I take great pains to a) treat religion with respect while b) not
advancing any one specific creed or belief in the process. I've been
accused (in this forum) of advancing the cause of Judaism; now I'm told
I'm advancing New Age philosophy; I've heard other opinions.

I have no interest in doing *any* of these things, and anyone who
perceives an agenda where none exists may be extrapolating from their
OWN personal beliefs and agendas.

jms

Basically, the term New Age has been adopted as an appellation used
by some of the fundamentalist right to describe anything they don't happen
to agree with. And you're correct; much of what is *packaged* as New AGe
is primarily stuff cobbled up from older beliefs; similarly, there's a
lot of early Judao/Christian theology that's cobbled up from Zoroastrian
and Roman and Greek myths as well. Everything's tied to everything else.

jms

David Falk: yes, I'm sure this is what you have been taught in
church, but that you were taught it doesn't mean that it touches reality
at any two contiguous points. It is imperative for many branches of
fundamentalist christianity to constantly feel conspired against...so
they cite humanist manifestos and theosophical societies and concoct
these vast and dark organizations that exist nowhere but in the minds of
those who conceive these theories.

"New Age" is one of these notions. Basically, it's anything that is
not Christianity, except satanism, though the phrase "new age occultism"
sometimes blurs that line. Here we've got dozens and dozens of different
groups, maybe even hundreds, all with competing notions, all with certain
levels of antagonism toward one another...described by you as a specific
religious movment with similar systems, concocted through a "content
model developed by the theosophical society, one of the early mind
science cults."

Having now so defined it as a deliberate conspiracy, and part of a
cult out to control our minds, you can dismiss it, AND add into it
anything you choose. And this is exactly what happens. You say you
don't agree or like my saying that this gets done by fundamentalists, then
you turn *right* around and do it yourself.

Once again, I don't believe a word the new age groups or any other
group puts forth. Nor am I tarring fundamentalist groups. I'm simply
saying out loud and in public what's generally said in private among
the majority of fundamentalist groups. That tends to make some of them
upset. Like when you confront them on the school prayer issue; and you
pare it down to the notion that they want THEIR prayers prayed, that
they don't want a prayer to the great turtle on whose back the world
rests, or to Thor, or Zeus, or Mammon, or Mohammed, or Buddha.

Having read the bible cover to cover twice, I can sometimes only
conclude that Christ would be *profoundly* unhappy with many of the things
said and done in his name. He didn't like people to make specatacles of
prayer and devotion. Remember the suggestion to go into your closet to
pray? That only the hippocrites and pharisees make big deals of their
belief by dragging it out into the public places? Christians were urged
to lay not your hands upon the law, to keep separate from the state, to
offer to Caesar that which was Caesar's and to god that which was god's;
because the state was by its very nature corrupt, christians were told to
keep apart from it. I think he would be ashamed, and disgraced, at the
notion of christian theme parks and the transition of personal belief
into big business.

(Misspelled hypocrites and spectacles above. Pretend they were
spelled correctly and we'll move on.)

There is much of christianity to commend it; its emphasis on faith,
and charity, and devotion to others...and there is also much that works
against it, a tendency toward brittleness and persecution complexes and
vindictiveness and the tendency to portray anything that is not itself
as evil or satanic or a conspiracy...and a huge dollop of defensiveness.
You can find fundamentalists on both sides of this division. It's just
that to some, if you speak this way about a part, you are accused of
speaking this way about *all*. But I don't fall for that gag; I've
seen it too many times.

jms

There is considerable historical evidence that crucifixion was
practiced as a means of punishment by the Romans toward the Jews at the
time in question (though the methodology varied considerably from some
of the accounts; a nail driven through the hand would be torn off fairly
quickly by the weight of the body; ropes were commonly used as the main
support, with spikes for...emphasis). Certainly one can infer, even from
the limited evidence, that someone bearing this name was indeed
nailed up. Whether he was a deity or simply a very good man with some
very good ideas which have gotten somewhat distorted in places...is kind
of the essential question. I tend to go with the latter. But that's
just me.

jms

I'm all for teaching creation and allowing prayers in schools, as
soon as scholars begin teaching darwinism and geometry in church.

jms

Here's the irony in this whole discussion: one of the friendly crew
members on B5 named Eric came up to me at lunch and said, paraphrasing
from memory, "I really want to thank you for what's in the show, the last
few in particular [stuff that won't air until the next batch]; I'm a
Christian too, and it's good to see someone else who believes the same
way actually getting good christian messages out there about prayer and
faith."

At which point I gently explained that I was an atheist...and he just
kinda looked at me, as if I'd just grown three heads and feathers. Later,
he stopped by my office, citing another line used in the show before and
echoed again in something we'd just shot ("You should be careful what you
ask for, because sometimes the universe listens") and repeated his initial
thesis, perhaps in the belief that this time I'd cop to being a christian.
Nope. But we've had some good conversations about it.

jms

Eric R: very well reasoned and thought out; a good message, and a
good approach.

jms