Scott Sonnon: Born to Fail - Made to Succeed

Do You Practice Authentic Tolerance?

This following article represents all that is repulsive and vile about religious dogma. These myopic dogmatists give religion a horrible image, and foster an ongoing campaign of hate throughout the world. Were it not for dogmatic beliefs, the world would be a healthier and safer place.

How does the author of this article define his brand of “Witnessing”? His states his goal is to:

• “overturn your incorrect beliefs…”
• “convince you that your beliefs are wrong…”
• “and get you to believe what I want you to believe.”

If you can suffer his crazed lack of logic, at the end I comment on the supposed “contradictions” the author indicts. If the author would present debates about beliefs, I would not comment, since beliefs are not based in logic.

Let me establish on the front end that by the authors definitions, I am a “New Ager” (especially he defines those who are yoga and martial art teachers as such).

“How to Evangelize New-Agers” by Cky J. Carrigan, Ph.D.

Who are New-Agers?

“New-Agers are a diverse lot of spiritual seekers who are not genuine Christians. There may be as many as fifty million new-agers in America. You will find them in every part of your world, even in your congregations. You may work or worship with a new-ager, be a neighbor to one, or have one in your circle of friends or family. They often appear to be Christian from a distance because they are spiritual. After all, they talk about God, spirit, love, faith, hope, and healing. Many even talk about Jesus and the Bible. But, they do not ascribe the same meanings to these terms that genuine Christians do. In short, new-agers are spiritual people who embrace one or more key New Age teachings.”

What is the New Age Movement?

“The New Age Movement is an American and European form of ancient eastern religious beliefs (Hinduism and Buddhism), combined with divination, earth-based religions, self-help theory, alternative healing techniques, astrology, and other non-Christian religious practices. Therefore, the New Age Movement is not really new at all, though it is new to America.

The New Age Movement is a religious movement represented by a large number of autonomous groups and individuals that engages in religious activities from inside and outside existing traditional religious organizations. It is not an institutional religion like Christianity, Islam or Mormonism. There is no organization that encompasses it and no spokesman that speaks for it–yet. The New Age Movement is presently composed of an unorganized body of individuals united by several non-Christian beliefs.”

How Did the New Age Movement Get Is Start?

• “1860 - In the middle and late eighteen hundreds, three religious movements arose that introduced some features of eastern religions to New York City and Boston–the cultural and academic centers of America. From these geographical bases, the New Thought Movement, Spiritualism, and the Theosophical Society spread to colleges and universities and small free-thinking subcultures throughout American populations centers.
• 1960 - Eastern religious ideas smoldered for about one hundred years until they reached full flame during the counterculture movement of the nineteen sixties and seventies on college campuses. The Beatles validated eastern religious beliefs and popularized them. One Beatle, George Harrison, even became a Hindu and wrote a popular song devoted to the worship of Lord Krishna, a Hindu deity, entitled “My Sweet Lord.”
• 1970 to Present - The first magazine devoted to the New Age Movement was published in 1972, but the growth of this movement peaked in the mid-eighties. Then, along came an African-American female daytime talk show host that revived the New Age Movement and catapulted it to the center-ring of the three-ringed-circus of popular culture. Oprah Winfrey is now the most influential preacher of New Age ideas and she wins converts every day in staggering numbers—many from Baptist churches.”

What Do New-Agers Believe?

“As a general rule, new-agers believe the following six religious tenets:

