American Thinker
Here’s a good article on Neo-Puritanism as the moral creed of Americanism:
“Alexandra Pelosi’s HBO documentary Fall to Grace tracks the evolution of New Jersey’s disgraced, self-dubbed “gay-American,” former governor, Jim McGreevey. In one passing scene, McGreevey enters a church ostensibly more welcoming than the judgmental Catholic Church of his childhood. The message board on the church front reads — and this is a close paraphrase — “Lord help us overcome the sins of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia.”
Had the message board been bigger, the good pastor might have added nativism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia. In a postmodern world that prides itself on “non-judgmentalism,” these have emerged as the seven new deadly sins, and God help the man, woman, or child who commits one. …”
The problem is with Christianity itself – A Judaic based religion meant for slaves.
I disagree with the racialist implications of this line of argument, but I’m convinced that the puritan roots of Americanism and most American ideologies are certainly real. Readers might be interested in James Morone’s book Hellfire Nation (2004).
The problem with Puritanism is the influence of Judaic ideas on many of the leaders and founders of Protestantism. Rabbi Louis Newman’s “Jewish Influence On Christian Reform Movements” gives a very well documented history of how Jews have tried to Judaize Christianity over the last 2000 years. The infant Church rejected the Mosiac Law and the traditions of the (Pharisee) elders at the first church council in 50 AD, but the Jews have been trying to reverse the process ever since. Thankfully, everyone of their attempts have failed in the long run. Puritanism in England and Colonial America and Dispensationalism in modern America are the two biggest successes on the intrusion of Judaic ideas into Protestantism.
Jim McGreevey wasn’t branded because he was gay. That’s the version the liberal jewish MSM wanted people to believe. His whole administration was knee deep in corruption; one of his coterie, a straight man, went to prison for some sort of hard core white collar crime.
I’ve been holding back the urge to post this, but since Brad has decided the Puritans were the original moral busybodies, I’ll have to give into it; here is a scene from the movie Saved about holyrollers in Baltimore (whose regional ‘identification’ is indeterminate but clearly southern-leaning):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fQcvO2zuEw
The exact scene which portrays that the ‘Gospel is not a weapon,’ played hilariously by Mandy Moore, “I am filled with Christ’s love:’
Excellent article, Hunter. Right on the mark.
Reminds me of a quote from the esteemed yankee philosopher Malcolm Little:
“We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock; Plymouth Rock landed on us.”
Muslim philosopher El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz also said the same thing.
So did Malcolm X, proponent of negro nationalism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffqVJWP5OeU
“The problem is with Christianity itself – A Judaic based religion meant for slaves.”
Methinks your analysis of Christianity is a wee bit reductionist, Rudel.
So, the influence of Neoplatonism on the development of Christianity was negligible?
Most remarkable. Who knew? Dionysius the Areopagite would be most surprised.
As would most Orthodox Christians.
You aren’t channeling Nietzsche, are you?
Deo Vindice
NYYankees, if you read any history books outside of the yankee propaganda you were forced fed in public school, you would know that the Southern “holy roller” evangelicals you seem to so despise are of course overwhelmingly Baptist.
Southern Baptists did not originate as German Anabaptists such as the Amish or Mennonites. The Southern Baptist religion is the result of evangelism that began with good old puritanical Roger Williams in New England.
So if you don’t like it, you can…blame the yankees. I always do.
Deo Vindice
“By the way, Yankeeism is indeed a name”
It’s hard not to.
Apuleius says:
‘NYYankees, if you read any history books outside of the yankee propaganda you were forced fed in public school, you would know that the Southern “holy roller” evangelicals you seem to so despise are of course overwhelmingly Baptist.’
So-called Holy Rollers , Pentecostals, Charismatics etc. are definitely not in the same camp as Baptists. Lots of enmity for the Holy Rollers from the Baptists.
“So-called Holy Rollers , Pentecostals, Charismatics etc. are definitely not in the same camp as Baptists. Lots of enmity for the Holy Rollers from the Baptists.”
Duly noted Sam, and quite correct. But NYYankees doesn’t know the difference if you examine the link she posted. So I thought I would just “roll” with it.
