe in God and think they “should” at least from a societal standpoint because “God-people” are so often equated with “good-people” that mainstream thinking of religion would like to believe there is a 100% correlation but knows there is not.

Alan

 

[Tobias65]

Tobias65,

I have a question for you. What interest do you have in religion? For example, do you see it as something that can give you some serenity, at least ideally? Or maybe that there is truth that hasn’t presented itself to you so far and you want to honestly know the truth – but so far what has been presented to you hasn’t seemed worthy of investing your beliefs in?

Do you think you can decide what you believe, or do you just have to be convinced in something one way or the other? Do you find it easy to change your mind when faced with sufficiently compelling evidence of a new way to look at something? Either to add to, change, or even replace what you thought before?

Does it make you anxious that you have unresolved personal beliefs about God? I know that some people don’t believe in God and are OK with it; others don’t believe in God and think they “should” at least from a societal standpoint because “God-people” are so often equated with “good-people” that mainstream thinking of religion would like to believe there is a 100% correlation but knows there is not.

Alan

I’m not sure what you are getting at Alan, but I’ll take a stab at it anyway.

I was raised in Bible-Believing Christianity where “It’s not a religion, it a relationship.” Relationship is literally the core of my spirituality; often I think more so than what the leaders of my sect of Christianity ever intended.

Religion IMO is simply a language to communicate spiritual ideas. Some doctrines/teachings work well to describe spiritual realities, others do not. Those that appear to not work either are beyond my understanding, or are erroneous. Often all a person has to do is tweek the wording of a religious belief slightly to make it work to communicate spiritual truth. The reason being that people with no actual spiritual experience in the matter have repeated the spiritual truth over and over again, without really understanding it’s true meaning. But some people “get it”, and when they teach it there is a depth of understanding that those who simply repeat cannot imitate.

I’m simply looking to fellowship with other saints who might have different insights than what I’ve encountered before. In return I feel it is only right to share some of what I know. If “other gods do not exist” is an official doctrine of the CC, I had no idea and would not have pushed the issue had I known. I have run into this belief at times with Protestants, and can easily show how it is not supported by scripture. But who am I to argue with official Catholic doctrine???

 

[AlanFromWichita]

I’m not sure what you are getting at Alan, but I’ll take a stab at it anyway.

I was raised in Bible-Believing Christianity where “It’s not a religion, it a relationship.” Relationship is literally the core of my spirituality; often I think more so than what the leaders of my sect of Christianity ever intended.

Religion IMO is simply a language to communicate spiritual ideas. Some doctrines/teachings work well to describe spiritual realities, others do not. Those that appear to not work either are beyond my understanding, or are erroneous. Often all a person has to do is tweek the wording of a religious belief slightly to make it work to communicate spiritual truth. The reason being that people with no actual spiritual experience in the matter have repeated the spiritual truth over and over again, without really understanding it’s true meaning. But some people “get it”, and when they teach it there is a depth of understanding that those who simply repeat cannot imitate.

You answered my question fabulously! I hear exactly where you come from. Religion being a language to communicate spiritual ideas.

I recently “got it” last year, after 12 years of psychosis so I’m in the kingdom and loving it. According to Christianity. Maybe I’m also in nirvana, enlightenment, awakening, self-actualized, or whatever … I’m not an expert in theological language; just in the love and serenity and other “gifts of the spirit” that have been overflowing for me recently.

I’m simply looking to fellowship with other saints who might have different insights than what I’ve encountered before. In return I feel it is only right to share some of what I know. If “other gods do not exist” is an official doctrine of the CC, I had no idea and would not have pushed the issue had I known. I have run into this belief at times with Protestants, and can easily show how it is not supported by scripture. But who am I to argue with official Catholic doctrine???

I hear you. I don’t know what to say now, though… I don’t mind arguing with official Catholic doctrine myself, because for one thing if something about it bugs me and I argue about it, half the time I find it has been misrepresented to me.

I think that every person has an independent and individual image of God, who has any idea of God at all. No image is sufficient or necessary to know God, but we have our intellectual models that are in fact images. Hopefully they are living images that allow for spontaneous wisdom and not just “canned” wisdom… sticking to intellectual interpretation of written law and not hearing the spirit that would be going against the Holy Spirit on the Christian lingo.

I think that with all “top-down” religions there is the unspoken assumption that God’s kingdom is governed and controlled by a top-down heirarchy, and that the model we use of centralized control of the Church is of the same format as the heavenly kingdom. Because of that, we are in bondage to the Church if we think the Spirit speaks to us only through the Church. And that’s fine if people’s idea of spirituality is being connected to the Church. But I want to connect to that to which the Church aspires to point us toward, which means I have to be willing to transcend the Church, and get off the wide road and on the narrow road when called by the Spirit who lives in my heart. That causes great mystery for me, but a PITA for the institutions which thrive on people with normalized behavior and beliefs. So it’s easiest to let the people think that God runs everything through the Church on her way to us. In a mystical way, she does. But in a practical way, not necessarily. If we each follow the Spirit, what if we incorrectly follow the Spirit or the Spirit takes us where the Church doesn’t think we’re supposed to go? That’s the problem of distributed control. How do we deal with deviants, like Joan of Arc and Jesus?

