Yogic breathing

[FireDragon76]

I never mentioned the New Age or magical thinking.

If you say evil exists you can't define what it entails or how it operates.

As @ViaCrucis would no doubt point out, believing that evil is some kind of substantial reality in the world isn't compatible with classical theism. God is sovereign over all things and ordains all things for a greater good.

 

[bèlla]

As @ViaCrucis would no doubt point out, believing that evil is some kind of substantial reality in the world isn't compatible with classical theism. God is sovereign over all things and ordains all things for a greater good.

That's where working out your own salvation comes in. You can't walk the path for anyone else. You can share an opinion and offer instruction but the decision is theirs.

We live in a different period now. No entity makes that determination for others unless you agree with their position. But your agreement isn't mine or another's. And that is our right.

~bella

 

[ViaCrucis]

If you say evil exists you can't define what it entails or how it operates.

The historic position of the Christian Church, and which Scripture backs up, is that evil has no ontology. Evil is the deprivation, distortion, and perversion of the good. All which God made is good. Evil is what happens when God's good creation is disordered, when God's gifts are abused.

Satan isn't evil because he is kind of dark quasi-god in some dualistic cosmos where there are two governing principles of good and evil/light and dark; Satan is evil because he is disordered, disobedient, and rebellious. Likewise, human beings aren't evil because it is in our essence to be evil; but because we are fallen, disordered, and out of alignment with God's own good will and purpose. That is why Christian theology talks about sin, concupiscence, and the disordered passions. Human beings, in their essence, are created good--the reason we aren't righteous is because of sin, and thus our motives and behaviors are turned against God, curved inward toward selfish and disordered impulses.

The idea that evil is itself a substance, a counter-balance to cosmic good, has no place in Christian theology. That is the doctrine of the Gnostics and Manichaeans, which orthodox Christianity has always denounced as incompatible and heretical.

In the same way that darkness has no existence in its own right, but is merely the deprivation of light; so evil has no existence of its own, but is the deprivation, the starvation, and the distortion of the good. Good is real, that is, it has actual existence: Because God is. And all that exists exists by the ordainment and creation of God. Evil does not have actual existence, it is mere absence, emptiness, and distortion. Hence why sin means "missing the mark" and "error".

-CryptoLutheran

 

[bèlla]

The historic position of the Christian Church...

Belief in Christ doesn't require alignment with the church or its creeds. There are many who desire Him but not the institution. I'm not minimizing the things you hold sacred. But we're in a different time and the authority you cite is of no consequence to many.

~bella

 

[FireDragon76]

Belief in Christ doesn't require alignment with the church or its creeds. There are many who desire Him but not the institution. I'm not minimizing the things you hold sacred. But we're in a different time and the authority you cite is of no consequence to many.

~bella

Then you're just talking about an idiosyncratic theology that has no basis in Christian revelation.

I see no reason my conscience or anybody else's conscience should be bound to the notion that hatha yoga is evil. The notion it is evil rests on irrationality, implying something is right or wrong by reason of its origin, which is called the genetic fallacy.

 

[dlamberth]

This is just nonsense. It's magical thinking. Is the problem with the New Age really about principled differences in beliefs, or is it actually just peddling in a different brand of woo?

It's not at all nonsense. Music as well as all of the arts do very much touch the soul. It's not a belief, it's what is experienced inwardly by the senses as human beings.

 

[FireDragon76]

It's not at all nonsense. Music as well as all of the arts do very much touch the soul. It's not a belief, it's what is experienced inwardly by the senses as human beings.

She's not implying it in some romantic sense, but the notion that music can literally carry the "vibes" of evil due to its mere provenance. And this is something that hasn't been empirically, scientifically demonstrated.

 

[dlamberth]

She's not implying it in some romantic sense, but the notion that music can literally carry the "vibes" of evil due to its mere provenance. And this is something that hasn't been empirically, scientifically demonstrated.

Music can carry the "vibes" of all sorts of feelings that touch the soul. Music can calm a person very nicely, it also can fire a person up in a negative way. The movie business uses that knowledge of music to dramatize and accentuate visual settings in order to help bring a setting to life.

 

[FireDragon76]

Music can carry the "vibes" of all sorts of feelings that touch the soul. Music can calm a person very nicely, it also can fire a person up in a negative way. The movie business uses that knowledge of music to dramatize and accentuate visual settings in order to help bring a setting to life.

I understand what you are saying, but there's a world of difference between believing a piece of music can be emotionally moving, and believing that music is a doorway to occult powers.

 

[dlamberth]

I understand what you are saying, but there's a world of difference between believing a piece of music can be emotionally moving, and believing that music is a doorway to occult powers.

Other than in one's imagination, I don't believe there any such thing as occult "powers". Power is the word I'm focusing on. What I was responding to is the "evil" component, not in some occult power sort of way, but more in the way that music can be used to move people in a desired direction.

 

[Robban]

Other than in one's imagination, I don't believe there any such thing as occult "powers". Power is the word I'm focusing on. What I was responding to is the "evil" component, not in some occult power sort of way, but more in the way that music can be used to move people in a desired direction.

Of all the songs and music that Germany used as propaganda, one backfired and became everyones darling.

Check out the comments under the vid.

 

[dlamberth]

I just came across a Sufi's teaching on Breath. For myself, I found it interesting. I suspect for others here not so much so.

 

[Robban]

I just came across a Sufi's teaching on Breath. For myself, I found it interesting. I suspect for others here not so much so.

Interesting,

John 20:21-23

 

[johansen]

I just came across a Sufi's teaching on Breath. For myself, I found it interesting. I suspect for others here not so much so.

a lot of this weird other spiritual stuff is actually surprisingly accurate. as with all things in life, you have to sort the good from the evil. there is much to learn about the body that we're afraid to talk about, for fear of it being sin. for example.. full body [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]. for men too. yes really. if you don't know about that i'm sure you'll be afraid to google how to do it. -sorry, not trying to be a richard.

