Discussion Group Meeting #3

Once I finally got this unruly lot to get onto the actual topic of the evening (that took about an hour), the question we considered was “how do we decide or judge what is right or wrong?”, and the answers boiled down to a surprisingly simple set of ideas (for the record, all the other bits and bobs we discussed were also wonderfully interesting):

1) Does doing this (having an affair, stealing, lying, whatever) make an accurate statement of Who I Am? Does it express a grander version of myself and who I aspire to be?

2) Am I prepared to accept the consequences of this action?

3) If I be still and listen to my heart, my feelings will tell me the truth. Call it conscience or whatever you want, in reality if we are prepared to admit it the fact is we “know” darn well whether or not what we are doing is right by listening to our own heart.

So there you have it. Another of the great questions of life the universe and everything solved for you all. 

WWANAD?

During my christian days, one method of resolving moral/ethical conundrums was to apply the WWJD method. (For the dim and slow-witted amongst my readership, this stands for What Would Jesus Do). Or even better (but I digress), the classic variant “Who Would Jesus Bomb?”. Anyway, this leads me to wondering what answers we would come up with to similar questions with WWANAD. (What Would A New Ager Do?)

Thus here some questions I propose for our next discussion group (which will be Wednesday 27th at my house, 7:30pm)

“Is abortion OK? If not, why not?”

“Is watching porn OK?’ (you would simply not believe how many search hits this blog gets each day with poor christians tying themselves up in knots over porn and masturbation)

“Should marriage be abolished?” (Stats show that marriages are busting up faster than ever, and that many that are married are just going through the motions. Is there a better way of doing this?)

For these, and whatever similar questions arise out of the discussion, the underlying question of course is “on what basis do you make your answer?” For christians, the appeal is to the bible of course. But New Agers don’t have a bible, so who says which answer is right? How do we decide? How do we know? Hmmm.

What’s in a name?

Consider a chap who is just standing there minding his own business.

One person says “That man is my husband”
Another says “That man is my father”
Another says “That man is an engineer”
Another says “That man is a scoundrel”
Another says “That man is a loyal friend”

What is interesting is that, while these descriptions are very varied, we have no trouble accepting that each is partial description of the whole. We don’t fuss and bother that one persons description is “correct” while anothers is “wrong.”

How strange that so many do not apply the same basic common sense to God who is both All There Is and All There Is Not.