Aquarius

DD -- may I PM? I would love to here what you can find about it, but I don't really want to use names here.

Aqua

Anitra

I think we all have to accept that anyone with any integrity is going to apply our values and beliefs to all of life. Individual creative reason, equity, openness of information, are all high-priority values in my personal religion: does that mean I should keep them out of my politics???

What preserves civil rights is the ethic of civil rights. Whatever someone else claims as a spiritual or religious value, let them claim it; let them claim it publicly and loudly. We all have freedom of conscience and freedom of speech. But by the ideology of liberalism that the democratic system is founded on, our social meta-ethic is the intrinsic rights of all living human individuals and the equality of our rights. No other morality or value trumps that.

In effect, NO morality-law is constitutional. Democratic government does not legislate and enforce morality. Democratic government legislates and enforces the protection of rights. Murder is not illegal because it is immoral. It is illegal because it is a violation of another person's civil rights. Eventually, all drug laws and sex laws will be struck down, except for whatever can be demonstrated as necessary to protect individuals from harms we have a natural right to expect society to protect us from, or to guarantee us a good we have a natural right to expect society to guarantee us.

We all have a natural right to live, to eat and drink and have warmth and shelter so that we may live; we form societies to insure these things for each other. We all have a natural right to protect ourselves from predation; we form societies to insure ourselves mutual protection. Guaranteeing all members of society access to the resources necessary to sustain life and pursue our own constructive goals is a right and proper activity of government. None of us (unless we have severe broken wiring) want to be beaten, maimed, raped, killed, stolen from, lied to, cheated, or otherwise mistreated -- enforcing the implicit mutual agreement of social animals not to do such things to each other is a legitimate activity of government.

We all have the natural right and necessity to "make our own souls": to form our own vision of the good life, formulate our own values, work out for ourselves what purpose(s) give meaning to our lives, and how we relate to the world around us. None of that is the natural business of government to decide and enforce. Government can and should provide freely available public education, and education is in large part helping people formulate and clarify their own vision and values and relationships, and acquire the information to pursue them. But while it is common for it to also be the process of imposing already-formed visions and values and relationships, that is a tendency that liberal democracy must always struggle against.

"Spiritual" values -- religion, and the whole gamut of creative vision, human values, "how ought we to live" -- is the last bastion of authoritarianism. It has been easier to democratize science, economics, government, and even art, than to democratize ethics. It's too close to the core of what we are, and it is too close to survival necessities. Ethics is, after all, a system of survival. The idea that other people should be allowed to make up their own minds about it, and perhaps decide differently than you, is frightening. It is also an essential part of our self-identity, our life-narrative of what the world means and who we are in the world. To have someone disagree with that can feel life-threatening, too.

But in order to truly be a free society, a liberal society, a democratic society, we do have to take that final step into freeing individual conscience from all special authority. We have to learn to trust that there is an objective reality in which there are things that are really true and really right to do; and, simultaneously, that NONE of us has infallible perfection and understanding of that reality, therefore none of us can dictate the understanding of others. There is no special revelation. We're going to have to dialogue together, on the basis of what we can all observe and point to and check out for ourselves.

That will be the real New Age.

Dave_the_heretic

Anitra:

You seem to misunderstand the meaning of Spirituality in this movement. Spirituality is based in the State's right to decide and enforce what spiritual beliefs are true, not in the individual's right to decide such important matters for themselves.

I actually lost my license to practice massage, based in the legal theory used by the Massage Board that the Constitution does not guarantee me freedom from the spiritual truth they represent. And they got this idea from the professional organizations of Massage, who basically see themselves as the most powerful religious movement in America.

And now others are joining this "Spiritual" movement, where the State decides and enforces what Truths it chooses. The individual, I was told by a member of the Massage Board, is "nothing." Only the Spiritual Whole counts.

Scary stuff indeed.

Anitra

What I'm saying. dave, is that the answer to this argument is not that the state cannot enforce values, but that the state is enforcing the wrong values. It is a "spiritual value" that the state has the duty to enforce the individual's right to decide such important matters for themselves.


I need more details about that in order to understand what you are talking about, Dave. What "spiritual truths" were you supposed to have violated?

Dave_the_heretic

Anitra:

It's such a mess, it's hard to get even get into.

Basically, Chi, the Chakras and the intelligent and planful Spiritual Energy connecting the Universe are now on a civil test for Civil Licensure.

This means that all massage therapists must accept these "facts" over any personal beliefs, which includes scientific "beliefs." And of course, Atheism is not tolerated in the 'Spiritual Profession" of massage.