-oh my, the automoderator is really clamped down on that one.

on breathing..

just try sleeping next to someone with BPD. you'll wake up anxious, because their body trapped in a continuous fight or flight response does not breath in a natural rhythm while they are asleep.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Belief in Christ doesn't require alignment with the church or its creeds. There are many who desire Him but not the institution. I'm not minimizing the things you hold sacred. But we're in a different time and the authority you cite is of no consequence to many.

~bella

And I'd consider that disregard for the history, and historical faith, to be an example of some of the deep problems of modern Christendom.

To believe in two equal and opposite powers is an idea known as Dualism. We see Dualism in a number of religions. The oldest example is in Zoroastrianism with belief in Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu. Ahura Mazda is, in Zoroastrianism, the Wise Lord, the Supreme Being, God--all good, all benevolent, etc. On the other side there is Angra Mainyu, the Evil Spirit, a being of pure evil. These are two cosmic principles with objective existence; Good and Evil. And the universe is the cosmic battleground between the two. Ultimately Zoroastrianism holds that good will triumph. There's also a bit of a wrench in this when we talk about Zurvanism, but that's going way off tangent.

In the main of historic Christian experience we see various groups which emerged in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. These are generally placed under an umbrella category of Gnosticism. It isn't correct to say there is a specific group or doctrine that can be called Gnosticism; rather there are groups of theologies, tendencies, that can be called Gnostic. A major one of those tendencies is the belief that the material universe is the result of an inferior, ignorant, and often perceived as evil quasi-god, and this quasi-god was often associated with Plato's concept of the Demiurge, the "public craftsman" who produced the material universe. This quasi-god was often associated, also, with YHWH of the Old Testament, known sometimes as Ialdaboath, or termed Sakas "Fool". In the 3rd century a major religious movement had its genesis when Mani, who had been raised in a Judeo-Gnostic sect known as the Elkasites founded his own religion, what would come to be called Manichaeanism. The Manichaeans held that there are two primal forces of Light and Darkness. St. Augustine, for a time, was a Manichaean, as Manichaeanism spread both East and West, surviving in the East for many centuries than it did in the West.

Consistently the Christian Church rejected these ideas. Simply put: If there is only one God, then there can exist no power to rival Him. He is the Shaddai, the Utmost Strong. He is the Pantokrator, the All-Ruler. And it is completely inappropriate--heretical and blasphemous even--to suggest that there could be anything to rival God or challenge His authority. This is why the Church, historically, rejected as superstitious and heretical the belief that the devil could do anything other than lie--a supposed act of magic is ultimately nothing more than delusion, a lie, it can't be real. The devil has no real power--the devil can't create something from nothing, the devil can't give people supernatural powers, the devil can't raise the dead, or heal the sick. So, consistently, Christians regarded such things as illusions, delusions, and trickery. And to believe in such things was labeled deisidaimonia--false spirituality, or superstition.

The Satanic Panic of the 1970s and 80's? Perfect example of deisidaimonia. The witch trials at Salem and in other places in the early modern period? Deisidaimonia. Superstition.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[public hermit]

Belief in Christ doesn't require alignment with the church or its creeds. There are many who desire Him but not the institution. I'm not minimizing the things you hold sacred. But we're in a different time and the authority you cite is of no consequence to many.

~bella

It is time to transcend institutions (without negating what has been handed down).

 

[dlamberth]

Then you're just talking about an idiosyncratic theology that has no basis in Christian revelation.

It depends. Christian mystics for instance have a way of taking their inner personal revelations/experiences to places that deepened the God experience as a direct reality such that everywhere they looked, there God is. Some were jailed or at worse burned at the stake for those unique spiritual insights. But are the mystics personal revelations not based on Christian revelation? Or just not understood? Breath is one of those practices, especially when chanting the Name of God, that's not understood so I understand how it and even chanting the Name of God might be called idiosyncratic theology.

 

[FireDragon76]

It depends. Christian mystics for instance have a way of taking their inner personal revelations/experiences to places that deepened the God experience as a direct reality such that everywhere they looked, there God is. Some were jailed or at worse burned at the stake for those unique spiritual insights. But are the mystics personal revelations not based on Christian revelation? Or just not understood? Breath is one of those practices, especially when chanting the Name of God, that's not understood so I understand how it and even chanting the Name of God might be called idiosyncratic theology.

Mysticism is by its nature idiosyncratic, since the experience is not communicable.

And magic and mysticism aren't the same thing.

 

[bèlla]

Then you're just talking about an idiosyncratic theology that has no basis in Christian revelation.

I see no reason my conscience or anybody else's conscience should be bound to the notion that hatha yoga is evil. The notion it is evil rests on irrationality, implying something is right or wrong by reason of its origin, which is called the genetic fallacy.

If you want to do yoga go for it. I shared an opinion and have no reason to debate.

~bella

 

[bèlla]

It is time to transcend institutions (without negating what has been handed down).

That's already underway and I mentioned it earlier. You can feel a change in mood and perspective. It's not because of politics or feminism. It's the growing fatigue with stagnation and desire for something authentic that transcends buildings and traditions.

You'll see more taking place outside of the mainstream. Gatherings, fellowship and mutual support with people who want to be there and invest in one another's welfare and betterment. It isn't fragmented or wholly about faith or interests. They're doing life together and that will become the new normal for those who choose a different path.

There's a lot of christian communities on the internet for women. What began in this realm is moving beyond it and will accommodate those who crave a different experience. I believe women only groups will grow in number in the near future and the church will look different.

~bella