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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
 Posted - 08/27/2007 : 18:18:41 [Permalink]
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By the way, would you people learn to link without using the whole URL in a post? It screws up the pages…
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 08/27/2007 : 18:49:02 [Permalink]
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Yojimbo99 wrote: | The invoking of Hindu gods' names isn't what I would call secular. |
Hinduism is a cultural identity as well as a whole set of various religious beliefs. Most educated Hindus do not believe in literal, anthropomorphized gods. The god are symbolic. From Wikipedia's entry on Hindu, under Religion for the Common Hindu | By tradition, the distinction between "believer" and "unbeliever" (Nastika) was simply whether the person, in principle, accepted the authority of the Vedas. Such acceptance was in many cases a matter of common terminology and wildly different belief systems coexist (including atheistic, polytheistic, monotheistic, among others) within the community of "believers." Consequently, for the common Hindu, the connection to the Vedas is mostly through certain chants that are performed at various ceremonies, and not through an emotional/spiritual connection to the content of the Vedas. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu#Religion_for_the_common_Hindu
| Also I came across this article written by ex-TM teacher Joe Kellet |
Wow, fabulous find. I was especially persuaded by stuff like this: | We deceived people by deliberately using words that would be misunderstood by the audience. We said "TM is not a religion" even though we knew that insider TM doctrine as a whole was incompatible with all major religions (including mainstream Hinduism in large part). |
I also especially liked this from his Q&A: | I am agnostic, now, about whether "higher states of consciousness" exist. However, I personally doubt that "dissociation", which can be produced by everything from TV-watching to day-dreaming, is the goal of Eastern spirituality. Dissociation is very easily produced, as Mahesh has demonstrated. |
| But my opinion of TM at this point is that its just slick marketing hype. |
Yeah… I'm getting more and more convinced about that too. Thanks for posting all those links. It was far more convincing that the criticism on the AU website.
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 08/27/2007 18:49:37 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 08/27/2007 : 19:37:52 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
The difference here, and I think this is a key difference when talking about the church-state separation issue, is that the people pushing TM are not part of any organized religion. |
Organized or disorganized, religion is religion in the eyes of the law.| All of the supporters of ID in the Dover case were conservative Christians. It was clear in that case that they were dressing up their religious motivations with secular language. |
Yes, because they were idiots and couldn't cover their tracks or lie very well. The difference is that the fundamentalists are taught that they must proselytize, and so if you let them talk long enough, they'll show their true colors. Given what the people who have "escaped" from TM are saying, the TMers appear much more like Scientologists, just without the command from Mahareshi to destroy TM's enemies.
You also wrote:| In response to Dave: Yeah, changing TM to auditing makes a huge difference. For one, Scientology is explicitly a religion with a very specific set of beliefs. |
TM is a religion according to the courts, and the context of this thread is the First Amendment, is it not? TM may have a vague set of beliefs, but they're obviously concrete enough to not fool the judges.
Besides, we're talking about TM that's been stripped of its religious trappings. By changing a couple dozen words, we can strip auditing of its religious trappings, too, and let's assume, for the sake of this discussion, that the Scientologists have at least one positive study laying around somewhere, and there are no negative studies because the Scientologists burned 'em all. Would you be okay with religion-free auditing being used in the schools?For another, I can't find any scientific studies of the effectiveness of auditing for reducing stress. TM on the other hand has been studied extensively. What is the argument against all of the studies mentioned just in the Wikipedia article under Research on the Transcendental Meditation technique:
Transcendental Meditation Technique |
The argument is that there are more studies examining the effectiveness of generic meditation. Why use TM, with its religious and woo-woo baggage, if a truly generic meditation may work just as well?
Besides which, as I already said, Medline hits on 267 articles for the key phrase "transcendental meditation." Wikipedia cites a couple dozen, maybe? With a big "The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed" across the top of the page, and a large amount of talk regarding the research section? Seven years ago, I would have read all the abstracts and presented a tally of how many had positive results, how many were negative, caveats for all and a comparison with how the Wikipedia page makes it all look, but I no longer have that sort of time.
