Recovering from Superstition

[John Freestone]

(With thanks to tyr_13 for suggesting a 'recovering new-ager' thread...)

I've recently come through a period of more intensive study and practice of my favourite woo, emerging into scepticism with more clarity and confidence than perhaps ever before in my life. It's great in some ways, but painful and confusing in others. I'm still doing a lot of adjusting. I'd like to share some of that and ask others who have made a similar transition how they think and feel about it.

I was into a vague Buddhist-Vedanta-NewAge search for Enlightenment from getting into yoga in my teens, and then later choosing a rather 'alternative' training course in therapy. I practiced Reiki for a while and absolutely knew that chi was coming out my palms.

I switched back and forth from atheism to belief many times in my life, but got more into it over the years, until a final push of study, meditation and discussion with Buddhist monks brought me to a place where the whole edifice fell apart, also facilitated greatly by much more sensible discussions here at jref and really crazy ones at pavlina's palace of plenty (Personal Development for Smart People - yep, that's right, for Smart People, be warned!).

Coming out of it, though, I feel that I learned a lot from the 'spiritual journey' and changed in ways I'm happy about, and I wonder if I could have gained those things without the woo. For all its faults, religion does focus us on love and morality, where rationalism and science might seem amoral (or even urge us to be selfish).

On the other hand, I feel I could have made a lot more use of the last 35 years if I hadn't been navel gazing, and if I hadn't believed in some kind of endless progression of future lives or that the 'reality beyond' this world was what really mattered.

That's not just a change of viewpoint. It's extremely painful waking up from what I now think was probably a stupid dream, an ancient myth that is rehashed and resold in myriad forms though the centuries. It is hard to describe the chasm in my old worldview down which gurus and universal consciousness and peace and love cascaded over recent months, assuming that this perspective is the right one and I'm not about to change again!

I wonder if the best view is to see superstition and scepticism as a process of personal development (and cultural development) in which woo plays a role that has some value, and maybe is even essential at certain stages, but is then naturally transcended with more understanding. I want to promote scepticism and challenge superstition, but I also see that religion has a powerful hold on millions of people, and it seems a common experience that argument strengthens resistance and entrenchment in a belief.

As an example of the usefulness of my 'journey', there is some traditional spiritual wisdom I can use here: just try to teach those who are ready to hear the message!

What do you think? Is it a dreadful scandal that our young are exposed to ideas that have no evidence, for which better explanations (in psychology, for instance) exist? What about freedom of speech and association and belief? What about the preservation of traditional cultures? What was your experience?

 

[fishbait]

(With thanks to tyr_13 for suggesting a 'recovering new-ager' thread...)For all its faults, religion does focus us on love and morality, where rationalism and science might seem amoral (or even urge us to be selfish).

Interesting post. Religion uses love and morality as bait. The real focus of religion is convincing people that they are fundamentally flawed and in need of healing. They are further convinced that only the priest, guru, or teacher can heal them. The healing always comes with a price. Cash, sex, surrendering power, unquestioned adulation, whatever.

Spirituality is the last refuge of the failed human. Just another way of distracting yourself from who you really are.

 

[Cainkane1]

Humans are genetically wired to live in harmony with their fellow man. Mystical experiences do tend to provide a warm fuzzy blanket for our feelings but so does Heroin.

 

[Amapola]

Interesting post! This gave me pause for thought.

I don't agree with this statement:

For all its faults, religion does focus us on love and morality, where rationalism and science might seem amoral (or even urge us to be selfish).

I guess I see religion as a way for people to focus on "us vs. them" and go to war, burn books, burn people ("witches"), take their property and generally do whatever they like, as long as "they" are a different religion. I would not call that love or morality, but maybe that's just me. Oh, I agree - they *SAY* they are about love and morality, but alas, that is not always what the actions show. (To be fair, religion has also accomplished many positive things.)

I think one of the reasons people find religion so compelling is because they really want SOMEONE ELSE to be in charge - a "super mommy" who will make sure everything turns out all right. The sort of "It's OK, just leave it to ______ to take care of". As fishbait points out, there is always a price. Yeah, sure - it's really tough to take responsibility for your own life and decisions and actions, but for me, this is where life is most fulfilling.

I think you can find some good in the strangest beliefs. They are not set up to be "bad"! They are set up to be appealing. They appealed to someone, and that person wrote a book, started a religion, started "healing" or whatever. It's very soothing to go into one of those New Age "healing" places, with the soft lights, soft music, fountains and so on. I suppose if you go in there with an open mind (I mean, open to honesty and reason) and realize that the reason you are there is because you want someone to pay attention to you, and treat you like you are special, why, that's fine. The sad part is when people are deluded into thinking that someone waving a quartz crystal over their abdomen will cure their cancer. Or that it's their fault their daddy is dying of emphysema, because they did not pray hard enough.

 

[tyr_13]

Nice thread idea! (hehe)

As far as exposing our young to non evidence based ideas, I think they should be. That is, as long as they are exposed to evidence based ideas as well. Through exposure to both, you can really understand why it is so important to have genuine knowledge grow. Well, aside from all the other benefits of a free exchange of ideas. Nothing makes a woo wooist claiming persecution angrier than people listening to and rejecting their idiocy.

But being someone who initially believed in a lot of 'new age' stuff, I can say it is remarkably useful. You get a pattern to learn. "If this premise is true, then this would be the case," and you go from there until the festering rot of woo falls away and you get left with the useful or cool.

 

[John Freestone]

Thanks for those interesting replies. I'm a bit surprised there are such damning comments about religion, and so little reporting of personal experience of suffering. I wonder if it's too difficult to relate. Asking the question seems to have opened me to my feelings even more, and it's not a very nice ride.

Interesting post. Religion uses love and morality as bait. The real focus of religion is convincing people that they are fundamentally flawed and in need of healing. They are further convinced that only the priest, guru, or teacher can heal them. The healing always comes with a price. Cash, sex, surrendering power, unquestioned adulation, whatever.