• Pantheism - God is everything and everything is God. God is not a personal being, but an impersonal force. Since God is everything and humans are something, then humans too are God.
• Monism – Everything individual thing is really one thing. All apparent distinctions of individual things are merely an illusion. There is no difference between God and the world, for the world is God and God is the world (pantheism).
• Reincarnation – Everyone will be reborn after death as a new baby and continue this cycle for an indefinite number of reincarnations. Future lives are improved by positive karma in this life and visa-versa. This means that everyone has existed in many past lives before the present one. This is a variation of the classical Hindu view which teaches that everything (animals, plants, minerals, and humans) is reincarnated after its death or destruction. Some new-agers hold the Hindu view.
• Divinity of Humanity – Since everything is God or divine (pantheism), then humans are divine. The problem of humanity is that it has forgotten its divinity. Enlightenment is discovering one’s divinity and is achieved by astrology, yoga, transcendental meditation, past-life regression, soul travel, channeling spirit guides and other means.
• Moral Relativism – Since there is no personal living God who sets ethical standards and models them (pantheism), human actions are neither good nor bad. Therefore, there is no universal code of ethics that everyone must follow uniformly. Every individual is the supreme judge of his own conduct.
• Religious Pluralism – The essence of all religions is the same. No single religion can lay exclusive claim to all religious truth—especially Christianity. New-Agers resist telling anyone that they are wrong about religion since every religion is true at some point. They also take offense when anyone claims that another religion is false.”

What are the Signs of the New Age Movement in Popular Culture?

“Americans, including many Baptists, are falling for New Age ideas at an alarming rate. For example:

• More than half of us believe in psychic healing, spiritual healing or mind healing.
• About half of us believe in extrasensory perception (ESP).
• Nearly four in ten believe in ghosts of the dead, while more than one in four believes that communicating with the dead is possible.
• Twenty-five percent believe in reincarnation.
• Fifteen million practice Hindu yoga, doubling in five years.
• General audience films like Lion King, Pocahontas, Star Wars and Harry Potter that promote some New Age beliefs are blockbusters.
• Eastern martial arts centers can be found in every community.
• Transcendental Meditation (TM) is promoted in many workplaces and schools.
• Psychic services are a multi-billion dollar industry.
• Tarot cards are widely available at national chain book stores.
• Eastern and occultic healing techniques are widely accepted.
• Astrological predictions mar the pages of nearly every daily newspaper.
• Chicken Soup for the Soul series and other new age books are national bestsellers.”

How Can You Witness to New-Agers?

“Listen to Their Story and Tell Yours – New-Agers generally prefer religious experience to religious dogma. For them, feelings usually trump reason. Because of this, it will be especially relevant to a new-ager if you share your own Christian religious experience, even though we know that religious feelings by themselves can not be trusted without the objective validation of the Bible. Tell them how you felt at your conversion, how you feel about being a Christian, how you feel about Jesus Christ, and how you feel about your own spiritual journey. This approach may be very uncomfortable for many of you, but you will find it an effective way to witness to people devoted to New Age teachings.

Prepare for Diversity - People associated with the New Age Movement are diverse, so you should never assume they believe every doctrine typically associated with New Age. New-Agers do not all believe all of the same teachings with the same intensity. Because of this, during the early stages of your encounter, you must be careful to find out exactly what your New Age friend believes. Then, tailor your conversation to overturn those particular incorrect beliefs. Otherwise, you might find yourself spending too much time and mental energy overturning some belief that your friend does not hold.

Create Crisis of Belief - New Age evangelism is a kind of interfaith evangelism dedicated to sharing Jesus with people who are already devoted to a religion that can not take them to heaven. New-Agers are not agnostic or apathetic about religion. On the contrary, they are devoted believers of a false religion. They usually have to be convinced that they are wrong about what they presently believe in order to be open to embracing what you want them to believe—Christianity.

New Age evangelism almost always requires what I call preparing the soil of the soul. Most new-agers are fairly secure in their beliefs and see traditional Christianity as a flawed religion consisting mainly of ancient morals and an ancient way of looking at the world. One way you can prepare the soil of the soul is to create a crisis of belief in New Age principles. You may create a crisis of belief by gently overturning the key features of their beliefs while pointing out the superior alternative of Christianity.

