I'm not a hater, but I HATE to see people encouraged to get involved in channeling because these entities are NOT trustworthy and
really…don't…like us. Peace.
I want to respond to this first to start my response off with the right tone.
I'm not a hater either, and I don't mean to sound aggressive to you personally, only many ideas from "the church" (ie the Vatican mainly) strike
me as being obviously intended to control and manipulate people. That's not your fault, either, I know. They have been doing it for hundreds of
years, even murdering people outright for their beliefs, including my Irish ancestors whose original culture was all but annihilated by
"missionaries." This is why I sound sore, because the authorities responsible for these attitudes offend me, that their beliefs are not only more
important than others' but even worth stomping them out by force.
So let's look at where we do agree:
1) All "channeled" entities are NOT "trustworthy," as in you shouldn't act upon every whim that "something" from inside is telling you to. We
have to be independent beings and weigh and consider everything we are hearing and be responsible for our own judgment, not just defer to what anyone
else is telling us, which is a weakness imo. Above all I think we all have an obligation to something greater than ourselves, whatever name we want
to give it, and all the wonderful experiences in life come from striving to serve that something which is larger and greater than we are as
individuals.
2) Aside from the corruptions and mistranslations of texts that only serve to manipulate and dominate peoples' free wills and free thinking, which
are always sponsored by centers of worldly power and authority, Christian teachings and traditions have a lot of good wisdom to them. I'm not even
averse to studying Christianity, I'm only averse to the methods used to spread the religion as if by force. What I've gotten out of Christianity is
another topic though and is nothing too unusual anyway. I love studying all world religions and philosophies, and they really have more in common
than devout followers of any one of them usually like to admit. So now having got all of that out of the way...
Originally posted by The GUT
My time with my new age friends was very revealing. I entered their community with an open mind and enjoyed a great degree of acceptance among them.
Ultimately, however, I perceived them to be very insecure at the base level in sharp contrast with the philosophies they expoused.
I appreciate that you took the time to give these anecdotes but I don't think they have universal merit. Maybe the individuals you were dealing with
were "insecure," I don't know them. Either way I don't have the insecurities towards these ideas personally so I cannot relate to what you say.
Not only can I accept them as legitimate but I don't think there is anything inherently evil in them either, no more than it is inherently evil to
know that the world revolves around the Sun, which in past times could get you killed by the same mainstream thought-police.
But what really drove me towards Christianity was the contrast that became evident to me between the character of my new age friends and a
group of Christians I came across in the course of my business. "You shall know them by their fruits," really hit home with me.
Maybe it would be healthy to remember all the Christians who have been involved in uncounted scandals, from child molestation to money laundering and
everything else, and to remember every non-Christian whose character is
not blemished by these things. Whether or not someone has a strong
character is not dependent upon what religion or beliefs they subscribe to. A priest molesting a little boy is no more a reflection upon all of the
teachings of Christianity as a "new ager" (bad terminology imo) doing whatever is a reflection upon whatever they happen to believe. Again, maybe
you personally experienced what you say in certain individuals, but there are billions of people in the world and what you suggest of your friends is
not universally true.
Besides the fact that it actually takes more "faith" to believe in the mishmash of syncretic philosophies that abound in the new age than the
living and active Word of the bible.
What you call a "mishmash" is just heterogeneity in where we
all get our information. You may take pride in getting all your info from one
source, so to speak, but you don't actually get all your information from the bible. Does the bible teach physics? No. Does the bible teach
grammar? No. Does the bible teach mathematics, biology, chemistry, engineering principles? No, no, no, and no. These are all varied fields that
have arisen collectively from the work of thousands of individuals. But I don't suppose you are going to tell me that it would take more "faith"
to believe in all of these fields of science than it would take to believe in the bible, considering that any principle of these sciences can be
demonstrated immediately with the right equipment. If we considered the bible the only valid book of knowledge, and consulted no other sources, we
would be in a much different world, a medieval world, and I'm not sure I would call it a better one.
Which brings me to the "We are all God" belief of some of my friends. It occurred to me that if we were all God, then God is not only
suffering from a severe case of MPD, but that he/we/she is schizophrenic and mind-boggingly insecure.