Spirituality is the last refuge of the failed human. Just another way of distracting yourself from who you really are.

This seems an unfair depiction of religion to me. I think some of these dangers may arise unintentionally, through the actions of well-meaning people. I can't imagine that the majority of religious people or even the majority of religious officials intend to lay bait, convince people that they're fundamentally flawed (though 'original sin' is perhaps one example), restrict spiritual communion to official channels only, or demand sex or adulation, etc., though certainly these effects can be observed in some settings, and some religious groups seem more enslaving than others.

It also seems unhelpful to denote religion as the 'refuge of the failed human', as if people only turn to it when they can't succeed in life another way. For a start, I would conjecture that the vast majority of initiates are innocent children, who are victims of the process you describe above (i.e. being given conditional love by their parents as they're taken to church and required to pray to God; the parents may also be quite innocent, having been indoctrinated themselves and genuinely believing that it is best for the next generation too).

It also raises the question of what exactly a 'failed human' is supposed to be. This seems a particularly harsh judgement, and I am left trying to guess how you might define success and failure. Does this point to the sexual success of the amoral, or even 'selfish', gene - just procreative success - or success in business, or some other contribution to society? If so, it increases my desire to return to the fluffy, new-age view in which everyone is unique and valuable whatever they manage to contribute to society culturally or genetically, although this could be a humanist position, not just a 'spiritual' one (and, as you say, often a religious one differentiates good from bad people quite crudely).

Humans are genetically wired to live in harmony with their fellow man. Mystical experiences do tend to provide a warm fuzzy blanket for our feelings but so does Heroin.

This is a more positive view, which is encouraging to me in what feels like bereavement! Unfortunately, I'd have to say we're genetically wired to live in harmony with our nearest fellows and slaughter our more distant cousins. Progress would seem to require a widening of our definition of the human family to include everyone (in the interests of world peace, I mean), and threats to that may come as much from the battle between humanism and religion as between different religions.

<snip>
I guess I see religion as a way for people to focus on "us vs. them" and go to war, burn books, burn people ("witches"), take their property and generally do whatever they like, as long as "they" are a different religion. I would not call that love or morality, but maybe that's just me. Oh, I agree - they *SAY* they are about love and morality, but alas, that is not always what the actions show. (To be fair, religion has also accomplished many positive things.)

I think one of the reasons people find religion so compelling is because they really want SOMEONE ELSE to be in charge - a "super mommy" who will make sure everything turns out all right. The sort of "It's OK, just leave it to ______ to take care of". As fishbait points out, there is always a price. Yeah, sure - it's really tough to take responsibility for your own life and decisions and actions, but for me, this is where life is most fulfilling.

I think you can find some good in the strangest beliefs. They are not set up to be "bad"! They are set up to be appealing. They appealed to someone, and that person wrote a book, started a religion, started "healing" or whatever. It's very soothing to go into one of those New Age "healing" places, with the soft lights, soft music, fountains and so on. I suppose if you go in there with an open mind (I mean, open to honesty and reason) and realize that the reason you are there is because you want someone to pay attention to you, and treat you like you are special, why, that's fine. The sad part is when people are deluded into thinking that someone waving a quartz crystal over their abdomen will cure their cancer. Or that it's their fault their daddy is dying of emphysema, because they did not pray hard enough.

I think I agree most strongly with the idea that religions aren't intetionally bad. Witch hunts and crusades did/do? happen, however. I think the idea of passing off responsibility to others is also maybe a bit one-sided. My partner, for instance, takes personal responsibility very seriously (she shows me up!). To her, that is embodied in her religion, central to it, and that's not really a particularly strange interpretation of Christianity. We have free will, according to most interpretations I know, or there would be little meaning in sin or choosing to love, choosing self-sacrifice, or choosing redemption through confession, contrition and atonement.

My own favourite spiritual tradition, Buddhism, takes the idea of personal responsibility to extremes, in that we have caused every circumstance of our lives currently through our past actions, and will transcend suffering only through our own good actions.

Actually, I'm hard pushed to see that any religion teaches its followers that they don't need to be responsible (maybe some modern cults), although that can result from a hierarchy. Furthermore, I'm not quite sure what to make of a hard-line physicalist interpretation of responsibility, when so much of our behaviour is meant to result from genetic 'programming'.

Nice thread idea! (hehe)

As far as exposing our young to non evidence based ideas, I think they should be. That is, as long as they are exposed to evidence based ideas as well. Through exposure to both, you can really understand why it is so important to have genuine knowledge grow. Well, aside from all the other benefits of a free exchange of ideas. Nothing makes a woo wooist claiming persecution angrier than people listening to and rejecting their idiocy.

But being someone who initially believed in a lot of 'new age' stuff, I can say it is remarkably useful. You get a pattern to learn. "If this premise is true, then this would be the case," and you go from there until the festering rot of woo falls away and you get left with the useful or cool.

Again, I agree with some of this, particularly the value of learning critical thinking and allowing or encouraging a range of philosophies, but I'm struck by the depth of feeling and your confidence in rejecting 'idiocy', 'the festering rot of woo'. Almost despite myself, I feel drawn back to becoming a believer as a deliberate act of defiance. Why such venom? Were you badly hurt?

I mentioned this point on another thread - I'm guilty of belittling the believers now myself at times - but maybe we shouldn't. Maybe we're demonstrating that we lack something in the way of forgiveness and inclusiveness if we do that. Would you describe the traditional religion of an isolated tribe living in the Amazon basin as 'festering rot'?

I want to blame someone for making me dream of Nirvana for decades, but really I should take responsibility. I had an introduction to yoga, yes, but also plenty of instruction in science and logic. I suppose one thing that was missing was understanding of how counterintuitive critical thinking can be, how seductive wrong ideas can be, how easily human beings fool themselves - psychological knowledge I only came to relatively recently.

