Originally Posted by
OmegaWolf
Some criticism of "The Secret" :
I have nothing against positive thinking, prayer, and optimism. It's the flip side that bothers me. It's nonsense to believe that people who get sick, lose their jobs, or get murdered "asked for it" or "had it coming" or "deserved it." This blame-the-victim mentality only serves to protect the perpetrators or policies that caused the bad thing to happen in the first place.
Did Martin Luther King ask to be murdered?
Did my friend's daughter deserve to get cancer?
And what about the children killed in the Oklahoma City federal building bombing or in Baghdad today-- did they send out negative energy and ask to be blown up?
Bad things happen to people because there truly is evil and injustice in this world. That evil and injustice has to be confronted. Therefore, we must think about it.
New Agers want us to keep negative thoughts out of our minds, lest we attract the negative into our own lives, but refusing to see the negative does not make it disappear. Atrocities, bullies, crime, disease, violence, and war are realities we must deal with. Evil triumphs when good people do nothing to stop it.
A negative thought can be a good thing. It might be your conscience telling you that something is wrong. It might be your guardian angel warning you of a dangerous person. Your intuition can be your best friend.
My intuition says: be suspicious of those who tell us how to think.
It isn't about whether things are 'deserved' by those they happen to, but whether, by expecting bad stuff, you draw it in. The children in Oklahoma for example, were probably raised & indoctrinated by people whose view of life is that bad things happen, that the world is a dangerous place & that the 'Free' people will be under attack by those who hate freedom. How can I say this? Because I have frequented forums where I see the average US citizen thinks that way. Even after 911 it is still hard to find an American who can see that US policies may actually have driven the attacks, that maybe, if you look from the point of view of the 'terrorists' it is they who have been under attack for the past 40 years!
The cancer could be the result of the fears of the person based on the constant advertising of cancer as the scourge of our world. We have all these negative messages bombarding us constantly & on top of that, the predominant religion is constantly harping about how evil we are & how we need 'saving' because we are so sinful.
The 'New Agers' as you call them, are saying that if you can shut off the constant negative thoughts & beliefs, if you can reach a point of actually & actively 'modelling' positive thoughts & beliefs, your life WILL change. The cancer can go away (& let's face it, medicine STILL hasn't come up with an explanation for spontaneous remission)
The idea of having a positive expectation doesn't equate to some wishy-washy view of the world that will fail to see evil or bad things - in fact it empowers you to see them because they are no longer confused with the negative things you bring into your own life!
Never doubt there is Truth, just doubt that you have it!
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