In most religions (including Gnostic Christianity at least) and even in physics people know that everything in the universe is connected. The word
"universe" itself implies a single object which contains
all of us and every single thing in existence. Scientists are seeking to resolve
the 4 fundamental forces of nature into a "unified field" that gives rise to everything in existence, and which makes up all of us. Our skin cells
in our left hand don't have to know how they are related to the skin cells in our right hand for them to be part of the same entity. That's one of
the things that makes life so filled with wonderful unexpected surprises for any skin cell who wants to know what's beyond itself.
And when "God" created the universe, what else would there be to create it out of than "himself"? In the beginning, was there God and then also
happened to be a completely-separate load of bricks and mortar laying around so that he could construct a creation that is completely unrelated to
"himself"? Or whatever "material" everything is made of (the "unified field" again according to scientists). If "God" truly created
everything, then what would be left separate from God that he could create from? He would have to create from himself, there would be nothing
else to work with. And so that would mean we are all made out of God, basically equivalent to saying God is the unified field physicists are looking
for. Denying this line of reasoning is to say that God didn't actually create everything, that there are things
other than God that must have
been brought into creation
separately from God by some
other creative process, making God lower on the universal hierarchy than numero
uno or at best "tied" with creator of the universe, with some other force. And then God just used this already-created material, that was created
by someone or something else, to create the universe. I find that harder to believe than the idea that everything ultimately consists of a common
"substance," which must be older than time, the source of all intelligence and consciousness in existence, and goes by many names, including God.
If the "rapidly-evolving" world that you speak of is in the hands of esoteric new agers such as these…then I've already seen how far short
of its supposed ideals it will fall.
Similar things were said to Copernicus and Galileo and many others. They said if the Earth really moved through space, obviously there would be such
a frictional force upon the surface of the Earth from flying so fast that no building would be able to stand and everyone would be constantly blown
about this way and that, so therefore the Earth must be stationary. These were the people and ideals that fell, despite the thought-police, and only
to good consequences though.
New Age philosophies are easy to accept because they tell a person exactly what they want to hear and scratches ones conscience behind the ears
and thusly into submission.
If Christianity didn't tell you exactly what
you wanted to hear then you would not be here preaching on its behalf. There is a reason people
"hear what they want to hear," for better or worse, and I am perfectly comfortable with what I like to hear. I don't have complexes that only make
me feel justified when I am suffering and think I'm hearing something "bad" for my own good, as you seem to suggest of your own. My father is a
military veteran and seems to feel the same way, that if some authority is not telling him something he doesn't want to hear at some threat then
it's not actually good for him. There's good reason the military trains people to obey authority without question, that has nothing to do with
whether it's "right" or "wrong," and the same with the Vatican and its influence and infiltrations throughout all of Christianity. There's
nothing wrong with self-sacrifice but then again there's nothing wrong with enjoying life either, to within reason.
What did you think of their experiences with channeling?
My position is that I'm constantly trying to understand the mechanics behind how these things work. I follow a lot of Carl Jung's work and
neurobiology and other fields, so I have a few vague ideas of what is going on, but I'm not satisfied with my understanding yet. I do know that what
these people are doing is only an exaggerated form of something we
all[/d] do on a daily basis though. This is harder to explain but Carl Jung
wrote a lot about it and showed how every individual is actually made up of many different psychological elements that compete for attention depending
upon bodily needs and other factors. In reality your body is made up of trillions of entities called cells, bacteria, etc., and only by some
mysterious miracle do we perceive ourselves to be singular entities. But in reality we are not singular entities and this is what people are
beginning to realize and make use of.
Do you channel?
Not consciously. Everything that crosses my mind I can only identify as being part of myself, but that's not to say I'm totally consciously
responsible for every thought that pops into my head. I don't think anyone is. There are things that naturally come to mind without our directed
will and I believe this is a natural function of our bodies. Being hungry or having to use the bathroom are mundane examples; you don't decide when
you're hungry or have to pee, you just know because your body is telling you on its own. Our bodies tell us lots of other things in lots of
other ways, all natural and inherent to human existence.