 

[John Freestone]

Is that it? I thought that would run a bit more. Maybe I should go blog my heavy stuff yeah? Askin dumb questions.

 

[The Drain]

There's probably quite a lot of us here who've made the journey from established religion or new age woo-ism or whatever (I still have a hankering after West African animism and the daily sunset sacrifice to the sacred crocodiles - that was a fun religion!) through to realising it's all made-up.

The interesting part of the debate for me centres on our children.

For example: I adore my childhood memories of Christmas, and - yes - Father Christmas comes to my children. (Viz comic has made the point that of all mythical creations, there is at least some hard evidence for the existence of Father Christmas; after all, the sherry gets drunk, the mince pie has been eaten and blow me down but there are real presents lying on the end of the bed. That's a better trick than God ever pulled).

So who am I to tell them that God doesn't exist?

Their mother and granny take them to church and sunday school every week.

I'm worried that if I go all Dawkins-style atheist fundamentalist, then one of their first acts of rebellion on becoming teenagers will be to "discover" Jesus. And I'm not being flippant here. That's happened with several of my cousins.

We have a family saying that we have an inherited tendency to discover either god or drink.

I so do not want my children to become 'born again' (for one thing, that would be rather painful for their mother...). And it's for that reason, even if it's apparently counter-intuitive, that I think they should continue going to the local church and saying their wee prayers at school and so on.

But it's a dilemma, isn't it? Am I being hypocritical, or merely realistic?

 

[articulett]

I think a lot of people segue into new age or deist or fuzzy sorts of beliefs when they are letting go of religion because they still have the notion that faith and feelings can lead to "higher knowledge"... or that how you feel matters more than what is "true".

I was not used to questioning or testing "spiritual claims" or saying to myself, "if this were true, then we should expect 'x'". (e.g. If psychics were real, Vegas would be out of business.)

Religion ennobles faith, blames failures on the lack of it, and makes you feel arrogant, bad, or like it won't "work" if you question it. It takes a long time to shed this kind of thinking... and, for myself, new age kind of beliefs were a segue out because I sure as hell couldn't get religion to make sense. I kinda could with some "creative visualization" or other type of new age thinking. It made more sense then any religion and seemed more fair and with less to fear I guess. But ultimately, I just decided that I'd rather not know something than believe a lie. Even with new age thought, I blamed myself when the "program" didn't seem to work-- not the "program" and "claims" made by the various gurus spouting this stuff. I wasn't "thinking positively" enough and such.

All woo fools people in a similar ways and religion elevates exactly that kind of magical thinking while, at the same time, denigrating science in our culture. Faith takes credit for all that is good even though our real miracles and useful knowledge have come through science-- and faith blames all bad on "lack of faith" causing a weird sort of mental blindness and confirmation bias where you credit all the good in your life to whatever you've been indoctrinated to believe caused it-- but you never blame your indoctrination (or faith) when tragedy results.

I credit Randi with being a big influence in my journey in understanding how I've fooled myself-- and how easily people can be fooled.

 

[Amapola]

@ John Freestone: re:

Actually, I'm hard pushed to see that any religion teaches its followers that they don't need to be responsible (maybe some modern cults), although that can result from a hierarchy. Furthermore, I'm not quite sure what to make of a hard-line physicalist interpretation of responsibility, when so much of our behaviour is meant to result from genetic 'programming'.

Sorry I was not more clear. I meant that people would feel that THOR, or God, or Zeuss or whoever was ultimately responsible and would take care of everything - like in the wider world. Hmmm, still not clear...

A lot of religious people I know feel that they live their lives the best they can but that God is ultimately responsible for how things turn out. It makes them seem fatalistic to me. I hear them say things like "Well, I guess it was not God's Will that I get that promotion" or "I was Meant to break my leg that day - and something good will come of it, you'll see". Now I agree that having a positive attitude is a good thing. But sitting around waiting for Zeuss to fix the sad state of affairs in the world - "leaving it in God's hands" - or whoever it is you think is going to make everything better - seems to me a way of dodging responsibility.

So I did not really mean responsible for their own actions so much as responsible for the whole world. For example I know some fundamentalist Christians who feel that there is no need to worry about pollution or anything like that, because the rapture is going to occur and the world is going to end anyway. One guy even told me not to worry about nuclear war, because "there won't ever be a nuclear war, God has not given man the power to end the world"! Wow! See, *I* think people are perfectly capable of having a nuclear war and that it makes sense to try and stop it if anything lies in my power. I think saying "don't worry, ______ will take care of it", is not being mindful or responsible.

Sorry this is so wordy. I hope I made it more understandable this time.

 

[Tumblehome]

Coming out of it, though, I feel that I learned a lot from the 'spiritual journey' and changed in ways I'm happy about, and I wonder if I could have gained those things without the woo.

The point you make in the OP is one I've applied to bullying. You can say bullying is unwanted and even immoral, but the fact is that people get stronger by standing up to bullies, so you could say there's a useful function in bullying.

Does that mean we should encourage bullying, or at least let it go on without intervening? In my mind, no, because some people don't respond well to bullying and are worse off for it, and I think those are the people we think of when, for example, Robert Lancaster wants to stop Sylvia Browne, or when we rail against Scientology.

You're able to pose the question in the OP because you came out of your religion alive and in one piece, but others aren't able to escape the web of woo spun around them, maybe for the rest of their lives. Should we let that continue to happen, or should we try to prevent it from happening again if we can?

BTW, I'll echo what the others said--good thread. And congratulations on your escape.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

For all its faults, religion does focus us on love and morality, where rationalism and science might seem amoral (or even urge us to be selfish).

