--In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <steve.sundur@...> wrote : The spiritual game has always been a caveat emptor affair, and I think this site, at it's best can challenge beliefs without finding a way, or need, to ridicule opinions to the contrary.
What do you think? Me: I appreciate your asking Steve. I have found in my years of posting here that many people with strongly held spiritual beliefs lack an ability to discuss them as ideas without getting personal if they meet with disagreement. I have had enough personal attacks coming off my criticism of the movement and Maharishi here to know this about some people here. Since I don't really know many people here personally I have been most interested in the ideas themselves. I know people hold many views for a variety of physiological needs (myself included) and I have personally held what I now consider to be the wackiest ideas I have come across and believed them with all my heart. The target I have for much of my satirical writing here is much more my former self than anyone else posting. Losing my spiritual beliefs came with a bonus that I lost my identification with ideas including ones I currently hold. I know too much about my ability to bullshit myself to buy too far in. That doesn't mean that I don't sincerely hold beliefs, I do. But if someone posted that Atheism is stupid because in the right state of consciousness his living presence is obvious, I don't automatically go to "then you are a poopy pants." I first reference when I believed that and then might go after the evidence that supports either idea and what I perceive as flaws in the statement. I haven't had much luck in keeping those discussions on track without the ad hominem onslaught but I also remember when I felt that way about my ideas. There is nothing I have gotten here that I couldn't match in my own history in the movement. I learned it from the master! How about you? That seems to be how you roll here to me concerning spiritual perspectives. You seem able to discuss them as ideas separate from the person. That has always been my experience in our discussions. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote : snip. With the exposure of the inner world of TM on the Internet, most of my objections to their cult behavior have become moot. If a person can't Google them before joining, they deserve to end up believing that butt bouncing creates world peace as far as I am concerned. My objections pre web concerned their deceptive recruitment practices by training teachers to hide their true beliefs so people couldn't properly evaluate what they were getting into. They still run that game but the free access to their beliefs takes away the problem. I think this is the perspective most of us have here, and is, I would say, a balanced perspective. But, in some quarters here, I think this perspective would get you labeled as a cult apologist, or true believer, since you are not demeaning those who have a "live and let live" attitude, or have found some way to feel comfortable participating in the movement. The spiritual game has always been a caveat emptor affair, and I think this site, at it's best can challenge beliefs without finding a way, or need, to ridicule opinions to the contrary. What do you think?
