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New Age philosophy more sophisticated than Christianity?

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posted on Feb, 17 2010 @ 02:00 AM
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TinFoilHatMan, I think you grossly misjudge the theological expanse that is the Christian religion, while blowing the New Age philosophies grossly out of proportion. As a preface though, let me first state that I am not a Christian. I am more of an "eclectic esoteric". So I'm not simply defending the Christian faith because I am some fundamentalist zealot.

1. You compare New Age "salvation for all" to Christianity's "damnation for unbelievers". This overlooks the entire witnessing, and proselytizing aspects of the Christian faith. Christian missionaries and even local Christian converts all try to preach the salvation that can be found through Jesus Christ. Naturally, rejection of the ministries of Jesus results in Christian damnation. If a Christian does not accept the existence of the God and Goddess or the Summerland then the result is they cannot enter it, the same as "eternal damnation" since a New Ager's Summerland is the same as a Christian's Heaven.

2. Personal vs. Congregational spiritualism. Have you ever heard of Qabala, Hermetics, the Gnostics or even Thaumaturge? There are entire sub-branches of Christian doctrine geared towards self-spiritual enlightenment and the ultimate merging with the God-form. The collective works of Pierre Teilhard, Christian saint, are all about the intra-personal Christ. Again, you seem to be misconstruing Christian works.

3. You may have me here, on the whole the Christian maxim is not concerned with universal concepts. The teleological and ontological arguments are usually proffered forth to explain these things. This does not mean no Christian has ever wondered about the universe, they just choose to leave it as God's domain.

4. All you need to do to destroy the argument of "one way to God" is look at the tremendous amount of Christian theologies: Tri-parte, Monad, Gnostic, Qabalistic, Evangelical, Lutheran, Reformist, Latter-day Saints, Mormons, Catholics, etc. to realize your argument is wrong.

5. Not all of Christendom rejects the advancements of science. Certain fringe elements, usually consisting of fundamentalist regimes still defend Biblical literalism. On the whole though, modern medicine, modern astronomical studies, biology, and other scientific fields are accepted as truth. Even the Catholic Church i slowly starting to come around.


How about the diverse symbolism of the Triune Godhead and the Triple Mother Goddess? Or Transubstantiation, and Consubstantiation? The Second Coming, Apocalypse and the Rise of the Witnesses? The Christian concept of 3-part souls, or all of Teilhard's work on man being able to merge with God? Early philosophy was mostly of a Christian intent. Etc.

Your argument seems rash and unjustified. While I do not accept Christian dogma and soteriological theories, I hardly think they are simple, and not in some ways profound.

~ Wandering Scribe



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