GEE!

This thread is truly wonderfull. Quite a bit of honesty and self exposure.. Fractelle.. you are doing a great job there.. opening your inner self to others.

Often I see comments which are so obviously coming from inherited or accumulated bias or distortions of what faith in Christ means... it's frustrating not being able to go behind the comments with anything other than speculation.

As I was reading one of your posts (F) one verse came rushing out of my heart. You said.

<<However, if you don't believe in god: you don't believe in god, I simply cannot believe in the bible anymore than I could change my knowledge that the sun rises in the east.>>

And I immediately thought of

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Jesus)

Now.. you also mentioned 'formal religion' and your 2 major objections.

If you look real close at what Jesus said.. he didn't mention coming to a 'church' or a 'building'..but to "Him"...and that..is true Christianity.

1/ Equality for Women. This is a hard one. "Complimentary" is easy for me to grasp. I don't see inequality in that. All I can say is that to love a woman as 'Christ loved the Church' is about as good as it gets.

2/ 'Theirs is the only correct way' is not about 'others lacking moral fortitude. Its about being reconciled from the consequences and power of sin.

Eph 2:3 "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ."

We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. (Paul)

Whitty

Sharing information about ourselves is HUMAN. Where do you get this idea that the discussion about our emotional response to the world in which we live is specifically feminine?

Was Shakespeare a woman? Picasso? Mark Twain? These people thought deeply about the HUMAN condition and expressed it eloquently.

Read any Robert Frost?

BTW, I did forget about Mjpb he did at least contribute to the topic at large.

We (humans) have all qualities of so-called 'male' and 'female' to a greater and lesser extent.

I noted that there were more females than males contributing to this thread – it was just a statistic I found sad, not a slur.

All you are doing is revealing that you are not exactly functioning on your ideal capacity. If you reject anything regarding wonder, happiness and affection as 'too feminine' for the likes of you... I can only conclude that you have some major issues to sort out.

Boaz

If you were sincere in your last post and truly appreciated the honesty expressed here – you would have the respect not to
evangelise. Just give it a rest will you? For once accept people as they are, not as YOU want them you be. Quite frankly, my dear, you have no idea what Jesus would want me to do.

Hi, Foxy,
Some new-agers have indeed become new-age addicts on missions to help themselves.
Because addicts constantly look for fixes, the new-age movement has become a multi-million dollar industry. If the books/courses were as good as the gurus claim they are, one would only need to read/attend one.
If the new-age industry were the car industry, we’d all be replacing one lemon with the next without being able to get from A to B.

“…dream up the things you want to do and then make them happen”.
Sound and free advice- sane enough to challenge the next hot $piritual advisor or motivational speaker.

There is probably ‘some’ advice that has helped some people but most of the time when people feel they have benefited from a motivational course or book, the effects wear off as the novelty wears off and their flat spirit needs to be recharged.

My own free (but not so divine) advice to new-agers would be that it’s quite OK to feel like crap sometimes and to indulge in negative thoughts.
One cannot expect to feel on top of the world continuously. Negative feelings and thoughts are as natural to humans as positive ones. I’d hate to be told to ‘smile and think positive thoughts’ when I feel like doing the opposite.

Fractelle, while I don’t really care whether the contributors to this thread are male or female, I agree with you that sharing information about ourselves is human. I’d have thought that men would be as willing to share as women are given the fact that so many motivational speakers, spiritual leaders, spiritual teachers as well as almost all mainstream religious priests and church leaders are male.
Religion is for the most part controlled by men.

OK, I'll bite. I'm neither religious nor particularly spiritual in my daily life and also by inclination, but in my case I don't think it's particularly gendered. My partner certainly isn't religious, but she's one of the most 'spiritual' people I've ever known - albeit in ways that are frowned upon by most religious types. She has one of the most extensive astrology and alchemy libraries that I've seen outside the Adyar bookshop, and frames her understanding of her life through those esoteric disciplines, and that's perfectly cool by me. At least she's not a closet happyclapper (although she was once married to a West African Muslim).

I've reached my middle-aged uninterest in matters spiritual by a long and interesting route, upon which I've had a pretty good look at the world's major religions and also many less well known belief systems. As a former anthropologist, it was my business to have a good working knowledge of numerous systems of myth and ritual, and in particular those of various tribal groups in Melanesia (including, of course, their mostly unfortunate encounters with Christianity).

I guess my lack of personal spirituality or religiosity is in many ways a product of my training and my analytical nature, such that - while I respect that many, if not most, people seem to need to believe in something that is beyond the realm of empirical experience - to me the great world religions are ultimately massively elaborate versions of the same sort of mythic logic evident among Papua New Guinea highlanders. This is, of course, why the poor buggers are so susceptible to the predatory and competitive techniques of missionaries, but that's another story.

[cont]

[cont]

As for spirituality, I'm frequently overcome by the awe and grandeur of nature and the universe, and also by its infinite complexity. I spend a lot of time alone in fairly remote bush, where I suppose I meditate (generally with a fishing rod in one hand and a beer in the other), and I'm known to talk to animals frequently. Strangely, other people have often told me that they think I'm a 'spiritual' person, but that's probably because I'm also regarded as a little eccentric by some.

I have great conversations with the Catholic priests and nuns in our little town - that sometimes touch upon 'spiritual' matters - but the happyclappers and I tend mutually to avoid such conversations (just like I don't talk politics with many people around here). Interestingly, my partner's astrological skills are in some demand in the local area, and not just by the New Age types.

So there you go - I'm a positively secular and profane kind of bloke, but that's not to say that the spiritual and religious dimensions are entirely missing from life :)

I was also gobsmacked at the idea that sharing feelings and discussing matters spiritual should be considered the prerogative of women. Also, I think, a little offended. Some of the most influential mentors in my life have been men...just as some of them have been women...and if talking about/sharing/showing this side of a person is supposedly a woman thing then is the implication that all these wonderful men with whom I've sat talking till dawn, or gone wandering through forests, or shared magical days/weeks of my life are effeminate sissies?

And whats with "The stigma of being a closed, supposedly emotionally retarded man for anyone who isn't into group hugs is the sad thing to me."? Sure, earlier on in the thread we talked about group hugs. I even admitted that I didn't used to be into them either. I never considered that made me a "closed, supposedly emotionally retarded" person. Nor that it was a gender-bender and turned me into a man. And certainly not one single person on this thread stigmatised anyone else in such a way.