Alan

 

[Tobias65]

Well, if we believe that God has established the Church (whatever we may individually take “the Church” to mean), then we know that to undermine the Church we war against God. People are fragile, and often times we build our faith upon shaky foundations. Leaders of the Church are mere humans, and many times the foundations they lay are based upon fallacies. However, to remove and replace these foundations takes a special grace from God, as the person doing so must care deeply for the sheep and see the entire process through.

If I see a faulty foundation, that is much different than being ordained by God to replace it with something better. It is far more productive to simply leave it be, and wait for God to send the right guy to fix it if He thinks it is necessary.

Discussion is much different though than destroying. I think we are all free to discuss things, and even free to mention that we disagree with certain foundational doctrines. But that is much different than taking it upon ourselves to dissuade someone else from believing in the foundations of their denomination. “Better to have a millstone tied around your neck and be cast into the sea, than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.”

 

[LegoGE1947]

This is interesting information; I’ve never heard of “hyperdulia” before.

But I’m not sure why you quoted my post. It was specifically directed toward another post by Cadian, regarding the posting style.

Alan

I have heard this teaching from the likes of Alex Jones who was a former Protestant preacher who converted to Catholic, I have also heard it from Scott Hahn and others. There are three Greek words Latria, Hyperdulia, and Dulia. Latria is the worship and adoration we give to God alone, Hyperdulia is the veneration and honor given to Mary as Mother of God’s Son. Dulia is the veneration and honor we give to other Saints

 

[Tobias65]

… If we each follow the Spirit, what if we incorrectly follow the Spirit or the Spirit takes us where the Church doesn’t think we’re supposed to go? That’s the problem of distributed control. How do we deal with deviants, like Joan of Arc and Jesus?

Alan

Simple answer:

God gives each person the Grace to believe what it is they need to know. Joan was given enough to know that she must follow her voices by faith. When others needed to believe in her, they too were given enough to do their part.

There is no controlling this type of phenomenon. Not by anybody besides God, that is!

 

[Forkfoot]

Nobody here even knows what “New Age” means. They use it to refer to religions and practices which predate Christianity, and sometimes even to Christian texts themselves. I once saw someone here post an excerpt from The Cloud of Unknowing and another poster admonished them to stay away from New Age and only stick to approved Catholic writings. It’s a very commonly-used term here and its use is almost always rooted in ignorance, from what I’ve seen.

 

[Kevin12]

Nobody here even knows what “New Age” means. They use it to refer to religions and practices which predate Christianity, and sometimes even to Christian texts themselves. I once saw someone here post an excerpt from The Cloud of Unknowing and another poster admonished them to stay away from New Age and only stick to approved Catholic writings. It’s a very commonly-used term here and its use is almost always rooted in ignorance, from what I’ve seen.

That wouldn’t surprise me at all. I was referring more to neo-Paganism and things incorporating Eastern religions, but there are some, especially those on CAF, for whom mysticism itself is inherently suspect because it is popularly associated with non-Christian religions. Indeed, a lot of Catholics seem to be inherently suspicious of emotion itself, as if it was some kind of Protestant conspiracy.

 

[Forkfoot]

That wouldn’t surprise me at all. I was referring more to neo-Paganism and things incorporating Eastern religions, but there are some, especially those on CAF, for whom mysticism itself is inherently suspect because it is popularly associated with non-Christian religions. Indeed, a lot of Catholics seem to be inherently suspicious of emotion itself, as if it was some kind of Protestant conspiracy.

Hahaha! Yeah, the Church has always kept her mystics on an extremely short leash. I notice Alan got suspended.

 

[Kevin12]

Hahaha! Yeah, the Church has always kept her mystics on an extremely short leash. I notice Alan got suspended.

Ah! This is terrible news! He was one of the few voices of moderation and reason on this forum. I hope it is lifted quickly.

 

[Tobias65]

Ah! This is terrible news! He was one of the few voices of moderation and reason on this forum. I hope it is lifted quickly.

Seconded!

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

First of all, I want to start off with a disclaimer that I am not in any way condoning New Age spirituality as an acceptable alternative to Christianity. However, I am often troubled when I read threads that seem to equate these sorts of religious or spiritual beliefs with atheism, or even seem to think of them as worse. If a person is able to see that life is not a mere accident without meaning, cannot we at least admit that they are closer to understanding the truth than those who think that all forms of non-materialist belief are just empty superstition?

As C.S. Lewis said, in this era where atheism and skepticism are so rampant, it may be necessary “first to make people good pagans, and after that to make them Christians” with the people in question being understood as secularists. I personally can speak for the fact that, during a long period of doubt, my appreciation of classical mythology was one of the things that kept me open to the supernatural, without which I may have become exactly the kind of imaginatively sterile atheist as now dominates public intellectual life.

Interesting question…and I see there’s already six pages of answers/arguments.

But…the Moody Blues? New Age? Has to be a joke.