This is all fairly recent, yet it's already being used to show that Christian beliefs can be mandated and supported by the State as well. So it's quite dangerous to address. It's basically the first religion in America supported and enforced by law, and as such, it opens the door to other religious beliefs becoming Civilly sanctioned.

So I have gotten death threats from (apparently) the Extreme Christian Right, who see this as creating a Theocratic State in America.

So when you hear "Spirituality" in this context, it means "Specific Spiritual Tenets promoted and enforced by law." Which is a very different view of "Spirituality" that most people hold.

All this has transpired in only a decade, so it's barely even noticed, even as the Religious Right is going crazy over it. Since it includes Racist doctrines (we learned all about Aryan Supremacy in massage school) it is widely backed by White Separatists and Supremacists as well.

Yet "Spirituality" is seen as a vaguely liberal movement, and certainly not a place where religious extremism is exploding.

I really don't even like talking about this. While many people simply assume Chi and Chakras are liberal beliefs, this test is backed by people who point out they are religious tenets supported by the State. And "prove" that Separation of Church and State is, indeed, a myth.

So the actual concepts mean very little. It's the legal precedent of State-backed belief that has eveyone going wild. In our area, it is seen to prove our state can become a White Christian enclave. And this perception has made questioning this test quite dangerous.

Men as Gods

i'm "advertising" my thread- its similar to this one but it relates to wicca instead of new age
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...86#post1849386

Sturmrabe

I'm advertising that since the person who started this thread will probably never see it again we should ignore it...

if by chance they do come back: if you are smart enough to see that your sister joined a cult RUN FOR YOUR GODDAMN LIFE!

4th Generation Atheist

From what I can tell the prevalence of the New Age in general has an easy explanation.

Many, many people have what they would describe as a "spiritual impulse". Whether this is a striving for participation in some deity's "plan" or a "crutch" against a difficult reality or something else entirely is something that is not agreed upon, but it is obvious that the urge is quite widespread, and that those who have it find it difficult to ignore.

What becomes difficult is that many of the institutions that have been created to attend to this impulse---churches and such---carry with them a great deal of "baggage" in the form of oppressive codes of conduct, judgemental philosophic orientations and so forth. Recently, our society has seen an unprecedented rise in the perception of an individual's right to determine his-or-her own destiny, but many of the traditional religions either insist upon sticking to the old structures or carry remnants of same in their teachings or organization.

Many people, especially women for reasons that ought to be obvious, thus have a conflict between serving their spiritual impulses and exercising their right to determine their own lifestyles and life choices. Enter the New Age: the makings of an institution that will allow the "spiritual but not religious" to eventually have a religion, without having to throw away the rights (and for some the self-esteem) that come from the new society. For now, it doesn't look all that organized. Eventually, though, I for one would not be surprised to see several of the smaller groups we see today emerge as organizational institutions serving the religious impulses of people under the new societal philosophy. (Assuming I live that long and that we don't fall into a new Dark Age instead.) Right now it's sort of a mish-mash, allowing plenty of commercial inroads into the mix (tho that's hardly unique to the New Age, as any passing visit to a "Xn bookstore" will show you). There is also a not-especially-unique amount of infighting and backbiting. But none of this strikes me as exactly unpredictable, considering the state of the larger culture in which the New Age finds itself.

Oh and man, Dave, your story makes me think twice about ever again getting a massage.

enembius

Ive mentioned before that I used to be in a dodgy 'spiritual group'. One of the first things that our 'manual' told us is: this is not a religion as it has no form of worship.

Ok so that might sound preposterous to us guys but to those who want to believe it.....well, with reason being the slave to will and everything, it kinda makes sense!

Not classifying your group as a religion not only gives it power to posess you further (Religion being the 'warning' or 'bogie' word that might put you off)....

....but also: not being classified as a religion makes your group seem more acceptable to your friends family and the media.

The group (ok, religion) i was involved in, posed on the surface as an exercise system... and for those who did not have time to really investige... (my friends/ family etc.)... i could tell them confidantly it was simply that.

4th Generation Atheist

There's a bunch of those, "non-religions" dolled up in martial-arts clothes or disguised as Yoga classes or book clubs. Which was yours, if you don't mind my asking? (I won't judge you by it---you imply you left, so no matter how silly it was you were at least smart enough to get out.

You're right, many of them state that they are "not a religion" to avoid scaring off atheists or those committed to an existing faith. It's like they know that there's slim pickings out there for conversions, so they lie about their true natures and hope to have people partway "reeled in" before they find out. I almost prefer the "honest" type.