False dichotomy here. Some religious beliefs and tenets focus on love and morality. Some of them make sense and have biological bases. As a very basic example, traditions which espouse monogamy, while seeming to be based on morality, are actually based on observed pscychology because jealousy can destroy a relationship where more than two partners are involved. Interestingly this applies to hetrosexual as well as homosexual relationships which most religious traditions consider abominable.

Also rationalism and science can explain the roots of how our ethical and moral traditions and even love developed, but that doesn't mean they are somehow less valuable to our human condition or a construct of religion. A person could be an atheist and argue - from science - that war is amoral, and do so from a solid biological basis or a person could be religous and argue from a theological basis that war is moral.

Both religion and science have their "misapplications" I would say rather than faults, but your comment doesn't apply.

I wonder if the best view is to see superstition and scepticism as a process of personal development (and cultural development)...

I snipped this paragraph because I want to focus on one word you used. Process is something that non-skeptics ignore and skeptics often forget. Skepticism is not a default position. It is a process of investigation. If this seems flippant I'm sorry, but it seems to me that you simply took 35 years to do your investigation of the supernatural and paranormal before coming to the provisional - and that's important... any new information could change things - conclusion that there was nothing of substance in those claims.

Skepticism is not a default position. It is a process that starts with a wariness of claims that sound implausible and an investigation of claims of supporters. If that investigation results in the conclusion that the claims are bunk, so be it.

I'm a bit surprised there are such damning comments about religion...

There are a lot of people here who are very angry with religion and while I think you're being a bit oversensative after reading the responses before you posted this comment, don't expect much tolerance for people who are skeptics or are investigating the skeptical process that have any acceptance that some folks are religious or worse, are religious themselves.

...Zeuss...

Zeuss was not on Mount Olympus. He was in a dystopian future where damn dirty apes ruled the planet.

 

[tyr_13]

Again, I agree with some of this, particularly the value of learning critical thinking and allowing or encouraging a range of philosophies, but I'm struck by the depth of feeling and your confidence in rejecting 'idiocy', 'the festering rot of woo'. Almost despite myself, I feel drawn back to becoming a believer as a deliberate act of defiance. Why such venom? Were you badly hurt?

I mentioned this point on another thread - I'm guilty of belittling the believers now myself at times - but maybe we shouldn't. Maybe we're demonstrating that we lack something in the way of forgiveness and inclusiveness if we do that. Would you describe the traditional religion of an isolated tribe living in the Amazon basin as 'festering rot'?

I want to blame someone for making me dream of Nirvana for decades, but really I should take responsibility. I had an introduction to yoga, yes, but also plenty of instruction in science and logic. I suppose one thing that was missing was understanding of how counterintuitive critical thinking can be, how seductive wrong ideas can be, how easily human beings fool themselves - psychological knowledge I only came to relatively recently.

Sorry I missed this part before and have thus taken such a long time in answering. I personally wasn't really hurt, although I have spent way too much time laying in bed unable to stop thinking about existence. Can't really blame that on woo.

I don't really have much 'venom' for the people caught in woo. People who do harm intentionally or though massive negligence, yes. As for my 'confidence' in rejecting idiocy, that's easy. What can be difficult is finding out what the idiocy is.

For example, I can't bring myself to call people with religious conviction in general, idiots. Hell, they could be right and I really have no way of knowing. Besides, I'm not exactly an atheist. However, there are specific parts of religious conviction which can easily be called idiocy; like making governmental choices based on them. Believes can believe whatever they want, but I take exception when they want me to change my reality based on their belief. Besides everyone believes something that isn't true, and no one belief should make someone an 'idiot'.

Maybe there is some hurt there. I've been called cold before for my conviction that some decisions should only be made based on logic and evidence. That's a bit of a stinger because otherwise I'm known for compassion and kindness (except on the forums of course).

We are all guilty of belittling others unfairly sometimes. Recognize it, and when it is unfair. We can't expect everyone to understand, but the reverse is also true. Skeptics are people, believers are people. Believers belittle and mock skeptics all the time (for some it is their only method of argument). Can you blame skeptics for falling into the pattern sometimes too?

UnrepentantSinner makes some good points too. It is a process, a way of thinking and questioning. I'm glad this thread didn't just die.

 

[John Freestone]

Wow, what a lot of amazing replies since I went off in a huff!

False dichotomy here. Some religious beliefs and tenets focus on love and morality. Some of them make sense and have biological bases. As a very basic example, traditions which espouse monogamy, while seeming to be based on morality, are actually based on observed pscychology because jealousy can destroy a relationship where more than two partners are involved. Interestingly this applies to hetrosexual as well as homosexual relationships which most religious traditions consider abominable.

Also rationalism and science can explain the roots of how our ethical and moral traditions and even love developed, but that doesn't mean they are somehow less valuable to our human condition or a construct of religion. A person could be an atheist and argue - from science - that war is amoral, and do so from a solid biological basis or a person could be religous and argue from a theological basis that war is moral.

Both religion and science have their "misapplications" I would say rather than faults, but your comment doesn't apply.

I wonder if we're at cross purposes here. I agree that many moral teachings are likely to have biological benefits or social benefits. I agree that a religious person could argue that war is moral (religion can argue any point). I have more difficulty with the idea of a person arguing from a scientific POV that something is good or bad. Aren't the foundations of science entirely value free - amoral (with no moral position), as opposed to immoral (bad, failing to meet a moral edict). There's no scientific argument that war is bad or love is good, there could only be a defined result to which those things contribute or don't. In other words, a scientific position could take 'the survival of the human species' as a primary objective, and construct a pragmatic pseudo-morality (which might involve similar regulations to some religious ones), but it would be an arbitrary scheme, wouldn't it? It might, in fact, conflict with others who would be happy to sacrifice the lot of us for a nicer planet.

Obviously a simple rejoinder is that we can be moral and that is nothing to do with science. I was just making the comparison: religion is deeply concerned with morality and considers it absolute; science is silent on the matter.