Deo Vindice
I dislike all holy rollers. Brad has a very interesting article on here about how the scots irish presbyterians became baptists. He didn’t depict them as originally Puritans. Wikipedia on Williams:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Williams_(theologian)
I also dislike, and distrust, anyone who takes no pride in their people. There are good people in Boston. The fact that you loathe all of them should be enough to cause posters concern that deep in your heart, there is only hatred for whites anywhere.
You and Dan Poole should form a support group to heal this sickness – Disingenuous White Racialism.
‘The Southern Baptist religion is the result of evangelism that began with good old puritanical Roger Williams in New England’:
Apuleius smears southern, Baptist Christianity with Ugly Yankee paint while he whitewashes his own very un-southern (a small minority in most of the southern states) Mediterranean-derived cult look less foreign. The Welsh Baptists who exist north of the Line don’t derive from the New England Puritans either.
NYYankees, I watched your second link to ‘Saved’. I’ve never seen anyone behave like that in any church — throwing a Bible at someone. I don’t watch TV or movies as a rule, and I won’t take time to research it now, but that show seems to be Talmudic or Jesuitic propaganda. Hollywood always portrays Christians as miserable, hateful hypocrites, and most prostitutes and drug dealers (especially coloured) and atheists and agnostics as good-hearted folks. Many evil so-called Christian cults exist that might resemble that show, but don’t accept Their ‘holy roller’ strawman being applied to Biblical, orthodox Christians.
Everytime, I see John Kerry on TV, I remember that he is a direct descendant of Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards on his mother’s side of the family. LOL. the Jews are on his dad’s side of the family. Jonathon Edwards was the Puritan who preached “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” etc. That was the New England style of preaching. Not the Southern Protestant style.
The ante-bellum Southern Protestants had a positive, upbeat, almost modern message. The hell fire & brimstone stuff was a Yankee style. Not a Southern style.
If you don’t believe me, and buy the Hollywood view of southern Protestantism, I invite anyone to read the ante-bellum southern protestant magazines, that published on various practical & theological aspects of Christianity. Many of them are stored on Google Books. You will be amazed.
Actually Mosin, I rather like Southern Baptists. They used to be extraordinarily intolerant when I was much younger, but like all Christian churches they have morphed into another liberal infested denomination busy smuggling illegal aliens, adopting third world babies, and feeding useless Africans. Pointing out their origin as a Puritan sect is not a smear. It is the truth.
The movie saved is definitely over the top Hollywood anti-Christian propaganda similar to the movie Footloose back in the 1980’s. Earl Butz is right. Baptist friends often invited me to their worship services in my younger days. I never saw anything remotely resembling the “fire and brimstone” stuff there. This stereotype is a caricature of yankee preachers such as Billy Sunday in the 1920’s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykn8YcIbmfo
I personally think that most forms of low church Protestantism are ridiculous, but that is my Papist tendency to favor liturgical high church religions such as Anglican/Episcopal, Catholic, or Orthodox. Of course, the Catholic church is very low church these days thanks to Vatican II. I often refer to it as Roman Protestantism.
I owe my knowledge of the Bible to my mostly Southern Baptist teachers who would read the Bible to us before school every morning. I love those ladies and feel a great sense of gratitude towards them. You wouldn’t understand.
Deo Vindice
‘a positive, upbeat, almost modern message’:
Does ‘upbeat, almost modern’ describe their OVERLOOKING of the importation and breeding of Africans and other sins — like contemporary modern and upbeat churches overlook or even support the importing and mixing of all races, and other sins.
The DOWN beat is in order now. Whites have lost the fear of God, which is to hate sin.
“I dislike all holy rollers.”
“The fact that you loathe all of them should be enough to cause posters concern that deep in your heart, there is only hatred for whites anywhere.”
It’s arguing with itself now. How charming.
Pretzel logic mixed with anti-religious bigotry. What a combo.
Deo Vindice
The Billy Sunday style is certainly not OUR ‘style’! Remember, Apuleius, that the sawdust trail of campmeeting preaching ran through the south as well as the north — and I do understand about those old time one-room school teachers who read the Bible to their classes, since I had two of them for teachers in childhood, and descend directly from another who kept up the practice in the public high school through the 1960’s.
“The Billy Sunday style is certainly not OUR ‘style’! Remember, Apuleius, that the sawdust trail of campmeeting preaching ran through the south as well as the north.”
