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I posted this on the Thoughtful Faith FB group, but was also interested in the Stay LDS communities thoughts on this documentary.I just watched the most fascinating documentary on Netflix with my wife tonight.
KumaréHas anyone else seen this? I would be interested to know your thoughts. It opened up for an evening of contemplative discussion with my wife and I tonight.
I think it is very hard to determine if God really wants us to do something or if it is just our own mind. This should give us all caution when acting in a manner because we think God wants it. People in this country have burned witches, owned slaves, segregated schools, denied homosexuals civil rights and denied blacks the priesthood all because God wanted it that way. Pretty scary behavior if you ask me. Oh, let’s not forget those 19 hijackers on 9/11 who killed Americans for holy war. They thought God would give them Virgins for killing thousands of innocent civilians.
Christians were at the forefront of getting rid of slavery and black civi rights in Africa and elsewhere. As for homosexuality, secular psychiatry used to consider it a mental disorder. Now they consider homophobia the disorder. More to do with fashion than science.
Quote:Does it only matter that we are finding peace and trying to be good people on our spiritual journey?
When all is said and done, yes. We really can’t know objectively about things outside our mortal vision, so, at the most fundamental level, all we are required to do is live according to the dictates of our own consciences, let us worship how, where or what we may.
The interesting thing is that, when you get to the heart of current Mormon theology (especially when you consider temple theology and vicarious work for the dead), the summary above is a pretty good one to describe the path to “perfection” we call the Celestial Kingdom – and it’s the heart of the Atonement within our theology.
SamBee wrote:Christians were at the forefront of getting rid of slavery and black civi rights in Africa and elsewhere.
As for homosexuality, secular psychiatry used to consider it a mental disorder. Now they consider homophobia the disorder. More to do with fashion than science.
Hmm, many Christians were also at the forefront of trying to keep slavery legal in this country and elsewhere. They were the slave owners afterall. In addition, why are you bashing psychiatry? I was under the impression that this topic was about humans interpreting Gods will?
Also, I disagree with some of your statements about white Christians fighting for civil rights in Africa. The majority of whites were against ending apartheid in South Africa. It took the black majority fighting for decades to get it done.
I use to work in the oil and gas industry and I was able to travel throughout Africa on business. Mainly South Africa and Namibia. I never took an official poll, but white people there from my experience were still angry about apartheid ending.
ihhi wrote:I posted this on the Thoughtful Faith FB group, but was also interested in the Stay LDS communities thoughts on this documentary.I just watched the most fascinating documentary on Netflix with my wife tonight.
KumaréHas anyone else seen this? I would be interested to know your thoughts. It opened up for an evening of contemplative discussion with my wife and I tonight.
Wow! so many questions. Is it ok to lie to people to prove that others may be doing so under similar pretenses? What about if those lies are striking at the heart of what those people hold dear and sacred? Is this man changed from this experience? Is he pained by the turmoil he may put his followers in when he reveals his true identity? Does he really connect with them or is his mind detached as though they were lab rats in an experiment? I definitely want to see it!
I do know that a website (tolerance.com something like that) asked people to pray about what God wanted on a particular controversial issue. A fair number of them felt like God had answered their prayer confirming their earlier stance on the issue. Not all received answers … but nobody received an answer that contradicted their earlier position. God within? Maybe!
That’s white people. Still doesn’t change the fact Christians esp. Quakers were at the forefront of the fight against slavery. Wilberforce, Tutu, King… all major figures in this, all vocally Christian.
SamBee wrote:That’s white people. Still doesn’t change the fact Christians esp. Quakers were at the forefront of the fight against slavery.
Wilberforce, Tutu, King… all major figures in this, all vocally Christian.
I’ll ask you my original question again, why bring up and bash psychiatry when the topic is interpreting Gods will? I’m just trying to understand your opinion. In addition, homophobia is not considered a psychiatric disorder according to the DSM-4 or the planned new DSM-5.
George Washington, Robert E Lee, Thomas Jefferson, George Wallace were all “white” Christians that did some very bad things in regards to blacks. Just because you are a Christian/Mormon etc.. does not mean you can’t do horrible things. That’s why my point is that we need to be careful interpreting Gods will.
Personally, I found it interesting that you have to refer to Desmond Tutu and Martin Luther King as Christians who actually did stuff to help end discrimination. I don’t know any black people that ever said discrimination against their race should continue.
More importantly SamBee, I hope you are having a great Monday and a great start to your week!
Roy wrote:I do know that a website (tolerance.com something like that) asked people to pray about what God wanted on a particular controversial issue. A fair number of them felt like God had answered their prayer confirming their earlier stance on the issue. Not all received answers … but nobody received an answer that contradicted their earlier position. God within? Maybe!
Someone raised a similar question on the Thoughtful Faith FB group recently. How often has the spirit revealed truth to you that was contrary to what do already believed, or wanted to believe. Most people said their answers did not contradict their existing position.
I know I moved across the country because I felt like the spirit confirmed my decision to move. In retrospect, I don’t feel it was a traditionally inspired decision as it has led me down a strange path. But from the perspective of being inspired by the god within…I feel like it was inspired.
