The Difference Between New-Age Spirituality & Authentic Spirituality in 3 Paragraphs

"Simply put, spirituality is not about changing yourself or creating a newer-better you. It is not a rejection of yourself, but a getting to know yourself in the most intimate way possible. Authentic spirituality is about mindful participation in your own life. While, new-age spirituality is concerned with carving out a new, more exotic role for the ego to play."


http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/09/the-difference-between-new-age-spirituality-and-authentic-spirituality-in-3-paragraphs

The Varieties of Religious Experience - William James

"Every religious phenomenon has its history and its derivation from natural antecedents. What is nowadays called the higher criticism of the Bible is only a study of the Bible from this existential point of view, neglected too much by the earlier church. Under just what biographic conditions did the sacred writers bring forth their various contributions to the holy volume? And what had they exactly in their several individual minds, when they delivered their utterances? These are manifestly questions of historical fact, and one does not see how the answer to them can decide offhand the still further question: of what use should such a volume, with its manner of coming into existence so defined, be to us as a guide to life and a revelation? To answer this other question we must have already in our mind some sort of a general theory as to what the peculiarities in a thing should be which give it value for purposes of revelation; and this theory itself would be what I just called a spiritual judgment. Combining it with our existential judgment, we might indeed deduce another spiritual judgment as to the Bible's worth. Thus if our theory of revelation-value were to affirm that any book, to possess it, must have been composed automatically or not by the free caprice of the writer, or that it must exhibit no scientific and historic errors and express no local or personal passions, the Bible would probably fare ill at our hands. But if, on the other hand, our theory should allow that a book may well be a revelation in spite of errors and passions and deliberate human composition, if only it be a true record of the inner experiences of great-souled persons wrestling with the crises of their fate, then the verdict would be much more favorable."

http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/JamVari.html

Emergent Religions

"Emergent religions are primarily reflections of society. They are a collective attempt to understand and make meaning. In places like China where there is currently a vacuum of meaning -- no scriptures, no constitution, just the little red book of Mao, and rampant Darwinian pressure to make money -- it should be no surprise that vehicles of something larger to believe in will appear. In Russia, a belief in science mixes with a resident mysticism producing new religions. In Africa, the dire lack of health care summons all kinds of new faith healing churches. And in the west, the need to make sense of technology and our own mutating human identity will breed new religions."

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2011/02/emergent_religi.php

The Seed Syllable 'a'

"The letter 'a' is the first letter of the Indic alphabets. It is the short 'a' sound that we find in the English word but (= ə in the IPA Alphabet). In Indic languages each consonant has an implied short a attached to it, so the consonants are ka, kha, ga, gha, etc. So 'a' is said to be present in each consonant, and to be the mother of all of the letters. If you open your mouth and breath out the sound is 'a'."

http://www.visiblemantra.org/a.html

Would we be better off with nothing sacred?

"In 1965 Bob Dylan sang "It's easy to see without looking too far that nothing much is really sacred" – like this was a bad thing. But do we still think so?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/aug/16/religion-philosophy-sacredness

Is Vegetarianism A Hoax?

“I have stopped fighting the basic algebra of embodiment: For something to live, something else has to die. In that acceptance, with all its suffering and sorrow, is the ability to choose a different way- a better way.” - Lierre Keith

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2010/06/vegetarianism-is-a-hoax/

"But some things are making sense now. First of all, there are no easy solutions or universal answers that fit everyone. Not even for yogis. Secondly, death is life. I’m not suggesting we kill like we kill now. That factory farming is acceptable. That massive slaughter can ever be sanctioned. I’m not even suggesting killing is ever wonderful. What I’m suggesting is that life happens and death happens. And death happens for life to happen. This is a universal truth. Something that I may ever be entirely o.k. with."

A Holiday Message From Ricky Gervais: Why I’m an Atheist

"The dictionary definition of God is “a supernatural creator and overseer of the universe.” Included in this definition are all deities, goddesses and supernatural beings. Since the beginning of recorded history, which is defined by the invention of writing by the Sumerians around 6,000 years ago, historians have cataloged over 3700 supernatural beings, of which 2870 can be considered deities.

So next time someone tells me they believe in God, I’ll say “Oh which one? Zeus? Hades? Jupiter? Mars? Odin? Thor? Krishna? Vishnu? Ra?…” If they say “Just God. I only believe in the one God,” I’ll point out that they are nearly as atheistic as me. I don’t believe in 2,870 gods, and they don’t believe in 2,869."


http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/12/19/a-holiday-message-from-ricky-gervais-why-im-an-atheist/

“Do unto others…” is a good rule of thumb. I live by that. Forgiveness is probably the greatest virtue there is. But that’s exactly what it is -­‐ a virtue. Not just a Christian virtue. No one owns being good. I’m good. I just don’t believe I’ll be rewarded for it in heaven. My reward is here and now. It’s knowing that I try to do the right thing. That I lived a good life. And that’s where spirituality really lost its way. When it became a stick to beat people with. “Do this or you’ll burn in hell.”

