God, Authority and New Age

In 1990s I had New Age associations. I remain in support of such practices as Zen, but I have always been against the idea that everyone makes their reality and is responsible for everything that happens to them. The reasons are the moral ones. If everyone is responsible for everything that happens to them, then if I were to rape and kill the next person it would be them doing it rather than me.

It is very easy to turn such beliefs on their heads. All one needs to do is impact upon the other person's life in a way that they can't ignore, and then they'll be having to claim that they are the ones doing it. A witch who gets burned will have to claim that she did something to bring that about.

The established religions are not immune from this vulnerability. If all authority is, as Romans 13 claims, there by will of God, then Stalin and Hitler were there by will of God, and Americans should have followed them unquestioningly. All it takes to turn such things on their heads is to become an authority oneself; and then the Bible-believing Christians will have to obey you because, by their own logic, you are there by will of God.

In recent studies it was shown that the highest IQ's are the atheists; then the liberal creeds; then the dogmatic creeds. One of the many reasons for this is that people with high IQ's are more likely to notice such discrepancies in religions, whereas the lower IQ's are less likely to ask questions of this sort. I am not saying that religions are all wrong, but some claims in them are definitely wrong, and this includes the preceding.

Having had very real spiritual experiences, I do not have the luxury of denying spiritual reality. I do however reserve the right to challenge wrong beliefs. This is the case both with established religions and with newer religions. My ultimate aim is to create a framework that is consistent both with scientific logic and with spiritual reality and that does not have weaknesses of this sort.