God vs. 'The Secret'

Saying "God vs The Secret" is like saying "Creator vs Creation." God created the universe and all its laws. The Law of Attraction is a manifestation of an orderly universe created by a God Who loves orderliness.

Absolutely nothing can supersede God.
Sonni

Wow... what a post Ryan,... you really stirred the pot young man...well done.
I just felt compelled to follow the post when I saw the challenging Title. This is something I've been quite avid about since seeing the Secret when it first came out 3 years ago. I have watched it many times and there are some compelling and powerful messages in it.
Having said that, my overriding emotion after viewing (and then reviewing and analyzing) it was one of anger. I was angered at the apparent focus on commercial and materialistic objectives and the fact that the "universe" (small case "u" deliberate) was being used as an absolute pseudonym for God. There was only one of the presenters (the rev minister,..can't recall his name) and he seemed to be speaking into the God and Creator perspective although he refrained from making a reference to "God". I suspect that such an omission was probably at the specific insistence of the directors who seemed emphatic on delivering their message with the absence of any religious attachment.

My perspective now is that messages akin to the Secret are a good way of motivating people to generate proper life focus and balance,..an that such messages whether by book, movie or whatever actually need to be devoid of specific references to God, and religious writings (whether Christian, Buddhist, Hindi, Taoist or whatever), because most people in general just "turn off" when religion (or anything resembling it) is mentioned or given direct reference to. This is understandable after centuries of religious dogma, manipulation and exploitation. (just for the record I do believe in and love Jesus and God,.. but I also tend to agree with what Ghandi said about Christians and Christianity when he said "I like your Christ,.. but I do not like your Christians,.. your Christians are so unlike your Christ").

For sure there is way too much focus on and attachment to materialism and commercial intent by our modern society,.. but the Secret's producers were just appealing to an overwhelming and all pervading desire for "getting more stuff" that our modern society is so hell bent on (yes money and "stuff" is important and necessary,.. but when one's focus and spiritual alignment is purest then success will come like an avalanche anyway...one way or another).
So,.. I'm not angry at the producers of the Secret anymore,.. they were just doing a job cranking out an awesome product that did contain more good than harm for sure.
I'm just delighted I found this post and I'm really surprised actually to find so many Warriors that are passionate about this topic and that have some really excellent views to offer.
I could spend hours pouring over this thread,.. but for now... got to get some work done... Need to make more money!!!:rolleyes:
Thanks again Ryan.... and God bless you!

Lighten up dude, it was a joke. But while we're on the topic - since the dawn of time, we have been creating our idea of what we think God is - here's the thing: Once you reach a point where you KNOW what God is - that's when you know that you don't know. Deep enough for ya?

There is no spoon...

Science = Observation first, hypothesis and theory second.
Pseudoscience = "hypothesis" first, then use logical fallacies or made up facts to "prove" your fantasy.

Full knowledge of something is unobtainable. Anything is possible. We could live in a world generated by computers, like the matrix. However, a person that goes around believing this just because the movie "the matrix" said so, is nothing but stupid. Even if it's true.

Does anyone here promote Law of A affiliate materials. Do they convert well?

Michael

from Scientific American, 2005-Jan, by Michael Shermer:
Quantum Quackery
A surprise-hit film has renewed interest in applying quantum mechanics to consciousness, spirituality and human potential

In spring 2004 I appeared on KATU TV's AM Northwest in Portland, Ore., with the producers of an improbably named film, What the #$*! Do We Know?! Artfully edited and featuring actress Marlee Matlin as a dreamy-eyed photographer trying to make sense of an apparently senseless universe, the film's central tenet is that we create our own reality through consciousness and quantum mechanics. I never imagined that such a film would succeed, but it has grossed millions.

The film's avatars are New Age scientists whose jargon-laden sound bites amount to little more than what California Institute of Technology physicist and Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann once described as "quantum flapdoodle." University of Oregon quantum physicist Amit Goswami, for example, says in the film: "The material world around us is nothing but possible movements of consciousness. I am choosing moment by moment my experience. Heisenberg said atoms are not things, only tendencies." Okay, Amit, I challenge you to leap out of a 20-story building and consciously choose the experience of passing safely through the ground's tendencies.

The work of Japanese researcher Masaru Emoto, author of The Hidden Messages in Water, is featured to show how thoughts change the structure of ice crystals--beautiful crystals form in a glass of water with the word "love" taped to it, whereas playing Elvis's "Heartbreak Hotel" causes other crystals to split in two. Would his "Burnin' Love" boil water?

