New spirituality?

[Happy Boy]

I have to say I kinda believe in Aura's. I was pushed to see this healer when I was in Holland a few years back, and this woman was describing my aura, the colors and what they meant, and they were all extremely accurate. I dont't mean things like "I see great things in your future" bullshit, but personal shit, like some dark colour that was sadness for recently losing someone very close ( I had lost my father a two months earlier) and some colour that represented addiction ( I was doing a lot of drugs at the time, but you couldnt see shit on my face) plus some other personal stuff. She also described my moods and wants in life perfectly.

I'm a skeptic by nature and I went in to that woman with about 10% belief in this stuff and came out believing about 80% (you can never be sure). I became much more open to these kind of things as well. Chakras, meditation and whatnot. I also think these things are not new age, but a pretty old knowledge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_statements

 

[Damien Karras]

It's fashionable to believe in stuff without any evidence to support it. Perhaps people perceive it as brave to have faith in something that they have no proof exists. It's kind of hip.

Then again a lot of the things you mentioned relate to a lot of religions.

actually, I would argue that it's fashionable to require evidence in order to build your belief system. Faith alone doesn't work in today's spiritual paradigm.

 

[ocean size]

All of the things you mention fall under the umbrella of 'New-Age'. A lot of them are derived from various eastern religions, eastern and western mysticism, then stuff like what is channeled from aliens/atlanteans etc.

I don't have anything inherently agaisnt the ancient religions others have said I think people take a lazy, superficial approach to new-age mysticism- they pick and choose ideas, don't gain any real understanding of them or where they came from. It is like the Kabbalah trend from a few years ago - how many people were delving into Jewish mysticism without ever bothering to read the Torah or gain any real understanding of where the traditions come from?

That being said I don't think new-age beliefs foster unhealthy or antisocial behavior, so to each their own. It is just flashy spirituality for modern times, when people want things easy to grasp for short attention spans.

Oh, and trying to have conversations with some of these people and listening to the definitions of words change at will (think "energy") while any skepticism is equated to being close minded gets old.

 

[Fat Abbot]

Nothing new about it. It's called New age, because Aleister Crowley (who essentially started the movement) coined the phrase "The New Aeon." He was a prophet of the fact that a new era of new/old ideas was upon us that would eventually replace dated religions but was a bit ahead of his time. Timothy Leary who was the man behind the 60's movement was inspired by Aleister Crowley to do acid and an occultist himself as well.

And actually a lot of the great mathmeticians and scientists were into the occult John Dee, Pythagoras, da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Leibniz, Bacon, Kepler, Paracelsus. To name a few.

Without these ppl and others math and science wouldn't be where they are today. Even America was built from the ground up by occultists. They've completely shaped our world.

To the religious ppl, some of your biggest heroes, such as Moses, Jesus, the three Wise Men and other great biblical figures practised it. Actually most all of the religions have ripped off a lot of occult teachings/practises.

I believe in some of this stuff.

 

[Spoken]

increasingly common? lol

 

[Fat Abbot]

It's definitely becoming more and popular as of late, that's pretty hard to deny.

 

[Josh]

It's definitely becoming more and popular as of late, that's pretty hard to deny.

Everything is becoming more and more popular as of late due to advancements in communication and information sharing.

 

[Fat Abbot]

Everything is becoming more and more popular as of late due to advancements in communication and information sharing.

Spiritually? Not necassarily. Christianity is becoming less popular for example.

 

[MortalWombat]

Spiritually? Not necassarily. Christianity is becoming less popular for example.

Not sure if there are cross purposes doing the talking.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth#Absolute_growth


I think Tomax is talking about absolute numbers. For what it's worth, percentage is growing too.

 

[Rvd Slmr]

Christianity is becoming less popular for example.

Bullshit, it's just propaganda by Christians who feel persecuted everytime someone on the internet says he doesn't believe in god.

 

[Fat Abbot]

There are vastly more ppl now so of course absolutes are higher. % is what I'm talking about.

% wise it's getting less and less popular in the western world, Canada, US and Europe.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=7041036&page=1

Also from your link: "Membership of the Catholic Church is attained through baptism.[10] If someone formally leaves the Church, that fact is noted in the register of the person's baptism."

This would skew the numbers a LOT. Plenty of ppl were baptised RC, it doesn't make them practising christians even if they didn't formally leave. I was baptised roman catholic, but I'm more pagan than anything.

 

[Diktaattori]

I believe in Wifi.

If people do you no harm, then let them believe in whatever they want.

 

[Car]

 

[Fat Abbot]

Bullshit, it's just propaganda by Christians who feel persecuted everytime someone on the internet says he doesn't believe in god.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/03/09/us.religion.less.christian/

It's definitely becoming less popular in the modern world.

For the most part the only areas where it is growing are backwater countries that don't have the same access to information and technology that we do. As that changes, expect christianities influence to dwindle in those places as well.

 

[Rvd Slmr]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/03/09/us.religion.less.christian/

It's definitely becoming less popular in the modern world.

For the most part the only areas where it is growing are backwater countries that don't have the same access to information and technology that we do. As that changes, expect christianities influence to dwindle in those places as well.

In the Western World it's reducing of course, I supposed we were talking globally.

Also from your link: "Membership of the Catholic Church is attained through baptism.[10] If someone formally leaves the Church, that fact is noted in the register of the person's baptism."

This would skew the numbers a LOT. Plenty of ppl were baptised RC, it doesn't make them practising christians even if they didn't formally leave. I was baptised roman catholic, but I'm more pagan than anything.

Yeah, people don't take the time to get their name erased from the baptism registrers. Most of the time they don't care about it, if they are even aware that such records exist.