• Challenging Pantheism and Monism: In order for the pantheism and monism of the New Age to be true, the material world would have to be an illusion. But, all the evidence available to us demonstrates that the material world as we know it really does exist. Additionally, if pantheism and monism of the New Age were true, then the vast majority of new-agers would be hypocrites, since they highly value and seek health, long life and material things—all illusions. Also, if God is a force, like gravity, and not a person, then why do many new-agers relate to God as if God is personal?
• Challenging Reincarnation: The New Age explanation of reincarnation demands a steady-state of human population which is not the case. In 1900, the population of the world was one billion. In 2000, it was six billion. Ask your new-age friend to do the math and rethink his commitment to the new age concept of reincarnation.
• Challenging Moral Relativism: Most new-agers live as though moral absolutes (rules) exist while confessing that they do not. For example, they lock their homes and cars and bristle if you cut them off in traffic. New-agers have plenty of rules they expect others to follow. Ask the new-ager to explain the contradiction here.
• Challenging Religious Pluralism: Most people devoted to New Age principles profess religious pluralism when they are not really tolerant of any religion that is exclusive, especially Christianity. Therefore, they actually are religious exclusivists like Christianity, and not pluralists at all. Additionally, you may ask your New Age friend why he favors New Age principles over all other religious principles if all religions are valid.”

I feel a moral imperative to rebuke this veneer of logic with rationale debate. (especially considering I am one of those so-called “occultic” lost souls who practices both yoga and martial arts.)

On the author’s challenge of pantheism and monism:

The perception we have of the “material” world is illusion created by our lack of awareness casts. The belief that the material world is something different than divinity creates a man-made distinction between profane and sacred. The only profanity in the world is ignorance, and the illusion it creates.

When one individual claims that he has the exclusive path to the sacred and that all others are profane, ignorance rules supreme. Exclusive rights to the sacred (and self-righteousness that all others are profane) is the ultimate illusion one casts.

To value the blessed gift of aliveness is not hypocritical. We honor our physical life, our home and our brethren in the community of life as they are given to us by divinity. To care for our health, to seek abundance and to cherish them so that they do not end early is to honor divinity, and to take the health, abundance and long life we are given and use them to help others is the ultimate form of worship.

On the author’s challenge of reincarnation:

Human over-population displaces other life. Thousands go extinct while we continue to convert the Earth’s biomass into human mass. The author’s argument only regards human life. I don’t claim to understand reincarnation, or life after this life (though the author certainly does.) However, if the author wants to use quantifiable reasoning, then the Earth’s biomass is always constant, just being shifted from one form of life to another. The author’s argument here was illogical, and appears to just be a half-hearted attempt at indicting another belief system (reincarnation) as illogical, and yet the Christian belief system (the impermanent physical body housing of an invisible, permanent soul) is just as “illogical.” No reason to even debate such flippant irrationality.

On the author’s challenge of moral relativism:

I’m not a moral relativist nor am I an absolutist. My beliefs would be defined as a moral pluralist.

The author uses morals and ethics interchangeably; when ethics coming from the Greek root ethos refers to what it means to be a human qua human, and morals coming from the Latin root mores refers to what it means to be a human qua society. There are beliefs that are culturally contextual (such as rites of passage, etiquette, and laws), and then there are universal beliefs about what it means to be a human (such as prohibitions against murder, rape, forced castration, incest and slavery; considered “human rights violations.”) One can believe without contradiction that rape is universally wrong without deferring to a specific religious text.

On the author’s challenge of religious pluralism:

The author suggests that intolerance of religious exclusivity is hypocritical to those who espouse religious tolerance. This is a logical fallacy. One of who believes in religious plurality - or religious tolerance - is not required by that definition to be tolerant of intolerance. It is not a contradiction to believe that everyone has a right to their own beliefs except when those beliefs infringe upon the rights of others freedom to believe. For example, the following is not a contradiction:

1. Christians deserve the right to believe that only the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth can give them access to heaven and prevent them from a life of eternal damnation.
2. Christians do not have the right to murder, torture and enslave those who will not accept the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as the only “correct” religious perspective.

Each of the author’s attempts at masking irrationality in the guise of logic demonstrates the repulsive and vile self-righteousness which has not only driven millions away from Christianity, but also instabilized our very existence with religious war, intolerance and apathy.

Christianity, however, has no corner on the intolerance market. There are intolerant people in every belief system. It’s the nature of the human ego to trick us into thinking that our illusion is real, to believe that any man-made definition is accurate, and to believe that others must be “converted” into our illusion.

God help us, please, save us from ourselves.

Flow Thyself™,