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.
February 24, 2008 at 4:18 am
In how many of these questions is personal responsibility, accountability and authority for decision making being denied?
February 24, 2008 at 7:53 am
How many of these questions are coming from a place of believing in UNconditional Love?
February 24, 2008 at 9:08 am
[...] I’m going to address the excellent questions {{jon}} has posed on his blog, Jon’s New Age Wanderings, [...]
February 24, 2008 at 9:37 am
[...] Porn Question #2 from Jon’s New Age Wanderings: [...]
February 24, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Sue Ann,
Wow - that’s a very punchy response to the abortion question! Rather than reply now with my own thoughts, I would like to read out both this post and your reply as part of the discussion group on Wed night and then I’ll post the result of our discussion.
Jon
February 25, 2008 at 5:22 am
Hi {{jon}} I haven’t gotten to ‘marriage’ yet. I’m taking the questions one at a time since they are such excellent questions. And ‘no’, I’m not holding back anything because I sense your questions are sincere. Keep in mind in regards to the ‘abortion’ issue, I am an adopted child myself, which puts me in an unusual position with the issue itself.
Maybe the issue is ‘conception’? And how everything we conceive of, doesn’t always make its way into manifestation and there is no judgment attached to it when it doesn’t.
When I speak of ‘depravity’, I speak with an image burned into my mind of a woman giving birth in prison, where she was in shackles while doing it. Any Society that does something like this, is not a Society I would lift one finger in support of.
February 26, 2008 at 12:15 am
As an educator, here’s a question that I have asked many times…..
Should couples need a license to procreate?
I contend that there are no bad kids, only bad parents.
February 26, 2008 at 9:34 am
Bravo {{Doug}} ! I live in a community where the teachers in the only junior high in town aim their teaching at the 4th grade level, since that’s the last level any of the children passed or understood. That’s why my kids are home schooled and since my son went to college he has no interest in coming back. All the kids want to do here, the only dreams they dream, are of getting minimum wage jobs and having kids. Most do not graduate high school before they start. And there is very little self respect.
The ’sins’ of the fathers keeps repeating itself, over and over through every generation. But it is the same with all of us when it comes to our ignorance. We don’t know what we don’t know.
February 26, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Without change, history is destined to repeat itself.
February 28, 2008 at 10:22 am
[...] How Do We Know? From {{Jon’s}} blog, Jon’s new Age Wanderings: [...]
February 28, 2008 at 10:22 am
[...] Marriage From {{jon’s}} bog, Jon’s New Age Wanderings: [...]
March 1, 2008 at 9:52 pm
[...] WWANAD => What would a new ager do? From [Jon’s New Age Wanderings ] [...]
June 1, 2008 at 11:31 am
Abortion is not OK- some of the time. It is OK - some of the time. Even your hardboiled Christian Fundamentalist would waffle here. My daughter? So young? Even so, some forms of abortion are far from OK - all of the time.
What is porn? I’ll know it when I see it. But not all erotica is what we call porn. Again it depends. Is it coerced? Are drugs involved? Does it lead to diminished lives (both on the part of the performer and and the audience)
How can anyone abolish marriage? It is the personal choice of two people - you certainly do not suggest outlawing such a tradition. But it is not for all, and often it is an aberration of what could be. I have been married 26 years. I have friend who have been married longer, yet never saw a preacher or a justice of the peace.
June 2, 2008 at 10:30 am
Christian,
I like your answer very much, as it captures the essence of the answer to these choices - it depends. Now of course someone will immediately ask “depends on what?” My take is that how we answer each of these questions depends on what we have chosen as our values, because our values guide us in labelling events good or bad, right or wrong.
Jon
June 2, 2008 at 12:40 pm
“Always embraces all ways”.
It is no feat of our character to understand the understood, or accept the acceptable, or tolerate the tolerable. These are self defined limits.
Whatever we judge in another, is what we have yet learned to love within ourselves.
Being “human” means making mistakes. There IS NO such thing as a “perfect human”. The idea alone is an oxymoron. Perfection resides with Divinity, ONLY. And all our strivings to be a “perfect human” are none other then all the conditions we have placed upon extending Loving Understanding.
“We” might not choose to ‘do’ something. However, do we CARE enough to understand what circumstances and ideas would lead to someone else doing it?
Ponder our MOTIVES when it comes to being judgmental??
{{{{hugs jon}}}
You’ve done a wondrous thing in ONLY a year!!!!
June 2, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Sue Ann,
Thanks for the encouragement (and the hugs).
After the turmoil of this past year (and many of the years before that) it is a delicious feeling to be at peace and comfortable in the knowledge that there is nowhere to go and nothing to do except that which is here and now.
Lovely!
Peace to you Sue Ann,
Jon