The film's nadir is an interview with "Ramtha," a 35,000-year-old spirit channeled by a woman named JZ Knight. I wondered where humans spoke English with an Indian accent 35,000 years ago. Many of the films' participants are members of Ramtha's "School of Enlightenment," where New Age pabulum is dispensed in costly weekend retreats.

The attempt to link the weirdness of the quantum world to mysteries of the macro world (such as consciousness) is not new. The best candidate to connect the two comes from University of Oxford physicist Roger Penrose and physician Stuart Hameroff of the Arizona Health Sciences Center, whose theory of quantum consciousness has generated much heat but little light. Inside our neurons are tiny hollow microtubules that act like structural scaffolding. Their conjecture (and that's all it is) is that something inside the microtubules may initiate a wave-function collapse that results in the quantum coherence of atoms. The quantum coherence causes neurotransmitters to be released into the synapses between neurons, thus triggering them to fire in a uniform pattern that creates thought and consciousness. Because a wave-function collapse can come about only when an atom is "observed" (that is, affected in any way by something else), the late neuroscientist Sir John Eccles, another proponent of the idea, even suggested that "mind" may be the observer in a recursive loop from atoms to molecules to neurons to thought to consciousness to mind to atoms....

In reality, the gap between subatomic quantum effects and large-scale macro systems is too large to bridge. In his book The Unconscious Quantum (Prometheus Books, 1995), University of Colorado physicist Victor Stenger demonstrates that for a system to be described quantum-mechanically, its typical mass (m), speed (v) and distance (d) must be on the order of Planck's constant (h). "If mvd is much greater than h, then the system probably can be treated classically." Stenger computes that the mass of neural transmitter molecules and their speed across the distance of the synapse are about two orders of magnitude too large for quantum effects to be influential. There is no micro-macro connection. Then what the #$*! is going on here?

Physics envy. The lure of reducing complex problems to basic physical principles has dominated the philosophy of science since Descartes's failed attempt some four centuries ago to explain cognition by the actions of swirling vortices of atoms dancing their way to consciousness. Such Cartesian dreams provide a sense of certainty, but they quickly fade in the face of the complexities of biology. We should be exploring consciousness at the neural level and higher, where the arrow of causal analysis points up toward such principles as emergence and self-organization. Biology envy.

Michael Shermer is publisher of Skeptic (Skeptic: Home: The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine) and author of The Science of Good and Evil.

from Salon, 2007-Mar-5, by Peter Birkenhead:
Oprah's ugly secret

By continuing to hawk "The Secret," a mishmash of offensive self-help cliches, Oprah Winfrey is squandering her goodwill and influence, and preaching to the world that mammon is queen.

Steve Martin used to do a routine that went like this: "You too can be a millionaire! It's easy: First, get a million dollars. Now..."

If you put that routine between hard covers, you'd have "The Secret," the self-help manifesto and bottle of minty-fresh snake oil currently topping the bestseller lists. "The Secret" espouses a "philosophy" patched together by an Australian talk-show producer named Rhonda Byrne. Though "The Secret" unabashedly appropriates and mishmashes familiar self-help clichés, it was still the subject of two recent episodes of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" featuring a dream team of self-help gurus, all of whom contributed to the project.

The main idea of "The Secret" is that people need only visualize what they want in order to get it -- and the book certainly has created instant wealth, at least for Rhonda Byrne and her partners-in-con. And the marketing idea behind it -- the enlisting of that dream team, in what is essentially a massive, cross-promotional pyramid scheme -- is brilliant. But what really makes "The Secret" more than a variation on an old theme is the involvement of Oprah Winfrey, who lends the whole enterprise more prestige, and, because of that prestige, more venality, than any previous self-help scam. Oprah hasn't just endorsed "The Secret"; she's championed it, put herself at the apex of its pyramid, and helped create a symbiotic economy of New Age quacks that almost puts OPEC to shame.

Why "venality"? Because, with survivors of Auschwitz still alive, Oprah writes this about "The Secret" on her Web site, "the energy you put into the world -- both good and bad -- is exactly what comes back to you. This means you create the circumstances of your life with the choices you make every day." "Venality," because Oprah, in the age of AIDS, is advertising a book that says, "You cannot 'catch' anything unless you think you can, and thinking you can is inviting it to you with your thought." "Venality," because Oprah, from a studio within walking distance of Chicago's notorious Cabrini Green Projects, pitches a book that says, "The only reason any person does not have enough money is because they are blocking money from coming to them with their thoughts."