I know that very well, Mosin. My mother’s side of the family was and is Methodist.
And a Methodist is simply a Baptist that can read. (Old joke alert for the humor challenged)
Glad to hear you are descended from one of those ladies. The Supreme Court decision regarding school prayer was still very recent, so they always took great pains to stress that participation was voluntary. Of course that wasn’t good enough for the atheist thugs, but then nothing short of the complete subjugation of others to their viewpoint is ever good enough for them. Anti-religious neopuritanism is their stock and trade.
Deo Vindice
The Hollywood types like to equate Southern style preaching & theology with the hell fire and brimstone of Old Testament Jews. Nothing could be farther from the truth—particularly in the ante-bellum era!
Music break!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=migePRg5ClE
Deo Vindice
“Not the Southern Protestant style.”
Southern Protestant “style?” What unhistorical bilge. Now you are making things up. Protestantism in the South runs the gamut from High Church Anglicans all the way to snake handlers, holy rollers, and semi-literate Baptists like yourself. One thing they do seem to have in common is a tendency to espouse World Council of Churches PC bullshit about racial reconciliation and BRA political attitudes exactly the same as Yankee Protestants.
“Music break!”
Doc always played that tune with a very bluesy style. LOL
“Southern Protestant “style?” What unhistorical bilge. Now you are making things up. Protestantism in the South runs the gamut from High Church Anglicans all the way to snake handlers, holy rollers, and semi-literate Baptists like yourself. One thing they do seem to have in common is a tendency to espouse World Council of Churches PC bullshit about racial reconciliation and BRA political attitudes exactly the same as Yankee Protestants.”
Make up your mind. You can’t have it both ways. Either Southern Protestantism is as diverse as you say, or it is WCC PC bullshit as you say. Or maybe, just maybe, it is nothing like what you say it is, because you don’t know what you are talking about.
Either way, your version of Christianity is a strawman dishonestly constructed with malicious intent. You ain’t fooling anyone with your bullshit.
Deo Vindice
“You can’t have it both ways.”
I certainly can. In my long past youth it was extremely diverse. Now it’s not.
And you wouldn’t speak to me that way in person if you valued your face in its current arrangement you smart mouth prick.
“And you wouldn’t speak to me that way in person if you valued your face in its current arrangement you smart mouth prick.”
Typical bully. You can dish it out, but you can’t take it.
Deo Vindice
“Typical bully. You can dish it out, but you can’t take it.”
I can dish it out all right, you can bet on that. What I can’t take is your imitative and equally puerile defense of Muslims killing innocent White civilians which you put out there merely for the adolescent shock value of it. Grow up.
I didn’t put it out, but I do understand the sentiments expressed by Dan Poole.
Anyone with an IQ two levels above plant life knows he was venting.
You just want to stir some shit. So I called you on it. Now dry up.
Deo Vindice
The Pentecostals didn’t come from the Baptists. They are spiritual descendants of the Methodists. In the late 19th century, groups of Methodists who were concerned about what they considered the lack of zeal for the faith formed holiness associations that promoted stricter moral and spiritual standards. This lend to a lot of religious experimentation by the various groups, and in 1906, the Azusa St. revival gave birth to modern Pentecostalism.
“You just want to stir some shit. So I called you on it. Now dry up.”
Nice try but it was exactly your teenage BS that was called out. By me. Now go finish your chores or they won’t let you drive the car tonight.
Mosin, which unsouthern Mediterranean cult are your talking about? And pray tell, which unit of the Confederate Army did your ancestors serve in?
Rudel says:
‘The problem is with Christianity itself – A Judaic based religion meant for slaves.’
I can certainly understand how one would arrive at that conclusion.
An example of codes of conduct circulated throughout the early Christian world based on scripture verses. Great way to keep people vanquished by the Romans or any oppressor in check.
Makes me wonder about the veracity of scriptures.
A godsend for predators, sociopaths, thieves, invaders and con-men of every stripe.
How well does that advice work for Whites in South Africa, Rhodesia, Chicago, Nawlins and anywhere else on this planet?
Who benefits? Who loses… in this world?