I snipped this paragraph because I want to focus on one word you used. Process is something that non-skeptics ignore and skeptics often forget. Skepticism is not a default position. It is a process of investigation. If this seems flippant I'm sorry, but it seems to me that you simply took 35 years to do your investigation of the supernatural and paranormal before coming to the provisional - and that's important... any new information could change things - conclusion that there was nothing of substance in those claims.

No, that doesn't sound flippant, and is probably pretty accurate. It's a simplification - I have actually been all shades of sceptic, atheist, agnostic, and various things I probably couldn't define. For many years I chucked out the idea of God, and Buddhism was my 'segue'.

Skepticism is not a default position. It is a process that starts with a wariness of claims that sound implausible and an investigation of claims of supporters. If that investigation results in the conclusion that the claims are bunk, so be it.

Sure. As an aside: sometimes people develop the habit only in relation to unorthodox ideas, and sometimes people are criticised for being sceptical about orthodox positions. (Admittedly, plenty of bleevers also use this sceptical stance as a cover - pretending to be 'sceptical' about evolution, for instance, to cover up a desperate desire to destroy its claims and maintain their blind faith in creationism.)

There are a lot of people here who are very angry with religion

I'm just getting to understand the extent of that.

and while I think you're being a bit oversensative after reading the responses before you posted this comment, don't expect much tolerance for people who are skeptics or are investigating the skeptical process that have any acceptance that some folks are religious or worse, are religious themselves.

I think you're probably not advocating being intolerant, are you, just suggesting I shouldn't hope for much tolerance here for the religious views? I think if sceptics aren't reasonably tolerant, we do scepticism a real disservice, especially because of my earlier point - the unsceptical are very often the victims of indoctrination or bad education. Intolerance isn't going to attract recruits, just entrench the fearful wooist further in his madness. Besides, we're making a rather simple mapping of atheistic = sceptical, perhaps. I think there are some quite reasonable cosmological theories or propositions that might be regarded as 'religious', and I have no beef with believers per se. Science would be nowhere without imagination and theories, as Einstein knew well, it's just that they have to be consistent with observation. Actually, I think Intelligent Design isn't such a crazy idea, given the syntropic processes observable in nature, it's just that my meaning would be very very far from what most ID proponents mean - yikes maybe for another thread.

The point you make in the OP is one I've applied to bullying. You can say bullying is unwanted and even immoral, but the fact is that people get stronger by standing up to bullies, so you could say there's a useful function in bullying.

Does that mean we should encourage bullying, or at least let it go on without intervening? In my mind, no, because some people don't respond well to bullying and are worse off for it, and I think those are the people we think of when, for example, Robert Lancaster wants to stop Sylvia Browne, or when we rail against Scientology.

Good points. I don't mean that I gained from religion by overcoming the evils of indoctrination, though. I mean that there are important lessons that I learned, which in my culture are almost exclusively taught with a heavy dose of pixy dust. The woo itself was almost entirely damaging to me I think.

You're able to pose the question in the OP because you came out of your religion alive and in one piece, but others aren't able to escape the web of woo spun around them, maybe for the rest of their lives. Should we let that continue to happen, or should we try to prevent it from happening again if we can?

We should try to prevent it, certainly. Again, I get into difficulties, however, working out the issues of helping people escape the web of woo whilst also respecting people's freedom, and in particular the cultural traditions of whole creeds. But I guess that's just a political question of judgement. We don't want the Anti-Father-Christmas Police going round on 24th December, do we?

BTW, I'll echo what the others said--good thread. And congratulations on your escape.

Thanks. I really appreciate all this help.

<snip>

So I did not really mean responsible for their own actions so much as responsible for the whole world. For example I know some fundamentalist Christians who feel that there is no need to worry about pollution or anything like that, because the rapture is going to occur and the world is going to end anyway. One guy even told me not to worry about nuclear war, because "there won't ever be a nuclear war, God has not given man the power to end the world"! Wow! See, *I* think people are perfectly capable of having a nuclear war and that it makes sense to try and stop it if anything lies in my power. I think saying "don't worry, ______ will take care of it", is not being mindful or responsible.

Sorry this is so wordy. I hope I made it more understandable this time.

Ah yes, of course. I was being a bit dim to miss that very important side of responsibility, and I'm with you there. Wordy? I wouldn't dare.

I think a lot of people segue into new age or deist or fuzzy sorts of beliefs when they are letting go of religion because they still have the notion that faith and feelings can lead to "higher knowledge"... or that how you feel matters more than what is "true".

Yes. That last bit is just what irritates me at the other forum I post at, since it seems to be the default position to trust what you feel. I think it's an unrecognised priviledge that those people have the technological world propping up their little pampering fantasies, and if some disaster happened they'd just fall apart. They think their happiness is self-generated, but have never sat in a muddy field thinking where the hell do I get my next meal from. Oops, proxy griping!

<snip>

All woo fools people in a similar ways and religion elevates exactly that kind of magical thinking while, at the same time, denigrating science in our culture. Faith takes credit for all that is good even though our real miracles and useful knowledge have come through science-- and faith blames all bad on "lack of faith" causing a weird sort of mental blindness and confirmation bias where you credit all the good in your life to whatever you've been indoctrinated to believe caused it-- but you never blame your indoctrination (or faith) when tragedy results.

Yes. It's really useful to me to read other people's experiences with this. I think it's very understandable - all that mess you describe so well - because life is so amazing, bewildering and 'miraculous', 'awesome', and because our human history is built on woo - it has been our default position - (maybe our evolution from pre-human was even made possible or easier by it, I don't know). I sometimes think if our kind survive for another thousand years, we'll look back on these times as still not much out of the dark ages. "They'd even invented the internet, but most of the planet was deep in superstition for centuries after that!"

I credit Randi with being a big influence in my journey in understanding how I've fooled myself-- and how easily people can be fooled.