Worse than "The Secret's" blame-the-victim idiocy is its baldfaced bullshitting. The titular "secret" of the book is something the authors call the Law of Attraction. They maintain that the universe is governed by the principle that "like attracts like" and that our thoughts are like magnets: Positive thoughts attract positive events and negative thoughts attract negative events. Of course, magnets do exactly the opposite -- positively charged magnets attract negatively charged particles -- and the rest of "The Secret" has a similar relationship to the truth. Here it is on biblical history: "Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Jesus were not only prosperity teachers, but also millionaires themselves, with more affluent lifestyles than many present-day millionaires could conceive of." And worse than the idiocy and the bullshitting is its anti-intellectualism, because that's at the root of the other two. Here's "The Secret" on reading and, um, electricity: "When I discovered 'The Secret' I made a decision that I would not watch the news or read newspapers anymore, because it did not make me feel good," and, "How does it work? Nobody knows. Just like nobody knows how electricity works. I don't, do you?" And worst of all is the craven consumerist worldview at the heart of "The Secret," because it's why the book exists: "[The Secret] is like having the Universe as your catalogue. You flip through it and say, 'I'd like to have this experience and I'd like to have that product and I'd like to have a person like that.' It is you placing your order with the Universe. It's really that easy." That's from Dr. Joe Vitale, former Amway executive and contributor to "The Secret," on Oprah.com.

Oprah Winfrey is one of the richest women in the world, and one of the most influential. Her imprimatur has helped the authors of "The Secret" sell 2 million books (and 1 million DVDs), putting it ahead of the new Harry Potter book on the Amazon bestseller list. In the time Oprah spent advertising the lies in "The Secret," she could have been exposing them to an audience that otherwise might have believed them. So why didn't she? If James Frey deserved to be raked over the coals for lying about how drunk he was, doesn't Oprah deserve some scrutiny for pitching the meretricious nonsense in "The Secret"?

Oprah has a reputation for doing good -- she probably has more perceived moral authority than anyone in this country -- and she has done a lot of good. But in light of her zealous support of a book that says, in this time of entrenched, systemic, institutionalized poverty, this time of no-bid contracts for war profiteers and heckuva-job governance, that "you can have, be, or do anything," isn't it reasonable to ask about why she does what she does, and the way she does it?

Oprah recently opened, with much fanfare, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy in South Africa, and as I watched the network news stories about it, I couldn't get "The Secret" out of my mind. I kept wondering what would happen if professor Sam Mhlongo, South Africa's chief family practitioner who famously said that HIV doesn't cause AIDS, read about Oprah's connection to "The Secret" and found support there for his claim. I wondered if the students of the academy would read "The Secret" and start to believe that their parents deserved to be poor, or that the people of Darfur summoned the Janjaweed with "bad thoughts." Will the heavier girls be told, as readers of "The Secret" are, that food doesn't cause weight gain -- thinking about weight gain does? Will they be told to not even look at fat people, as "The Secret" advises? Oprah is already promoting these ideas to her television audience. Why wouldn't she espouse them to her students?

In many ways the Leadership Academy is a wonderful project, a school that will provide impoverished girls an education they otherwise might not have gotten. But it also seems to be the product, unavoidably, of the faux-spiritual, anti-intellectual, hyper-materialistic worldview expressed in "The Secret," the book that the school's founder has called "life changing."

The academy is a controversial enough project in South Africa that the government withdrew its support, because of the amount of money that's been spent on its well-reported, lavish design -- money that could have gone instead to creating perfectly fine schools that served many, many more students than the 350 who will be making use of spa facilities at the academy. But, when I watched Oprah's prime-time special about interviewing candidates for the school, it seemed to me that she wasn't nearly as excited about providing an education to the girls as she was about providing a "Secret"-like "transformative experience." (And not just for the girls, for herself; the first thing she said to the family members at the opening ceremony wasn't, "Welcome to a great moment in your daughters' lives," it was, "Welcome to the proudest moment of my life.")