AG I think you’re falling into the current fad of blaming Christianity for most of the ills of the world. For every Rev Phelps, there’s a Rev King. For every white supremacist leader, there’s a Father Damien working with society’s lepers. I note you didn’t address Wilberforce who was not black. He’s not alone in the Christian anti-slavery movement for being white.
We don’t use the DSM system in this country generally, AFAIK. We have our own here.
A lot of psychiatry is just about reinforcing the status quo anyway. Why blame bad teaching and food additives for hyperactivity when you can blame ADD and give them expensive drugs? That way no one loses jobs and more money is made.
Psychiatry and religion overlap to a surprising degree when it comes to their questions. Both feature inaccurate speculations, as well as debates about free will, morality and crime etc. A few years ago, I had the privilege of hearing Prof Michael Gazzaniga talk in a series of lectures about his split brain research. Fascinating. But amongst other things he was talking about moral choices we make, and how we can be misled by our inner voices.
SamBee wrote:But amongst other things he was talking about moral choices we make, and how we can be misled by our inner voices.
I agree and I believe that this is the point of Kumare – that one need not be particularly special or godly to feel a “connection.”
I watched some interviews of these fellows on Utube. They said that they felt an obligation to the people that appeared on camera (the dupes) to give them something worthwhile. So that after the big reveal they would still be ok with the experience. I don’t know exactly what that means but I suppose that they wouldn’t let anyone get so invested in the make-believe that they would be making inalterable life choices, giving large sums of money, or otherwise committing themselves to Kumare and his belief system.
Another thing that was interesting is how the actor portraying Kumare began experiencing the same sort of spiritual promptings and “connection” to the people that he was working with. He said that was the biggest surprise of all, not that others would believe in him and feel a connection to him, but that he would feel a similar connection to them.
It makes me wonder…if a person that is essentially going undercover to expose the possible abuses of spiritual gurus can start to feel like a real spiritual leader – how much easier would it be for a person who was already prone to spirituality and visions to make some of it up and still completely believe their role as spiritual leader.
ihhi wrote:I know I moved across the country because I felt like the spirit confirmed my decision to move. In retrospect, I don’t feel it was a traditionally inspired decision as it has led me down a strange path. But from the perspective of being inspired by the god within…I feel like it was inspired.
I believe that the internal voice can be an important indicator (even if it is just from the subconscious) and find no harm in consulting it for important decisions. I just don’t think that it should be the determining factor.
SamBee, the DSM is not a United States thing. Just FYI! It is used in many other countries to various degrees and is widely considered the industry standard. In addition, I don’t blame Christianity for the worlds problems any more than you are blaming psychiatry, I hold individuals responsible for their actions. Also, I really still don’t understand your deal bashing psychiatry. I feel like you made some non factual statements regarding psychiatry in order to prove some point.
I don’t have much personal experience with psychiatry, but I agree with you that people make too many excuses for their behavior. However, I respect that psychiatry may help some just like being a Mormon helps me.
Are you personally angry with Psychiatrists or something?
Actually you’ll notice I voiced admiration for Pr Gazzaniga above on his neurological research. However, psychiatrists (in my experience) are looked down upon in medical circles for a variety of reasons. These would include being arguably the most politicized branch of medicine, peddling pseudoscience for many years and also the number of mentally ill people within their own ranks (which is why some of them study it – physician heal thyself). But no, I’m not one of these people who obsesses about them. I find certain aspects of psychiatry concerning, even creepy, but then again things are improving from what they were several decades ago. I think in the past, certain psychiatrists have lacked compassion for their patients, and that has shown in some of their methods of treatment.
Needless to say their prescriptions are probably the best safeguard any state has against revolution. More so than the military. If all those millions of medicated westerners came off their pills simultaneously, I suspect social unrest, protest and perhaps crime would ensue in a few months, when people saw what their world was really like. Peoples’ problems can be external as well as internal. Depression etc is environmental as well as chemical.
SamBee wrote:Needless to say their prescriptions are probably the best safeguard any state has against revolution. More so than the military. If all those millions of medicated westerners came off their pills, social unrest, protest and perhaps crime would ensue in a few months, when people saw what their world was really like.
I have to respectfully and adamantly disagree with this hypothesis. Mormons are some of the largest consumers of these “pills”. I don’t believe Mormons in Utah would participate in social unrest, protest and crime if they couldn’t get their “pills”.
I don’t believe we should insult individuals who are trying to improve the quality of their life with psychiatry anymore than we should insult those who use religion to help.
Hi AG, I replied to you partly by PM.
You are right, the LDS might not rebel, but many others might. My own depression results from genetics, chemicals, lack of sunlight etc, but it is also triggered by the aggressive financial demands in my mailbox (and my economic situation), the architecture round here, bureaucracy, the general lack of community and lack of direction I see outside me etc. The pills of Utah mask, no doubt women’s issues, too many children, bad working conditions and many of the things I describe above. We can take pills but they don’t solve external conditions.
Both religion and psychiatry try and address emotional fulfilment at best, but at worst they create or mask issues. In religion’s favor, it provides community psychiatry can’t and in psychiatry’s favor, it tries to deal with issues of a physiological nature.
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