I echo that. He's not a celeb in Britain, but I did catch one of his TV shows, and it did have a powerful influence on me, watching a woman failing miserably to demonstrate that she could see people's auras. You're right, it's the power of our desire to believe that's so incredible. I notice that I'm still easily persuaded by woo of certain kinds temporarily, and recognising that susceptibility helps me. I can feel the hope rising in me as I read...maybe this time it'll all make sense when I've thought about it. It just hasn't yet.

The interesting part of the debate for me centres on our children.

For example: I adore my childhood memories of Christmas, and - yes - Father Christmas comes to my children. (Viz comic has made the point that of all mythical creations, there is at least some hard evidence for the existence of Father Christmas; after all, the sherry gets drunk, the mince pie has been eaten and blow me down but there are real presents lying on the end of the bed. That's a better trick than God ever pulled).

So who am I to tell them that God doesn't exist?

Their mother and granny take them to church and sunday school every week.

I'm worried that if I go all Dawkins-style atheist fundamentalist, then one of their first acts of rebellion on becoming teenagers will be to "discover" Jesus. And I'm not being flippant here. That's happened with several of my cousins.

We have a family saying that we have an inherited tendency to discover either god or drink.

LOL. Yes, that rebelliousness thing is a real phenomenon. My descent into Illusions (literally - Richard Bach) was partly to get back at my parents for being so boringly rational!

I so do not want my children to become 'born again' (for one thing, that would be rather painful for their mother...).

Brrr-rrr-rrr-rrr--- Tshhh!

And it's for that reason, even if it's apparently counter-intuitive, that I think they should continue going to the local church and saying their wee prayers at school and so on.

But it's a dilemma, isn't it? Am I being hypocritical, or merely realistic?

It's not hypocritical unless you pretend you're into it all yourself, or lie when asked!

Sorry I missed this part before and have thus taken such a long time in answering.

Nah, no need to apologise.

I personally wasn't really hurt, although I have spent way too much time laying in bed unable to stop thinking about existence. Can't really blame that on woo.

I don't really have much 'venom' for the people caught in woo. People who do harm intentionally or though massive negligence, yes. As for my 'confidence' in rejecting idiocy, that's easy. What can be difficult is finding out what the idiocy is.

For example, I can't bring myself to call people with religious conviction in general, idiots. Hell, they could be right and I really have no way of knowing. Besides, I'm not exactly an atheist. However, there are specific parts of religious conviction which can easily be called idiocy; like making governmental choices based on them. Believes can believe whatever they want, but I take exception when they want me to change my reality based on their belief. Besides everyone believes something that isn't true, and no one belief should make someone an 'idiot'.

Absolutely.

Maybe there is some hurt there. I've been called cold before for my conviction that some decisions should only be made based on logic and evidence. That's a bit of a stinger because otherwise I'm known for compassion and kindness (except on the forums of course).

I remember this thing that happened in my therapy training. We're all sitting there in a big circle sharing our stuff and 'growing', and I got quite a lot of stick for being too logical. The message was to disengage brain and 'get into your heart', all that stuff. In the end I kind of went with it because it wasn't worth the fight, but I had long arguments about the value of thinking things through logically. So I know that label. It was only afterwards I realised that some of my misgivings were right - it was quite sect-like. 'The Transpersonal' and psychic abilities were just taken as read...we even did exericises to demonstrate our mind-reading abilities. Not your average British therapy course, mind.

We are all guilty of belittling others unfairly sometimes. Recognize it, and when it is unfair. We can't expect everyone to understand, but the reverse is also true. Skeptics are people, believers are people. Believers belittle and mock skeptics all the time (for some it is their only method of argument). Can you blame skeptics for falling into the pattern sometimes too?

No, sure, just we shouldn't justify it because others do it to us. I agree that there is plenty of venom from believers if someone asks them for evidence or, as happens here, they come to tell the heathens what we're missing. I think it's useful to make a distinction between attacking someone for their beliefs and attacking them for being underhand in arguing their case, or for some other failure of respect.

UnrepentantSinner makes some good points too. It is a process, a way of thinking and questioning. I'm glad this thread didn't just die.

Me too. Thanks again all. I'm sorry if I was a bit snappy earlier.

 

[Tumblehome]

Good points. I don't mean that I gained from religion by overcoming the evils of indoctrination, though. I mean that there are important lessons that I learned, which in my culture are almost exclusively taught with a heavy dose of pixy dust. The woo itself was almost entirely damaging to me I think.

Okay, understood. As I've grown older, I've learned that separating the wheat from the chaff is a never-ending process, but it's harder when you're young and haven't learned as much from "life experience" (pardon that phrase, best I could think of right now).

We should try to prevent it, certainly. Again, I get into difficulties, however, working out the issues of helping people escape the web of woo whilst also respecting people's freedom, and in particular the cultural traditions of whole creeds. But I guess that's just a political question of judgement. We don't want the Anti-Father-Christmas Police going round on 24th December, do we?

I was thinking prevention in a more general sense, like through education. I agree that trying to rescue actual individuals opens up a Pandora's box of moral issues. And if I run into the Anti-Father Christmas on the 24th, I'll hogtie him myself and keep him in the basement till after New Year's.

Thanks. I really appreciate all this help.

You're welcome. Hearing your experience has been educational for me, too.

 

[Lusikka]

There is a splendid article on the csi pages. I have not noticed that anybody would have mentioned it here:

http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-05/new-age.html

 

[ExMinister]

There is a splendid article on the csi pages. I have not noticed that anybody would have mentioned it here:

http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-05/new-age.html

Thank you so much for the link. It's nice to know I'm not the only one experiencing this kind of thing.

Speaking a bit to the article, the trouble, as I see it, is that once the New Age community begins to open the lines of communication with the skeptical community, there will gradually be nothing left of the New Age community. Perhaps that is why the skeptics do not bother to use more tolerant words.