* If any man give you a blow on your right cheek, turn the other to him also, and you will be flawless;
* If a man take away your cloak, give him also your coat;
* If a man takes away from you that which is your own, do not ask it back, for you are unable to do that.
* Give to every man that asks of you and do not ask it back.
They are preaching that garbage hammer and tongs in every Christian church in America and Western Europe nowadays in order to destroy the White race. Just look at the disgraceful actions of that new pope. The Protestant churches are just as bad if not worse (Lutheran pastors in Sweden being a prime example.)
“And a Methodist is simply a Baptist that can read. (Old joke alert for the humor challenged)”
Yes, I’ve posted that Presbyterian joke on this site a couple of times myself although I didn’t include the lame proviso that it was a joke as that sort of negates the whole point for those that don’t get it.
“Who benefits? Who loses… in this world?”
Exactly. If you don’t believe in it, it doesn’t make any sense at all.
If your metaphysics do not include an afterlife, then Christianity is really pointless.
If you reject its fundamental axioms, then any religion or belief will be completely incomprehensible to you.
One thing is certain. Eventually, you will die. At that point, both your existence and your opinions will become completely inconsequential. They will cease to exist.
And since your existence and opinions are a mere passing ephemera, they can be safely ignored. By your own definition you cannot possess any truth that is more than a mere contingency. Your existence is not necessary.
If truth is not universal, then it isn’t the truth. Your truth is not universal.
Your truth is neither timeless, eternal, nor immutable.
The statement 2+2=4 is an example of a true statement. It is universally true, no matter if you are in classical Greece in 500 B.C., Japan in 1850, or in Amurrica in 2014. Timeless, eternal, and immutable.
It is a beautiful thing, really. Willful blindness is a poor substitute for sight, but if it’s all you got, then roll with it. After all, your existence is a paltry thing by your own definition, and of no real consequence.
Creature of a day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHf2S9ICfH4
Deo Vindice
Rudel says:
‘They are preaching that garbage hammer and tongs in every Christian church in America and Western Europe nowadays in order to destroy the White race. Just look at the disgraceful actions of that new pope. The Protestant churches are just as bad if not worse (Lutheran pastors in Sweden being a prime example.)’
Correct. I’ve heard evangelicals like Huckabee make the claim that the Latin American/Mexican invasion in this country is God’s will.
How so?
We were supposed to go to all nations and preach the gospel, but we didn’t do a very good job of it, so the Almighty is sending the nations to us and every other Christian first world country.
They are destroying us in the process … but so be it.
The self serving Catholic Council of Bishops is also on board of course as most Mexicans are Catholics.
Catholics, Lutherans and most all denominations are HELL bent on flooding us and Europe with Africans, Arabs, Dotheads, Flips, Amazonian rain forest dwellers and and every non-White imaginable.
I checked out a Mormon website a couple of years ago and they were featuring mixed race couples.
One in particular of a pretty White woman with an ugly Negro and dey niglets.
Just great!
Southern Baptist Convention makes history electing negro as groups’ first president.
http://baptistcourier.com/2012/07/sbc-taps-luter-in-historic-election/
Published on July 5, 2012
In one of the most historic meetings in the Southern Baptist Convention’s 167-year history, messengers meeting June 19-20 elected the body’s first African-American president and voted to keep the convention’s name while approving a descriptor, “Great Commission Baptists,” for those churches that wish to use it.
The convention officially repented of its racist past at the 1995 meeting, and has seen the percentage of non-white churches grow, from 5 percent of the SBC in 1990 to 19 percent in 2010.
Last year, messengers approved a landmark report encouraging ethnic diversity in committee appointments.
Luter, who was unopposed and received a lengthy standing ovation from messengers when elected, told media at a news conference that he sees his election as being a turning point for blacks and other ethnic groups.
“Here is a convention that has been talking this racial reconciliation thing and now they’re putting their money where their mouth is,” said Luter, pastor of New Orleans’ Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, whose building was flooded after Hurricane Katrina but has been rebuilt into a mega-church amid the city’s much-reduced population.
Luter called his election “a genuine, authentic move by this convention that says our doors are open.” He also said he hopes to see minorities promoted to other positions within the convention, “and I’ll be a cheerleader promoting that.”
“The statement 2+2=4 is an example of a true statement. It is universally true, no matter if you are in classical Greece in 500 B.C., Japan in 1850, or in Amurrica in 2014. Timeless, eternal, and immutable.”