"You won’t burn in hell. But be nice anyway."

See also

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/12/22/does-god-exist-ricky-gervais-takes-your-questions/

Religion Venn Diagram ()

The Google perspective on religion

http://atheism.soup.io/post/83186454/Religions-venn-diagram-of-the-day

Buddhists seem to come off very well in this, but since this was produced, 'selfish' has become a possibility for Buddhists

Holographic Universe (Part 1 of 5 ) its all illusion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnvM_YAwX4I

Heaven is a fairy tale, says physicist Hawking

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

When asked how we should live he said: "We should seek the greatest value of our action."

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/05/16/uk-science-stephenhawking-heaven-idUKTRE74F1RO20110516

Oldest Human Spiritual Art From 32,000 Years Ago – Seen for the First Time

“Everyone agrees that the paintings are, in some way, religious. I’m not a believer myself, and I’m certainly not a mystic. But Homo sapiens is Homo spiritualis. The ability to make tools defines us less than the need to create belief systems that influence nature.”

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/01/film-trailer-oldest-human-spiritual-art-from-32000-years-ago---seen-for-the-first-time/

Alan Watts - fear of enlightenment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUXodFgbDfQ

Dudeists of the World Unite!

"Come join the slowest-growing religion in the world – Dudeism. An ancient philosophy that preaches non-preachiness, practices as little as possible, and above all, uh…lost my train of thought there. Anyway, if you’d like to find peace on earth and goodwill, man, we’ll help you get started. Right after a little nap."

http://dudeism.com/

The Divinity of Doubt

"I can say with relative confidence (because what I'm saying, at least it would seem, has to be true) that there is only one necessary religion that has any merit to the people who inhabit this earth, and that's the Golden Rule: "Do unto others what you would want them to do unto you" (from the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount [Matthew 7:12]). To treat others as you would want them to treat you is the highest, most noble form of human behavior and the basis of all morality."

http://divinityofdoubt.com/excerpt.html

"If we must have religion, the seminal test as to the value and merit of any religion worth its salt has to be not what you believe, but what you do—that is, how you treat your fellow man. "

Master Puppetji - Attachment and non-attachment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXX6KMOt4q4

Stripping the Gurus - Sex, Violence, Abuse and Enlightenment

Stripping the Gurus

"I respect and appreciate the media’s interference.... It is ap- propriate ... to have journalists ... snooping around and ex- posing wrongdoing where they find it. We need to know when this or that renowned individual hides a very different aspect behind a pleasant exterior. "

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25513313/Stripping-the-Gurus

Spiritual Journeys exhibitions at the British Museum

Treasures of Heaven: saints, relics and devotion in medieval Europe
23 June – 9 October 2011

The Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam
26 January – 15 April 2012

http://buddhistcouncilwales.blogspot.com/2011/06/spiritual-journeys-exhibitions-at.html

Relic reveals Noah's ark was circular

"In his translation, the god who has decided to spare one just man speaks to Atram-Hasis, a Sumerian king who lived before the flood and who is the Noah figure in earlier versions of the ark story. "Wall, wall! Reed wall, reed wall! Atram-Hasis, pay heed to my advice, that you may live forever! Destroy your house, build a boat; despise possessions And save life! Draw out the boat that you will built with a circular design; Let its length and breadth be the same.""


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/01/noahs-ark-was-circular

Goodness, evilness makes you powerful

"The Harvard egghead bases his assertions on studies in which subjects were given a dollar and offered the choice of donating it to charity or selfishly keeping it. It turned out that the charitable types were then able to hold up a 5lb weight significantly longer than those who sniggeringly trousered the cash.

Similarly, other subjects who wrote stories in which they did good deeds turned out to be noticeably stronger than those whose tales depicted them neither harming nor helping others.

Worryingly, though, test subjects who wrote stories in which they figured as baleful malefactors turned out to be even stronger than the goody-goodies."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/20/harvard_good_evil_powers/

The Anthropology of Magic

"
Magic is arguably the least understood subject in anthropology today. Exotic and fascinating, it offers us a glimpse into another world but it also threatens to undermine the foundations of anthropology due to its supposed irrational and non-scientific nature. Magic has thus often been 'explained away' by social or psychological reduction. The Anthropology of Magic redresses the balance and brings magic, as an aspect of consciousness, into focus through the use of classic texts and cutting-edge research. Suitable for student and scholar alike, The Anthropology of Magic updates a classical anthropological debate concerning the nature of human experience. A key theme is that human beings everywhere have the potential for magical consciousness. Taking a new approach to some perennial topics in anthropology - such as shamanism, mythology, witchcraft and healing - the book raises crucial theoretical and methodological issues to provide the reader with an engaging and critical understanding of the dynamics of magic."

http://www.bergpublishers.com/Default.aspx?tabid=5271


http://blogs.cf.ac.uk/bahar/entry/susan_greenwood_the_anthropology_of