On the special, Oprah talked far more about what the school would do for the girls' self-esteem and material lives than what it would do for their intellects -- sometimes sounding as if she was reading directly from "The Secret." And in discussing what she was looking for in prospective students, she didn't talk about finding the next Eleanor Roosevelt or Sally Ride or Jane Smiley. Instead she used "Entertainment Tonight" language like "It Girl" to describe her ideal candidate. She praised the girls for their spirit, for how much they "shined" and "glowed," but never for their ideas or insights. Oprah puts a lot of energy and money into aesthetics -- on her show, in her magazine, at her school. The publishers of "The Secret" have learned well from their sponsor and are just as visually savvy. They have created a look for their books, DVDs, CDs and marketing materials that conjures a "Da Vinci Code" aesthetic, full of pretty faux parchment, quill-and-ink fonts and wax seals.

Oprah's TV special about the Leadership Academy, essentially an hourlong infomercial, was just as well-coiffed and "visuals"-heavy. In fact, when Oprah was choosing her students, her important criteria must have included their television interview skills. On-camera interviews with the girls were the centerpiece of the special, but as one spunky, telegenic candidate after another beamed her smile at the camera, I couldn't help wondering how Joyce Carol Oates or Gertrude Stein or Madame Curie would have fared -- would they have "shined" and "glowed," or more likely talked in non-sound-bite-friendly paragraphs and maybe even, God forbid, the sometimes "dark" tones of authentic people, and been rejected. Sadly, the girls themselves (and who can blame them, desperate 12-year-olds trying to flatter their potential benefactor) parroted banal Oprah-isms, like "I want to be the best me I can be," and "Be a leader not a follower" and "Don't blend in, blend out," with smiley gusto.

When the special was over, I found myself equally impressed and queasy, one part hopeful, one part worried. I was happy the school was there, but disturbed by the way it created an instant upper class out of the students, in a country that doesn't exactly need any more segregation into haves and have-nots. I was hopeful for the students but nervous about what, exactly, they will be taught in a place called the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy. Will it be more "best me I can be" bromides? Will "The Secret" be on the syllabus? Oprah herself is going to teach "leadership classes" at the school, after all.

Has Oprah ever done anything that didn't leave people with mixed feelings?

And at what point do we stop feeling like we have to take the good with the craven when it comes to Oprah, and the culture she's helped to create? I get nauseated when I think of people in South Africa being taught they don't have enough money because they're "blocking it with their thoughts." I'm already sickened by an American culture that teaches people, as "The Secret" does, that they "create the circumstances of their lives with the choices they make every day," a culture that elected a president who cried tears of self-congratulation at his inauguration, rejects intellectualism, and believes he can intuit the trustworthiness of world leaders by looking into their eyes. I'm sickened by a culture in which the tenets of the Oprah philosophy have become conventional wisdom, in which genuine self-actualization has been confused with self-aggrandizement, reality is whatever you want it to be, and mammon is queen.

One of Oprah's signature gimmicks has been giving stuff away to her audience ("giving" here means announcing the passing of stuff from corporate sponsors to audience members), most notably in a popular segment called "My Favorite Things." These bits have revealed an Oprah who truly revels in consumer culture, and who can seem astonishingly oblivious to the way most people live and what they can afford. She seems to celebrate every event and milestone with extravagant stuff, indeed to not know how to celebrate without it. Oprah has explained the expensive appointments of her Leadership Academy by saying, "Beauty inspires." True enough. But hasn't the lack of beauty inspired some pretty great work? And aren't there are all kinds of beauty?

You might expect a powerful person who thinks of herself as "deeply spiritual" to have a less worldly conception of it, and you might hope that she would encourage her followers to do the same, instead of urging them to buy books that call Jesus a "prosperity teacher."

But, far more than "spiritual growth" or "empowerment," Oprah and the authors of "The Secret" focus on imparting the message of getting rich. Even the biographies of the authors of "The Secret" on Oprah's Web site are revealingly fixated on their rags-to-riches stories. James Arthur Ray is described as someone who was "almost going bankrupt, [which] forced him to focus on the life he truly wanted. Now he runs a multimillion-dollar corporation dedicated to teaching people how to create wealth in all areas of their lives." The bio for Lisa Nichols says, "After hitting rock bottom at age 19, Lisa prayed for a better life. Now, she has made her fortune by motivating more than 60,000 teenagers to make better choices in their own lives." And the one for "Chicken Soup for the Soul" creator Jack Canfield reads, he "was deep in debt before he made it big. Now his best-selling books have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide, and Jack travels the country teaching 'The Secret' of his success."