Actually it is not timeless, eternal, and immutable. Mathematics is merely an abstract concept. Its only physical reality is in the existence of neurons firing in the brain. No brain, no math. When the last person that understands a particular mathematical abstraction ceases to exist so too does the math itself.
Your serious error is in confusing mental abstractions with objective physical reality. There is no “math” inherent in our sense perceptions or the perceptions we get from the reading of our instruments. Mathematics enables us to do some very precise approximations of real phenomena but math is not the perceived external phenomenon under study itself.
You are seriously deluded and need to shitcan your Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas and read David Hume, rightly dubbed the “last philosopher.” There is no metaphysics and it is not even needed as a precondition for empirical logic. The best we can hope for are probabilities some of which approach certainty such as the near absolute one that you will die and cease to physically exist as a person in any form for all eternity, and others that are less certain such as will it rain tomorrow in Oregon. The fact that anything we say is true is only probabilistic follows from the Problem of Induction.
Pay particular attention to Bayesian logic as it starts to yield probabilities starting with the very first empirical evidential samples.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/
Another insight of Hume that you in particular should study is the is-ought problem. Most folks including Aquinas when he ventures into natural law wrongly assume that because something is conditionally true it ought to be true at all times. Hume wrote:
“In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, ’tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention would subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason.”
As for morality, love, truth, beauty etc… Hume observes that these are mere sentiments bubbling up from our subconscious mind. That they are not universally true is trivially obvious given the fact that mankind does not universally agree on any of them.
My own feeling is that these matters of morals and ethics ought to be studied scientifically and understood in Darwinian terms as to whether or not they have any survival value for breeding the next generation and if so how much and how contingent on existing external conditions they might be.
Absolutely nothing is timeless and immutable you ignorant mackerel snapping Thomist.
Apuleius says: ‘ If your metaphysics do not include an afterlife, then Christianity is really pointless.
Sam says: Christianity is a religion among countless religions. Questioning it’s doctrines, precepts and dogmas does not preclude believing in an after life or existence beyond the physical body.
Apuleius says: ‘If you reject its fundamental axioms, then any religion or belief will be completely incomprehensible to you.’
Sam says: Your perspective is way too narrow. You should venture beyond your little pigeon hole.
Apuleius says: ‘One thing is certain. Eventually, you will die. At that point, both your existence and your opinions will become completely inconsequential. They will cease to exist.’
Sam says: I have already had the experience we call death. My existence, awareness, consciousness did not abate.
Apuleius says: ‘Your truth is not universal. Your truth is neither timeless, eternal, nor immutable.’
Sam says: How would you know?
Apuleius says: ‘Willful blindness is a poor substitute for sight, but if it’s all you got, then roll with it. ‘
Sam says: Everyone not buying into your belief system is blind? Arrogant much?
Apuleius says: ‘After all, your existence is a paltry thing by your own definition, and of no real consequence.’
Sam says: My definition? I never said anything remotely close to that. You come up with some off the wall stuff.
Interesting info about the Roman Catholic Church and miscegenation in Latin America: “In the Hispanic world this policy prevented a separation system of castes, like the one that has divided the Anglo-Saxons of the north”
http://www.destroyzionism.com/2013/12/09/catholic-church-miscegenation-hispanic/
“Interesting info about the Roman Catholic Church and miscegenation in Latin America”
If you don’t think that the ruling class in most latin American countries is overwhelmingly light-skinned then you have never travelled there.
I was indeed venting, as I’m wont to do on this site because I share its anti-Northern sentiments. Dr. Hill’s essay, “The Demonization of the South,” which I read before I started commenting on OD a year ago, was what set me down the road of burning contempt for my fellow White Northerners.
http://dixienet.org/rights/thedemonizationofthesouth.shtml
It’s refreshing to see a mainstream conservative site like American Thinker pick up on the Puritanical roots of liberalism in the United States – and as Keith Alexander said, liberalism in all its strands is the modern face of evil. Calling out Puritanism will naturally lead to calling out the Pilgrims themselves and what a bunch of anti-white, demented lunatics they were. Contrary to patriotard/conservatard belief, the Pilgrims were horrible human beings to their core. They were the oppressors, not the oppressed. It’s a crying shame the Indians didn’t wipe them all out so that their poison could never mutate and spread. Egalitarianism, multiracialism, multiculturalism, atheism, the gay agenda…all that garbage and then some are the direct result of the Pilgrims and their satanic ideology disguised as “Christian piety.” The Puritans created Yankeedom – along with the equally demented Quakers and a few other fucked up groups- and it is Yankeedom that is the cause of every anti-white outrage of the last 200 years.
