New Age spirituality has become a cesspool of garbage

Page 11 of 18 [ 279 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1 ... 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 ... 18  Next

ToughDiamond
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Sep 2008
Age: 71
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,313

25 Nov 2022, 3:07 am

auntblabby wrote:
i will admit to taking great comfort from the "new agey" stuff, it gives me a peace of mind i could not get elsewhere, that all my travails on earth wouldn't be for nothing. and after all, isn't how it makes you feel the ultimate arbiter of good and non-goodness, as long as nobody else is harmed in any way?

Pretty much, yes, I would think. I suppose in my case (for some reason) I kind of bypass the need for anything cosmic - I can't see a supernatural onlooker at all, and I don't feel there is one, but my travails on earth have never felt as if they're for nothing. They make me feel good without reference to anything supernatural at all.



auntblabby
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 113,697
Location: the island of defective toy santas

25 Nov 2022, 6:12 am

ToughDiamond wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
i will admit to taking great comfort from the "new agey" stuff, it gives me a peace of mind i could not get elsewhere, that all my travails on earth wouldn't be for nothing. and after all, isn't how it makes you feel the ultimate arbiter of good and non-goodness, as long as nobody else is harmed in any way?

Pretty much, yes, I would think. I suppose in my case (for some reason) I kind of bypass the need for anything cosmic - I can't see a supernatural onlooker at all, and I don't feel there is one, but my travails on earth have never felt as if they're for nothing. They make me feel good without reference to anything supernatural at all.

you are more talented and accomplished than many others, you have these things in your corner for you.



kraftiekortie
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Feb 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 87,510
Location: Queens, NYC

25 Nov 2022, 7:35 am

Frankly, it would be nice if I could believe in the Supernatural. I would like to tell my mother that she’s going to a nice place soon.



auntblabby
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 113,697
Location: the island of defective toy santas

25 Nov 2022, 7:50 am

that may be just the thing she needs to hear, but i would leave out the word "soon."



kraftiekortie
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Feb 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 87,510
Location: Queens, NYC

25 Nov 2022, 8:00 am

You’re right, of course. I won’t say the word “soon.”



auntblabby
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 113,697
Location: the island of defective toy santas

25 Nov 2022, 8:05 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
You’re right, of course. I won’t say the word “soon.”

this has special resonance for me because in early january of 2008, my mother asked me "am i going to die soon?" and i couldn't answer her. it still bugs me. when she needed comfort i was a klutz.



kraftiekortie
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Feb 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 87,510
Location: Queens, NYC

25 Nov 2022, 8:14 am

Most people are “klutzes” in these situations.



auntblabby
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 113,697
Location: the island of defective toy santas

25 Nov 2022, 8:20 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
Most people are “klutzes” in these situations.

i STILL don't know what to tell a dying person. :oops:



DeathFlowerKing
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 9 Sep 2022
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,228
Location: City of Roses

25 Nov 2022, 8:33 am

Im sorry ti hear that auntblabby. :(



KitLily
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 7 Jan 2021
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Posts: 5,074
Location: England

25 Nov 2022, 11:10 am

What do you lot think about Emotional Freedom Technique/Tapping?

I was very sceptical but it does actually work and it's free to do so it's a win:win.


_________________
That alien woman. On Earth to observe and wonder about homo sapiens.


ToughDiamond
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Sep 2008
Age: 71
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,313

25 Nov 2022, 12:07 pm

KitLily wrote:
What do you lot think about Emotional Freedom Technique/Tapping?

I was very sceptical but it does actually work and it's free to do so it's a win:win.

