One of my friends at work is exploring New Age thought. She's been fascinated with "auras" and how they work. I let her read my aura the other day and she said that it was "interrupted" in my upper back and shoulder region. Funny, that's the area that my doctor and therapist seem to think are causing the difficulties in my hands. Which is no secret. So she is not discovering anything new or earth-shaking; in fact, she may very well be reading things into what she is "seeing" based on what I have said about my hands.
I haven't written much about New Age thought but if anything I am even more skeptical of it than I am Christianity or other religions. In fact, if I had to choose, I'd choose the mainstream religions over New Age. New Age paints itself as warm and fuzzy but there are some ugly things laying at its base, and these were things that we touched upon in our conversation.
It started off with talk about healing, especially the body's ability to heal itself. Now I have a healthy respect for the body's ability to heal itself but sometimes it needs help. I half-jokingly said, "if that catches on, that will put this place out of business." (We both work in preclinical research.) She said, "well, that is what some of the New Age people are trying to do. They want to do away with doctors and medicine and teach the body to heal itself naturally." Apparently she can't see the contradictions (or doesn't want to) between her job and her new-found philosophy.
So I couldn't resist. I brought up the "Why Doesn't God Heal Amputees" argument. If God (or the body) is capable of healing then why is it that throughout history there has never been one documented case of a person losing a limb and regenerating it. Someday it may happen through the kind of work we do at places like mine but I can guarantee it will never, ever happen on its own. And if certain elements get their way it won't even happen there.
Here's where it got interesting. This is a very nice person but I don't think she's thought through the broader implications of her philosophy. She said that maybe the reason that amputees don't get healed (don't regenerate their limbs) is that it is not God's purpose for them. That losing this arm or leg is part of a plan to make them stronger. Ah, the old suffering is good for you argument.
Well, in that case, I said, then why do we even have medicine at all? Why do we have painkillers? Why alleviate suffering at all? Wouldn't that be interfering with God's master plan? (Apparently Mother Teresa thought so, from what I've been hearing; seems she had a reputation for being rather stingy with the painkillers in her ministry to the dying.) I said, then people like Hitler really should be thanked because he and the Nazis were really doing the Jews a favor. She said--with a perfectly straight face--that maybe he was, that possibly the Holocaust was part of making this world a better, stronger place for all of us. I just about fell out of my chair!
THIS is the ugliness that lies behind New Age thought. I much prefer Christianity--even Calvinisim with its insistence that we are all depraved--to this idea that atrocities like the Holocaust are a necessary step in bringing the world toward perfection. I said to her, that doctrine gives aid and comfort to bullies. Because it does not demand that they change and stop their bullying. Instead it only strengthens them and gives them an excuse to continue. And it also weakens the rest of us because it weakens our will to stand up against evil. But of course "evil" is something New Agers don't really believe in or don't want to face. Because what incentive is there to stand up against injustice, against bullying, if these things are part of a plan to purify us and make us whole?
No, I made no secret of the fact that I thought that was a cowardly doctrine. I don't think I changed her mind entirely but I hope that I gave her something to think about.
I haven't written much about New Age thought but if anything I am even more skeptical of it than I am Christianity or other religions. In fact, if I had to choose, I'd choose the mainstream religions over New Age. New Age paints itself as warm and fuzzy but there are some ugly things laying at its base, and these were things that we touched upon in our conversation.
It started off with talk about healing, especially the body's ability to heal itself. Now I have a healthy respect for the body's ability to heal itself but sometimes it needs help. I half-jokingly said, "if that catches on, that will put this place out of business." (We both work in preclinical research.) She said, "well, that is what some of the New Age people are trying to do. They want to do away with doctors and medicine and teach the body to heal itself naturally." Apparently she can't see the contradictions (or doesn't want to) between her job and her new-found philosophy.
So I couldn't resist. I brought up the "Why Doesn't God Heal Amputees" argument. If God (or the body) is capable of healing then why is it that throughout history there has never been one documented case of a person losing a limb and regenerating it. Someday it may happen through the kind of work we do at places like mine but I can guarantee it will never, ever happen on its own. And if certain elements get their way it won't even happen there.
Here's where it got interesting. This is a very nice person but I don't think she's thought through the broader implications of her philosophy. She said that maybe the reason that amputees don't get healed (don't regenerate their limbs) is that it is not God's purpose for them. That losing this arm or leg is part of a plan to make them stronger. Ah, the old suffering is good for you argument.
Well, in that case, I said, then why do we even have medicine at all? Why do we have painkillers? Why alleviate suffering at all? Wouldn't that be interfering with God's master plan? (Apparently Mother Teresa thought so, from what I've been hearing; seems she had a reputation for being rather stingy with the painkillers in her ministry to the dying.) I said, then people like Hitler really should be thanked because he and the Nazis were really doing the Jews a favor. She said--with a perfectly straight face--that maybe he was, that possibly the Holocaust was part of making this world a better, stronger place for all of us. I just about fell out of my chair!
THIS is the ugliness that lies behind New Age thought. I much prefer Christianity--even Calvinisim with its insistence that we are all depraved--to this idea that atrocities like the Holocaust are a necessary step in bringing the world toward perfection. I said to her, that doctrine gives aid and comfort to bullies. Because it does not demand that they change and stop their bullying. Instead it only strengthens them and gives them an excuse to continue. And it also weakens the rest of us because it weakens our will to stand up against evil. But of course "evil" is something New Agers don't really believe in or don't want to face. Because what incentive is there to stand up against injustice, against bullying, if these things are part of a plan to purify us and make us whole?
No, I made no secret of the fact that I thought that was a cowardly doctrine. I don't think I changed her mind entirely but I hope that I gave her something to think about.