I have considered writing a book or somehow trying to speak to people who were like me, recovering New Agers as the author describes us, but it is so difficult to do because after everything I've learned this past year since I first began to correspond with Robert Lancaster and discovered this forum, the whole idea seems overwhelming. I think it would be easier and more effective to organize a meet-up group and just hand out a required reading list: Carl Sagan, James Randi, Martin Gardner, a good basic science book like The Canon, a synopsis of the Bad Astromer's explanation for why astrology doesn't work, articles I've found debunking NDE's, books that explain why lucid dreams are only dreams, Michael Shermer, Joe Nickell, so many threads from this forum where explanations can be found for most paranormal topics (the Roswell incident, crop circles, you name it), and logic and logical fallacies.

I struggle with the same type of despair the writer of this articles expresses, and I understand what you mean, JohnF, when you wonder if all those years of your life were wasted. I was 20 years on a spiritual path and terribly naive, though I always considered myself intelligent and skeptical. Unfortunately, I lacked the proper tools and education to really be either of those things.

John, I am curious what finally turned you into a skeptic among the Buddhist group you were involved in? What happened that opened your eyes? I guess I am fascinated with stories of how people have been deceived, what the deception was, and how they broke free.

Thanks so much for sharing your story here. It is nice to know we are not alone, isn't it.

 

[articulett]

Thanks for the linked article... I had read it before... maybe someone here linked me to it, and I was trying to remember it to post it for the OP. I remember the author's name began with a K, but I couldn't find enough details to search.

I think there is always despair feeling like you've been deluded ... and then bitterness... but then it's freeing... http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-05/new-age.html

I have been listening to these former mormon's conference stories... and one of the speakers was a former Moonie who "deprograms" people... the ways that minds are controlled in very similar no matter what the "belief system"... and intelligence or feeling you're immune is no shield it seems.

I think when you hear some of the stories of others, then you can't help but be glad that you are finally a freethinker... and grateful not to be where they have been. (Did you read Fred Phelp's son http://richarddawkins.net/article,3299,n,n or Ayaan Hirsi Ali's, Infidel?)

Most of us find our way to critical thought through fooling ourselves all too often, and not wanting to do it any more.

 

[Lusikka]

I have always been interested in world view, in what kind of world we are living in. When I was young I was also interested in psi-phenomena because their possible existence is very important for world view. I knew very little and trusted all authorities - also clairvoyants and spiritual authorities.

During my studies in technical university I learned much about scientific facts and how the world functions in reality. I noticed that many of my authorities were ignorant and were wrong and when I had believed in them, I was also wrong. To understand that was very painful and led to temporary depressions. After some years and many such depressions I decided not to have such experiences any more. I became very careful not to believe in such things that are practically wrong, so that I must abandon them later. In my opinion I have been successful in that respect, with no depressions any more for more than thirty years.

There is a psychological term, "cognitive dissonance", suitable for these situations. Creationists and believers in many conspiracy theories must deny a massive quantity of extremely strong and clear facts to continue in keeping their faith. New Age is a dangerous ideology because when people are immersed in New Age they must stop critical thinking and learning of many scientific facts. It is the pain of cognitive dissonance which they want to avoid. Skeptics are doing very important work in fighting against New Age.

Most of you here think that I am still a woo-woo because my most important hobby is parapsychology. I take seriously parapsychology as a science but not one single parapsychologist is an authority to me.

 

[John Freestone]

Thank you so much for the link. It's nice to know I'm not the only one experiencing this kind of thing.

Ditto - thanks Lusikka. I found Karla McLaren's article very humbling, because I've just got so enraged with new-agers on this and another forum that I'm feeling ashamed.

I'm torn, though. Something bugs me about her article, like she's clearly a kind, intelligent person, but maybe this intention to speak to the new age community without patronising, confusing, insulting, etc., is a bit naive? It might just be my failure, but I feel that most of my experiences of talking across the cultural divide are characterised by me genuinely trying to deal with the issues, and being met with all sorts of deceits, tricks, personal attacks, obfuscations and irrelevancies, and it is usually for that disrespect in the act of communication itself that I lose my temper.

I wonder if the learning is essentially going to have to be one-way. You can't be a sceptic and engage in an equal sharing of learning with non-sceptics (on central issues, I mean), since the latter are by definition failing to some extent to use their critical skills. How do you engage with that honestly? You have to say, in some form or other, that you know better. That sounds arrogant, but I don't see how I can engage with, say, a fundamentalist Christian, and try to understand whatever it is I'm supposed to be not getting, because to me it's just dogmatic assertion. What am I supposed to do, advocate critical thinking skills, but spend an equal amount of time sincerely trying to ask Jesus to come into my heart, just so both of us are participating equally? After all, that's what a certain believer will be saying I should do; that will be their explanation of why I'm wrong and they're right. Furthermore, the real sceptic is at something of a disadvantage, being supposed to acknowledge even the slimmest of possibilities as still just possible, so the weirdest woo should be sincerely tried on for the possible revelation it might bestow (and how often do we see that appeal here from wooists, or the assertion that we're not being open-minded?)!

Speaking a bit to the article, the trouble, as I see it, is that once the New Age community begins to open the lines of communication with the skeptical community, there will gradually be nothing left of the New Age community. Perhaps that is why the skeptics do not bother to use more tolerant words.

Exactly. I can't see it being anything other than the war it is, indefinitely. We can try to make it an intellectual war only, and as polite as possible, and maybe there are some areas of no-man's land between the trenches.

<snip>

I struggle with the same type of despair the writer of this articles expresses, and I understand what you mean, JohnF, when you wonder if all those years of your life were wasted. I was 20 years on a spiritual path and terribly naive, though I always considered myself intelligent and skeptical. Unfortunately, I lacked the proper tools and education to really be either of those things.

Yet we came through it! Hallelu....whoops. I'm not sure yet how much to blame woo, and how much I just have certain weaknesses and used woo to indulge them. I think it's largely the latter.

