He Had It Coming

Well, everybody must be making mistakes, because everyone dies eventually. Including Eileen, eventually. My feeling is that God does cause everything, but "punishment/reward" is too simplistic. Rather, everything is meant as an opportunity to grow or improve oneself. While extreme examples---like a child with leukemia---seem tragic, I like to think it all has some purpose, either for this life or the next---but I don't think it's as easy as Eileen seems to. God bless.

Sorry, I'm a bit surly tonight.

I believe in the mind - body connection. I believe that all things happen for a reason, for our own learning, growth, or even to serve as a learning guide for others. (I also believe all the people that were / are ever in your life were there to teach you something.) But to suggest that "you have something coming " due to blocked chakras is at best, cold, at worst, idiotic. For this Eileen's sake, she's damned lucky I was not the parent of the five year old that died. Had she told me that with a straight face, she'd have learned a lesson about getting up off the floor after being knocked on her ass. Sometimes Surliness Works,

When some New Agers make sweeping comments like "Everyone attracts everything in their lives," I now want to gag. I do believe that like atrracts like, and what comes around goes around, but if you apply some critical thinking to this statement, you'll see the weakness in it. Mainly that "everyone" means EVERYONE, and "everything" means EVERYTHING. That would include the 5 yr old, and dying of leukemia. How would that be possible with a child who doesn't even have words for such a thing yet? All we can do is have our theories as to why it happened, like karma or choosing to experience certain things in this lifetime before we were born or whatever. But they're all pretty cold comfort when it's you and/or your loved ones that the thing happens to. Believing in a life after death doesn't make my grief at losing a loved one any less. We must realize that we don't know ALL the answers. Nobody does. So use your wonderful, God/dess-given brain and think! Think!! THINK!!

That New Agers are nitwits is not news.

I've been more or less into New Age philosophy for about twenty years now, and it has been a great influence on my spirituality. So I know its strengths--and its weaknesses. One of which is it gets too "airy-fairy," with not enough down-to-earth practicality. If your beliefs aren't part of your daily life, what good are they? Another is that it's gotten way too "yuppified" and metrospiritual in the past few years, all about seminars and retreats that only the rich can afford, shutting out the middle- and working classes altogether, even if they do have an interest in New Age thinking. Another is that there seems to be a lack of fair critiques on its philosophy, which should be levelled towards it as much as towards any organized religion.
Seen the Oprah shows on "The Secret"? What "secret"? I knew that stuff long ago! I saw the "Response to the Secret" show, and was intrigued by one woman who knew about The Secret years ago, had been using the methods and had attracted the life she wanted--and then lost it all in the 9/11 attack. They then talked about how she had gotten her life back together with the Secret's methods, but no one thought to ask why, if this woman had been doing all the "right" things, would she attract losing them all in 9/11? Wonder what would have happened if someone had asked that? But then, the authors would have to say that they really don't have all the answers.
Okay, so that was off-topic. Thanks for letting me post.