There's no doubt that Oprah's doing a lot of good with her South African project, and with many other charitable works. And yeah, I know, her book club "gets people to read," and yadda yadda yadda. But there's also no doubt that a lot of us have been making forgiving disclaimers like that about Oprah for years. And that maybe they amount to trains-running-on-time arguments. Maybe it's time to stop. After reading "The Secret," it seemed to me that there were basically three possibilities: 1) Oprah really believes this stuff, and we should be very worried about her opening a school for anyone. 2) Oprah doesn't believe this stuff and we should be very, very worried about her opening a school for anyone. 3) Oprah doesn't know that any of this stuff is in the book or on her Web site and in a perfect world she wouldn't be allowed to open a school for anyone.

The things that Oprah does, like promoting "The Secret," can seem deceptively trivial, but it's precisely because they're silly that we should be concerned about their promotion by someone who is deadly earnest and deeply trusted by millions of people. It's important to start taking a look at Oprah because her philosophy has in many ways become the dominant one in our culture, even for people who would never consider themselves disciples. Somebody is buying enough copies of "The Secret" to make it No. 1 on the Amazon bestseller list. Those somebodies may be religious zealots or atheists, Republicans or Democrats, but they are all believers, to one degree or another, and, perhaps unwittingly, in aspects of the Oprah/"Secret" culture. And yes, sure, a lot of the believing they do is harmless fun -- everybody's got some kind of rabbit's foot in his pocket -- but we're not talking about rabbits' feet here, we're talking about whole, live rabbits pulled out of hats, and an audience that doesn't think it's being tricked.

"Secret"-style belief is a perfect product. Like Coca-Cola, it goes down easy and makes the consumer thirsty for more. It's unthreateningly simple, and a lot more facile, sentimental and, perhaps paradoxically, intractable than the old-fashioned kind of belief. Like Amway, it enlists its consumers as unofficial salespeople, and the people who constitute its market feel like they're part of a fold. It's indistinguishable from, and inextricably bound up in, the Oprah idea of self-esteem, the kind of confidence you get not from testing yourself, but from "believing" in yourself. This modern idea of faith isn't arrived at the old-fashioned way, by asking questions, but by getting answers. Instead of inquiry we have born-again epiphanies and cheesy self-help books -- we have excuses for not engaging in inquiry at all. Let other people schlep down the road to Damascus; we'll have Amazon send Damascus to us.

That "Secret"-style faith, whether it's in God, or in one's own preordained destiny to be an "American Idol," which takes all of a moment to achieve, is perhaps its most important selling point. Here's "The Secret" on arriving at faith: "Ask once, believe you have received, and all you have to do to receive is feel good." The kind of faith that couldn't be reached by shortcut, the confidence of the great doubters and worriers, of Moses and Abraham Lincoln and Jesus Christ, has been replaced by the insta-certainty and inflated "self-esteem" of "The Secret's" believers.

Books like "The Secret" have created, and are feeding, an enormously diverse market of disciples, and they're thriving in every corner of the culture, in megachurches and movies, politics and pop music, in sports arenas and state boards of education. Oprah has far more in common with George Bush than either would like to admit, and so do the psychics of Marin County, Calif., and the creationists of Kansas. The believers come from all walks of life, but they work the same way -- mostly by *******izing and warping source materials, from the Bible to the Bhagavad Gita, to make them fit their worldview. On Page 23 of "The Secret" you'll find this revealing doozy: "Meditation quiets the mind, helps you control your thoughts." Of course, the goal of meditation is precisely the opposite -- it is to be conscious, to observe your thoughts honestly and clearly. But that's the last thing the believers want to encourage. The authors of "The Secret" sell "control" in the form of "empowerment" and "quiet" in the form of belief, not consciousness.

The promises of Oprah culture can seem irresistible, and its hallmarks are becoming ubiquitous. Believers may be separated into tribes according to what they believe, but they do it in pretty much the same way, relying on a "Secret"-style conception of "intuition" --- which seems to amount to the sneaking suspicion that they're always right -- to arrive at their tenets. Instead of the world as it is, constantly changing and full of contradiction, they see a fixed and fantastical place, where good things come to those who believe, whether it's belief in a diet, a God, or a Habit of Successful People. These believers may believe in the healing power of homeopathy, or Scripture or organizational skills -- in intelligent design, astrology or privatization. They all trust that their devotion will be rewarded with money and boyfriends and job promotions, with hockey championships and apartments. And most of all they believe -- they really, really believe -- in themselves.