If anyone is interested in expanding their horizons I would suggest reading the books of William Buhlman and listening to some of his Youtube interviews.
His writings resonate with me because I have had the same experiences throughout my life. However, most of my OBE’s were spontaneous not self initiated.
If you think it is all bunk and reject it because your theology might be challenged or don’t want your applecart disrupted. Fine with me. We all travel different roads.
Thanks for the link, Sam. I’ll check it out.
The Lord works and moves in mysterious ways:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2608455/Wu-Tang-affiliated-rapper-high-PCP-cut-penis-jumped-balcony-Los-Angeles-apartment-building.html
Quote from the above link that puts a smile on my face every time I read it:
“Additionally, Andre Johnson – whose stage name is Christ Bearer – posted on social media that he feels ‘blessed;’ after he used a serrated steak knife to cut off his genitals before jumping from the balcony of a North Hollywood apartment building about 1 a.m. Wednesday.”
Was it JC or the PCP?
Either way, looks like he won’t be “muh dicking” any more white girls.
Quite a blessing, indeed.
Deo Vindice
Now if we could only get your ilk to follow suit, Apelike…
And FYI: no italian is a yankee. Period. It’s not clear whether I, as a *white* person whose family has been in the North since the early 1800’s, or on one side in Canada even earlier, am. Dan Poole’s status is even more questionable; no real yankee came through Ellis Island.
But an italian? Somebody get Dalton! We’ve finally found a bona fide mental patient.
“And FYI: no italian is a yankee…no real yankee came through Ellis Island.”
Sadly, many Italians who had the misfortune of coming through Ellis Island, like all the other immigrants who arrived there, including your Irish forebears, were duly yankeefied. I don’t hold it against them, but it is tough to deal with sometimes. They were just trying to assimilate into the “melting pot.”
Btw, not all Italians came through Ellis Island. Many did, but that’s just the yankee spin on “American” history, not unlike references to “our pilgrim forefathers.” Your brainwashing in public school left out much of the story of America. I know it will probably cause you more outrage and butthurt to be disabused of that notion, but there it is.
It occurs to me that the term “yankee” is of little utility in describing these northern immigrants. Perhaps “neopuritan proselytes” would be a better and more descriptive term. What do you think?
It’s good to see you start to make the necessary distinctions. Maybe there is hope for you yet.
Deo Vindice
Everyone here uses “Yankees” to refer to all White American Northerners at any point in any time since Plymouth Rock was settled. It’s not that complicated to understand unless you think Kyle Rogers and Jared Taylor are Netanyahu’s kin. Oh wait…
Interesting link, Sam. I do have a few nits to pick with it.
1. He seems to rely overly much upon his personal experience, and discount other sources of information on this phenomenon that might help better frame it in context. Personal experience is limited and contingent. Others have been here before, and their experiences can inform ours.
2. Like most New Age types, who in my experience tend to gravitate towards what I would call “liberalism expressed through the misappropriation of ancient spirituality,” he denies the existence of the demonic or of the presence of evil in the world. Of course, the problem of evil is a very dense philosophical problem, so maybe he was just trying to limit the scope of his presentation or trying to make it as palatable as possible.
3. Again, like most New Age types, who come from a Western, Christian cultural matrix, he wrongly claims that things like Final Judgment and Hell are exclusive to Christianity. This Christian strawman, which focuses only on the negative aspects of Christianity, is a staple of most New Age publications I have read. Of course, an alternative spirituality would have a vested interest in demonizing mainstream spirituality.
I asked Hunter to send you my email address. Drop me a line. I have some resources you might be interested in. Rest assured I am not trying to evangelize you, but this forum is hardly the place to have a serious discussion on these types of things.
Deo Vindice
Nice one, Dan. ROFLMAO.
Deo Vindice