According to Wikipedia it doesn't work, apart from a placebo effect, though I gather placebos can work wonders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional ... Techniques



ToughDiamond
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Sep 2008
Age: 71
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,313

25 Nov 2022, 12:14 pm

auntblabby wrote:
kraftiekortie wrote:
Most people are “klutzes” in these situations.

i STILL don't know what to tell a dying person. :oops:

Have you ever seen a movie called "The Invention Of Lying?" Set in a world in which lies are unknown, the protagonist, an atheist, tells his frightened, dying mother that she'll go to the Good Place. Sometimes a lie is the best thing. And in your case it would be less of a lie than it would be in my case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inven ... Lying#Plot



techstepgenr8tion
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Feb 2005
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 24,182
Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi

25 Nov 2022, 12:21 pm

Don't know why lying is needed here exactly? If the take is that no one knows you'd tell a dying person that they're going to the 'great mystery', because it is a great mystery. Even if you're convinced of the external validity of NDE's it's still a mystery what that place is, what it's absolute orientation to reality is, etc.. In that sense private experience of death is one of the great mysteries almost in the Greek mystery cult / initiate sense, and that's the way a lot of Buddhists view it as well where they do things like meditate on corpses, and many western esoteric traditions teach that 'dying before death' in preparation for death is very important.

OTOH a standard neurotic westerner who hasn't really cared what's true for most of their lives past what they absolutely had to, had far more concern for social conformity, etc.. - yeah, I'm not sure you could talk to them about it even on their death beds because there's probably little you could tell them that they could gainfully process. In that context saying nothing is also probably better than lying.


_________________
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” - James Baldwin


kraftiekortie
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Feb 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 87,510
Location: Queens, NYC

25 Nov 2022, 1:06 pm

My mother is very aware of her surroundings.



ToughDiamond
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Sep 2008
Age: 71
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,313

25 Nov 2022, 1:19 pm

auntblabby wrote:
ToughDiamond wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
i will admit to taking great comfort from the "new agey" stuff, it gives me a peace of mind i could not get elsewhere, that all my travails on earth wouldn't be for nothing. and after all, isn't how it makes you feel the ultimate arbiter of good and non-goodness, as long as nobody else is harmed in any way?

Pretty much, yes, I would think. I suppose in my case (for some reason) I kind of bypass the need for anything cosmic - I can't see a supernatural onlooker at all, and I don't feel there is one, but my travails on earth have never felt as if they're for nothing. They make me feel good without reference to anything supernatural at all.

you are more talented and accomplished than many others, you have these things in your corner for you.

This seems to back that up:

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... They_Don't

Though still controversial, convergent research sug-
gests that more intelligent individuals are less likely to
believe in God (Kanazawa, 2010; Lynn, Harvey, & Nyborg,
2009). Although partially explained by its overlap with
analytic thinking, the relationship between belief in God
and intelligence also has compelling motivation-based
explanations. For example, M. Zuckerman, Silberman,
and Hall (2013) argue that more intelligent individuals
may have less need for the psychological benefits that
religion provides (such as a sense that the world is
controllable; see below) because they can more ably
generate these benefits themselves.


I'm skeptical of it though, because I'm skeptical of the concept of IQ, and having seen / heard the results of your mental efforts, I can't believe I'm more intelligent than you are. But there may be something in the idea that I'm more analytical than you, and I do strongly feel that my environment is substantially under my control, even though I don't think it is. So I look to my own mettle rather than to religion for a sense of comfort. I see praying as a sign of desperation, as what people in general are more likely to do when their own efforts to solve important problems have failed.



ToughDiamond
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Sep 2008
Age: 71
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,313

25 Nov 2022, 1:45 pm

techstepgenr8tion wrote:
Don't know why lying is needed here exactly?

In my case I'd be telling a massive whopper because I see the afterlife thing as extremely unlikely, so to say it was a mystery would be almost 100% dishonest of me. And I was assuming the dying person wanted to be strongly reassured that they were going to the Good Place. I think I'd be quite happy to tell a dying person that they weren't going to hell, if the idea of that was scaring them, because I don't believe in hell, so I wouldn't be lying.

A long time ago when I was less sure of the invalidity of supernatural beliefs, I told a friend of my concern that I was so undecided about such an important question and was mindful of the fact that I would die one day and therefore needed to know the answer. He said (I paraphrase) "I think it's OK. If it turns out that there's an afterlife, that's great. If it turns out that there isn't, you won't know anything about it so it can't hurt you."