For these believers, self-knowledge is much less important than self-"love." But the question they never seem to ask themselves is: If you wouldn't tell another person you loved her before you got to know her, why would you do that to yourself? Skipping the getting-to-know-you part has given us what we deserve: the Oprah culture. It's a culture where superstition is "spirituality," illiteracy is "authenticity," and schoolmarm moralism is "character." It's a culture where people apologize by saying, "I'm sorry you took offense at what I said," and forgive by saying, "I'm not angry at you anymore, I'm grateful to you for teaching me not to trust shitheads like you." And that's the part that should bother us most: the diminishing, even implicit mocking, of genuine goodness, and of authentic spiritual concerns and practices. Engagement, curiosity and active awe are in short supply these days, and it's sickening to see them devalued and misrepresented.

Not that any of this is new. Aimee Semple McPherson, "The Power of Positive Thinking," Father Coughlin, est, James Van Praagh -- pick your influential snake-oil salesman or snake oil. They were all cut from the same cloth as Oprah and "The Secret." The big, big difference is, well, the bigness. The infinitely bigger reach of the Oprah empire and its emissaries. They make their predecessors look like kids with lemonade stands. It would be stupidly dangerous to dismiss Oprah and "The Secret" as silly, or ultimately meaningless. They're reaching more people than Harry Potter, for God-force's sake. That's why what Oprah does matters, and stinks. If you reach more people than Bill O'Reilly, if you have better name recognition than Nelson Mandela, if the books you endorse sell more than Stephen King's, you should take some responsibility for your effect on the culture. The most powerful woman in the world is taking advantage of people who are desperate for meaning, by passionately championing a product that mocks the very idea of a meaningful life.

That means something.

Well there is lots of food for thought here but is it not most important how we manage ourselves each day, I have a strong belief but have seen too many "church goers" never miss a Sunday service and then not be very religious the rest of the week with others. So for those of us that do believe maybe items like the Secret that went unnoticed for such a long timeare put in our path to teach us something about human behaviour and to question if we could behave better everyday

Sorry that is a confusing statement to me. Hope that making money online is not an illusion too...:confused: Or is it too deep for me... I agree with the threat owner [first post]. Sorry, I dont want to start WW III, because of my post...

If not for God there would be no secret or anything else for that matter.
Sonni

Of course there is a right and wrong, but it is entirely subjective.

You mean, if not for the giant pink elephant there would be no secret or anything else for that matter!

That is however in a general manner Ryan. One universe is correct, but how about the many "sub-universes" created by the different mind sets of people, hence the many types of "God" that has existed over time through many other civilizations around the world.

We cannot prove there is one God, and we cannot prove there are multiple Gods at the same time. It is your choice, to choose the faith/belief that suits you best. Maybe i used the wrong term to explain it, but when i mentioned "Masters of their own universe" means that the belief itself is a universe, existing within our world but not without.

ryanmacca - I stumbled into this part of the WF, and had no idea what to expect. This post is awesome and the conversation is incredible.

First off - I appreciate everyone's respect of each others views and beliefs. As for me - I believe in 1 God, 3 parts - and that the Law of Attraction is an attempt to explain an even replace God as the giver of all things.

As for creating greatness in your life through positive thinking - I would recommend that you all check out Noah St. Joseph's book - The Secret Code of Success. He defined a new term - Afformations. They replace affirmations and honestly - they are kicking my butt into gear! It is awesome how fast it has changed things in my life.

The other great thing about Afformations - I do not have to put my 'hope' into some concept that the universe cares about me. I know that my Lord and Savior care about me - and that is enough.

As for the concept that there is no 'right or wrong' -Ryan you did an awesome job answering that. I have talked with others about this concept in terms of 'Subjective Relativism' - whatever you believe is right. I highly disagree with that and believe there is an absolute truth - the source of that truth is God - and God is an external, separate from ourselves.

Whereas I agree with your post in general, God and the Law Of Attraction are not one and the same. In fact, the Law of Attraction stands as a proof of the Creator, in that it functions in accordance with how Divine Providence programmed it! However, things that are relative or subjective don't hold the same gravitiy. There are no absolute truths except that there is only one creator. Your sematics are not balanced for "there are no absolute truths" do not balance out with "The statement that there is no absolute truth is an absolute statement", for a statement is not a declaration of truth, but the very opposite, a declaration of opinion. Thereby only supporting the latter "there are no absolute truths", by issuing the ultimate statement! At any rate right and wrong are relative, which make them absolutely lacking in universality. Due to their subjectivity, they are again supporting the latter "there are no absolute truths!" For example, what was true in 1000 B.C. would still be true today. Now whereas some things still hold true, or are still held as societal norms, there are many examples of things that were considered to be true then, that are now scoffed at as being mere falsities. Just think of it this way, in order for a river to flow freely it must be unrestricted. Restrictions break the flow of the water. Well life is similar in that it is and will always be highly adaptable. A world with absolutes, rights and wrongs, is a world that has a limit. If ideas cannot change to support the wills of the people, then it will be those very ideas that will destroy them.

