Please forgive any sloppiness in this post, I've only got an hour to punch this one out but I felt it too important to let pass unaddressed.
Judging gods.
Ruth sent me an e-mail that warned of a book being promoted in our state run schools through the Scholastic Readership Program and pushed by Oprah and a slew of other celebs who 'feel' their spirituality rather than "Know" their God. So this one is dangerous because it promotes Oprah's feel good, real good form of spirituality. Conversations with God, Book 1
by Neale Donald Walsch
(Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc., 1997)
Book 2 has been on the best seller lists for 120 weeks and the secular and 'spiritual' people are loving it because it promotes all the anti-wisdom crap the unlearned in spiritual matters, love. Examples follow:
1.
"On a blank sheet of paper, I would merely write a question. . . and no sooner was the question written than the answer would form in my head, as if Someone were whispering in my ear. I was taking dictation!"Walsch has employed a couple of really bad spiritual practices to write this book. The first is known as auto writing. The second is known as channeling. Look them up, these are practices which allow any dirty ol' spirit to 'inform' you.
2. ORIGINAL SIN
This alleged state of imperfection in which you are said to come into this world is what your religionists have the gall to call original sin. . . Some of your religions have built up whole theologies around this misconception. . . Yet, in order to justify the idea of a punitive God, your religions needed to create something for me to be angry about.. . . Sop you’d better do something about all of this… or you’ll go straight to hell. This, in the end, may do nothing to mollify a weird, vindictive, angry God, but it does give life to weird, vindictive, angry religions. (119-120. See also 136)
Only humans are judgmental, and because you are, you assume that I must be. Yet I am not…. (183)
The ability to discern truth is not our natural state. We are a fallen people, ie. programmed to love self destruction. a.k.a. sin. It is only through the study of truth, especially in spiritual matters, that we can overcome this love of self destruction. "As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ." (Colossians 2:6-8)
Walsch's sole authority is a blank piece of paper and his imagination. Oh yeah, and your willingness to accept what you want to believe about God.
3REINCARNATION
NDW: Is there such a thing as reincarnation?
God: You have had 647 past lives, since you insist on being exact. This is your 648th. You were everything in them. A king, a queen, a serf…. No, there is not such thing as karmic debt – not in the sense that you mean… You are not obligated to do anything. (204)
PSYCHIC POWER
Using psychic ability is nothing more than using your sixth sense. Obviously, this is not "trafficking with the devil," or I would not have given this sense to you. And, of course, there is no devil with whom to traffic. (205)
SEX
NDW: Is sex okay?
God: Of course sex is "okay." … Play with sex. Play with it! It’s wonderful fun. (205)
Sex is sacred, too… But joy and sacredness do mix (they are in fact the same thing)… You have repressed sex, even as you have repressed life, rather than fully Self expressing with abandon and joy. You have shamed sex, even as you have shamed life, calling it evil and wicked, rather than the highest gift and the greatest pleasure. 207
The energy that which underscores sex is the energy which underscores life… 207
Walsch bought and sells the idea that there is no limitation on your behavior or desires. There is no devil, there is no harm, there is no cost or consequence. If the physical realm teaches us anything, it teaches us that there is danger in ignorance and undisciplined living. The same is true in the spiritual realm. There are dangers that God is constantly telling us about, has given us oracles and the Bible to inform us about.
Please watch what your kids are being given to read and encouraged to follow. Don't allow the state run schools to be your kids' spiritual guides. Don't allow Walsch and Oprah and Tom Cruz to be your spiritual guides. Test every spirit and know whether they are your enemy or your friend. Be wise in the knowledge of what makes an enemy an enemy and a friend a friend. Teaching you to follow habits and practices that will lead to your own destruction or reinforcing the beliefs you want to hold is the work of an enemy. A friend will tell you when you are heading into a fun self destruction and will tell you off loudly and persistently until you straighten up and walk the way of real life and benefit.