John, I am curious what finally turned you into a skeptic among the Buddhist group you were involved in? What happened that opened your eyes? I guess I am fascinated with stories of how people have been deceived, what the deception was, and how they broke free.

That was the last little thread of a long process. I have been a sort of atheist-mystic for some time, a Buddhist, but trying to find the centre of it and knowing that there was a lot of nonsense had built up around the main idea.

I was already used to the idea of not having a soul or abiding self, but there are ambiguities in Buddhism about God. There's no God, supposedly, yet apparently the true nature of all things is so closely identified with 'the Divine' as to make no difference, and of course, central to it all is the chance of becoming happy and free through Enlightenment, attaining that divine condition. Every part of the Universe is God, and it's a question of merging with that Unity-consciousness. Yeah?... (Break for tofu maybe?)

I spent the last two years or so reading a fair few spiritual works, looking for the flavour of mystical truth I could believe in or to study further. I'd been lazy and haphazard before. I wrote critiques of them in my diary, and that focused my mind on just how riddled they were with bad logic and basesless assertion, from Deepak Chopra's argument that you can't remember a time before you were alive, therefore you were never 'born', never not alive, and therefore you will never die (so I've never been in deep sleep either, and will never fall asleep; interesting use of 'therefore').... to "It is true because it is in the Baghavad Gita", to arguments like "X is a fact. It must be. Just think how awful it would be if it weren't true..."!

I liked Zen Buddhism as per a couple of books, but by then I was beginning to suspect that all of it might be nonsense. Of course, you can't find God or the Divine Void by reading! You have to get a guru and meditate daily, so I looked online for help. I'd been on Buddhist email lists briefly before and found it to be just a bunch of people ranting about the doctrine and what it meant, a lot of ego and hopeful guru-tryouts, and a lot of people who probably had mental health issues.

This time I went to two places. The first was a forum set up by a Buddhist monk who had recently been thrown off another Buddhist forum for not holding the right views or whatever, so I came in to find an ongoing fight about all that, with his 'some idiot Buddhists don't know squat, and here we're setting up something much better'-routine going on.

I, being reasonably versed in critical thinking already, came with my doubts and questions and found that they were not welcome. They were answered with instructions to read particular texts, which didn't answer them, and really just with rote assertion. Very soon, what I considered a polite but challenging post just vanished, and then one asking what happened to my post. I realised that I was probably being censored. I PM-ed to ask if that was the case, and got no reply, and I sent another telling him exactly what I thought of his brand of enlightenment. My membership didn't get deleted, and it just sits there to this day, since I can't think what I'd want to write that wouldn't be deleted.

I learned in the midst of that just what Buddhism was - I had a silly Western fantasy about it, it seems. I imagined monks enquiring freely about things, being encouraged to philosophise and discuss (pre-teens, I used to watch that Kung Fu programme with David Carradine; he was my hero). They do discuss, but only in the search of the correct answer given somewhere in the doctrine, or answered eventually by an elder.

I learned that monks in the Order that my forum leader belonged to (one of the main ones) had to live by rules that spanned six volumes - hundreds of detailed rules. Some of them were ridiculously banal. Out of it the picture grew not of a school of enquiry into truth, but a school of indoctrination. It demanded utter reverence for teachers old and new.

And everywhere I looked on the net, different sects of Buddhists were fighting about whose interpretation of the canon was correct. I realised that there had to be something deeply flawed with this religion for it to cause its disciples to behave almost in direct opposition to their professed aspirations.

I also found a much nicer, small organisation, which offered to support me through 3 months of Vipassana meditation. There was opportunity to ask some questions of my appointed guru, a very polite and helpful woman, as I tried to decide whether to go ahead with the training.

We discussed the process and Buddhism and Enlightenment. I put to her the doubts I had about meditation, specifically how one could discriminate between intuition and imagination. how I could know that I was finding truth, not just absorbing doctrine, fitting it to whatever experiences I might have. Her answers didn't satisfy me. It came down to letting go of all these rational inhibitions and having 'a certain amount of faith'. It's an internal personal journey. Trust the process and ... what? That was another question I had - "Are you actually Enlightened, or is your guru, or theirs? Do you know anyone whom you consider to be Enlightened?" No clear answer, relativising enlightenment...obfuscation?...I was getting quite good at spotting the tell-tale signs of a believer trying hard not to think clearly by now! Her response was practising 'having a certain amount of faith'.

She could be right, she could be wrong. I decided that I was too scared of the possibility that my mind might trick me, that human beings might just not be able to discern profound truth, but might have such a strong drive to find it anyway that they couldn't help making stuff up. Buddhism is supposed to be about transcending the ego, the source of our arrogance, but it is possible that in reality the ego is simply building a clever new pedestal for itself, the identity "Enlightened Being", based on the lie of its self-transcendence. Maybe we are just ego, the brain's software, evolved to find pedestals at all cost. This would explain the slide into duplicity (not to mention psychopathy!) of some of the Buddhists I witnessed online.

It also would fit with Western science, which I held as true - I just wanted my mystical stuff as well. I still do. Someone sent me a website full of scientific holes in abiogenesis, and it seemed reasonable to be a scientist-theist by the second page. There aren't two cultures, there are millions. I've dropped my theory of enlightenment. My partner is probably quite glad. She never believed that nonsense and used to worry about my attempts. She believes that Jesus was the incarnation of God.

At the same time, I was getting some big wake-up calls here, for which I'm very grateful, and learning in other places just how powerful the forces of self-deceit are.

Thanks so much for sharing your story here. It is nice to know we are not alone, isn't it.

It certainly is. It's been difficult knowing how to deal with it, but discussing it here is helping a great deal. I hope I haven't gone on too much. I keep waiting for a pop-up "The Internet is full. Please colonise another planet and try sending again."