There is no proof that anything like absolute truth exists in this universe. It might be available, but proving this would be quite difficult.

Contradiction is everywhere, and we (humans) have such a tiny perspective of reality it is beyond hilarious that we could ever think we have life, the cosmos, etc. figured out.

I'm all for finding one's truth. I certainly have mine.

But "truth" is subjective.

Most people are just incapable of living with the discomfort of uncertainty, too afraid to admit they don't have the answers to life's mysteries, and so forth, and the result is...

(drumroll please)

Religion and Dogma! Hooray!

In my opinion, finding your own truth should be enough. Observation proves to me that two people can have extremely different truths and both be quite correct.

Too much of the ego often enters a discussion about so-called "truth". Yet even our most cutting-edge science is unable to prove conclusively the most basic tenants of what we refer to candidly as "reality".

Life appears to be paradox. It can be both up and down, black and white, right and wrong, at the very same time but the primitive parts of our brain need comfort and validation so we cling to the notion that our truth might be more easily proven and thus superior to the truth of another.

God created everything and is everywhere. Or there is no god and it's all just nonsense.

Either idea can be backed with substantial "evidence" and myriad personal experiences. And either stance can be held with the utmost of personal conviction and intuitive resolve.

So take your pick, smile at the person next to you, and derive maximum pleasure and fulfillment from this phenomenon we call life.

Finally, Someone actually quoted scripture.

All this talk about God and no scripture started to make me a little nervous. Since there this whole book that tells us all about God. We really don't have to "guess" or give our "thoughts" about who or what God is since he gave us our own instruction manual to read that tells us who he is and who we are, how he loves us and how we are to live our lives.

BTW: The LOA appears to have been published already a few thousand years back by King Solomon. Read Proverbs 23:7 "For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he..."

Great post and thank you from finally bringing out some scripture to solidify the discussion of our Creator and His laws.

Ray S.

I am feeling stunned after some really unique views....

No doubt the discussion is getting too hot on this thread.

Can you say "New Age"? I knew that you could.
"Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that He IS God."

Now that's something to chew on friends.

Allen, I dont think that everyone condoning the law of attraction, is opposing God.

He told Abraham in the bible his name was "I am that I am", that settled it.

In many cases he is called omnipotent. I think of God as "The all that is"...this is after much Biblical theology and also the study of other religions...

Jesus himself said "I have other sheep that are not of this fold..." many books were deleted from the Bible because they were considered agnostic teachings of Jesus. Some of Jesus "agnostic" teachings were largely about Quantum Physics. Reading a few verses in the "Book of Mary" , you can see that he leans very much toward saying "all is energy".

This conversation with Mari took place alone with just her, and no one else. Why?

Remember, if he would have spoken more Bluntly to his followers in those days, both he and the followers he loved would have been murdered onsite...before his time... He had to be very careful about choosing his words.

Even though he went a bit outside of the box with the Scribes and Pharisee's ... and left them scratching their heads a little, he was wise not to speak too PLAINLY and obviously against their grain (too far out), that would have meant that his followers would have suffered hardship, and his messages would have been squashed before they had a chance to be spread.... He had to be wise to deliver his message. With all thy getting he said "Get understanding".

"He that hath ears to hear" means "You know I cant say what I'm trying to say out loud so listen hard and try to read between the lines".

I think everyone believes in God although they dont always call him by the same name.

Everyone cries out for help in desperate times, even when they know there's no one around to hear them.

My grandfather used to say , referring to the War..."There's no such thing as an atheist when you are in a foxhole and bombs are going off all around you.

It's about balance and never ending growth. Being dogmatic inhibits growth. Closing the case means no more truth can come forward.

God has so much truth for us, that we will never understand it in this lifetime. The book never closes. The learning never stops, as long as you allow it to continue.

I really gotta get off this thread now! It's 6am, been up all night, and just closed and $7,500. deal via email with a person from China and hour ago. Just thought I'd check in on this thread. Now I'm gonna go reward myself by sleeping till 3 in the afternoon!!

Wow!

We seem to have hit a nerve here!

What is so fantastic about the internet and the time we are living in is that we all are entitled to our own opinion. Whether they are right or wrong is not for me or you to decide.

It is above all of our pay grades.

Here is the greatest "Secret" of all..."Love your neighbor as you love yourself."

The "Law of Attraction" is a Law...just like the "Law of Gravity" is a law. They where created for our enjoyment and our prosperity.

I claim Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and do so boldly. Let's do as he would do and love people where ever they are and what ever they believe.

Live the Dream!
Tim

I guess I could have phrased that better.

What I really meant is that while I fully respect the right of everyone to believe in whatever they wish, it is not worth getting upset about.

During the many years I have written about these subjects, religious people tend to singularly refuse to entertain anything not supported by the Bible.

Answer to your question: "Because the Bible say's it", and in his mind "that settles it":

As you can see above, I routinely respond to religious people's arguments by showing that I am as well versed in what "they believe in" , as I am in the things I personally believe in. As you can imagine it still never gets very far.

It still always ends with the same statement.

I believe that religious people (Christians and otherwise) 'can' be really great people, however dogmatic, and/or 'misguided'... they operate via the same laws as everyone else does , and some like Joyce Meyers are quite masterful at it.

Many refuse to be open to the fact that "yes", their power comes from source energy, but "no" that does not make their belief system superior, or even "correct"!

Very simply (on the positive side) they have created a set of parameters for themselves which helps them to "wrap their mind around" and thus 'harness' their own sense of 'personal' power.

The philosophies expressed in the Celestine Prophecies, say that the need for these parameters is based on a need for 'polarity', which , for them, can only exist by having a sense of superiority.

In other words "I cannot be 'good', unless someone else is 'bad', or I cannot be rewarded unless someone else is 'punished' for how else would I measure my level of "deserving"?

Unfortunately you are correct that the "rubber meets the road" when you have argued as far as it can possibly go (above) only to yet again find that the ultimate reason for all of their "absolute" truth is because the "Bible says, and thus it is fact".

Over time and 'with ever evolving mastery', I have learned to do this:

"Hey, if that's what you believe, then when I'm with you. If it comforts you to believe that I believe it, then by all means 'be comforted'...you are not gonna see my point anyway. No need for me to annihilate your sense of empowerment, I may as well encourage it".

You might say I have mastered the art of dealing with my own family that way, while behind the curtain I am working my own kind of magic in their life, on their behalf, in ways that they would never comprehend.

Hypocrisy? Compromise?

No. It's not a lack of authenticity.

It's rather a more highly evolved consciousness that works with you wherever you are at for your own safety and betterment. Being dogmatic is simple mindedness, blissful ignorance. Who am I to steal your bliss?

Fact is, my truth will never win, because "The Bible says", and in many peoples minds that represents "fact".

So What do I believe?

I believe that whatever you believe is true... to "you", and that's ok.

I believe that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the very "evidence" of things not seen.

I do believe in God. I believe God is energy, the all that is, the omnipotent source, universal mind substance. If it comforts you to call God a "he", then by all means let's call God a "he".

Said I'd get off this thread. Sorry, couldn't resist coming back for more. I LOVE the subject of increasing our awareness of universal mind substance in whatever form it presents itself!

In truth so do all the different religions represented on this thread, they believe they came to argue on the behalf of "Their Interpretation of God" ( a noble motivation indeed).

However, in my own belief, they are here searching for an opportunity to "see themselves in the mirror of contrast", in an effort to gain a sense of unique identity. For how can we be something if there is no such thing as nothing? By what standard would we measure our "something-ness"?

The Bible says that there are secrets within man that he cannot even UTTER. Why? I believe that's because it would tear down our collective sense of individuality which is so important in experiencing our self (singular) as an 'identifiable' entity.

One thing is for sure to me "Love exists", and I love all of you!

I am that which I am. You are a a part of me that assist's us both in experiencing a "sense" of our self, I love myself, and therefore I love you!

"With all of thy getting; get understanding".


Namaste'


Ps. On a marketing note: What a HHHHHHOOOOOOTTTTT topic this is!!!! While we are debating someone is reading and figuring out a way to capitalize on this!

Personally, I wouldn't have a clue, the truth is sooo relative that while we can easily disprove one another's theories, who is there that can prove in concrete what the ultimate truth is, and call themselves an authority? We can philosophy at best, and at best this searching is a cool experience! Life is a journey not a destination!