Of course the Lemon test doesn't rest upon just the secularism of a practice. Even if this TM practice has been successfuly stripped of all its religious trappigs, it seems likely to me that if it goes to court (again!), it will fail the "excessive entanglement" prong, simply because the TMers will start crowing about how TM is being used in schools. And if its stress-relief aspect is overblown, it'd fail the "advancing religion" prong, too.
There has to be a good reason why the Lynch Foundation withdrew its support of a TM program in Marin county last year. Either they knew the case to be unwinnable, or they couldn't get the cash together for the legal life-support that would be required. Either way, it doesn't bode well, and in light of the court ruling, it bodes very much badly.
You also wrote:| I have the total opposite response. No religious terminology is used. |
"The source of all thought" is a fictional "universal consciousness" and as such is a religious term invented by the inventor of TM.| I transcend consciousness almost every time I make art. It's also referred to as working intuitively, and there's nothing supernatural about it. |
You must have learned the word from a different dictionary than I did. In no way is "transcending consciousness" (as the TMers mean it) a synonym for "working intuitively."| Not sure if these guys mean it that way, but frankly, I don't see how this quoted paragraph means much of anything specific. It seems much more open to interpretation, which reminds me, again, of poetry. |
It's supposed to be vague to bring as many into the big tent as will fit. As evidence I refer you back to the rabbis and priests who consider TM's transcendant states to be meetings with God hisownself.| Well, if the kids were in that position and doing it under a modern, secular direction, then it isn't religious praying anymore. |
I bet it'd be a great stress-reliever to let the kids splatter holy water all over each other, too, in some sort of secular way.| Then it's more like when I get a tear in my eye listening to Johnny Cash sing "Spiritual" (a Christian song) even though I don't believe in a literal Jesus. Or when I send holiday cards even though I don't care about Jesus's birthday. |
No, miming prayer isn't anything like either of those. The first is because you have an emotional response, and the second is because you know people will appreciate the thoughts.| Is there any other religious practice that's been stripped of its religious foundations and is now being taught in public schools? I can't think of any, but then I'm not an expert on the history of rituals. |
Any generic "holiday" celebrations in December, such as a winter concert or making decorations for evergreen trees. |
And we ought to stop those charades, also.| Also, as part of multicultural education, students often create or color various types of religious ritualistic objects, such as menorahs. |
No, those sorts of activities are overtly about religion, plurality and understanding, and as such should be encouraged.
Edited to shorten overly long link.
Kil |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 08/27/2007 : 21:48:06 [Permalink]
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Dave, I agree that TM will unlikely survive a court battle or public scrutiny, and this is probably why I didn't see it as a threat in the first place. I don't always trust courts and especially the public, and especially in the south, to be fair when it comes to mainstream Christianity, although I'm more often than not satisfied with them (as in the Dover case.) But I completely trust the courts to not break church-state separation for the sake of minority religions that do not have widespread appeal. If indeed TM is being applied in a way that does not strip it of any religious aspects.
| let's assume, for the sake of this discussion, that the Scientologists have at least one positive study laying around somewhere, and there are no negative studies because the Scientologists burned 'em all. Would you be okay with religion-free auditing being used in the schools? |
Of course the answer is no, but this is such an unequal comparison. Have the TMers burned all the negative studies? Do they have merely one study to support their claims?
I'd like to re-emphasize that despite similarities, Scientology has much worse qualities than TM and is also different in that it is a unified singular religious institution with a very clear and literal belief system. TM is much looser, more vague, and apparently not nearly as organized. These are profound differences.
Dave wrote: | "The source of all thought" is a fictional "universal consciousness" and as such is a religious term invented by the inventor of TM. |
Again I end up being more intrigued by the grey area between faith and doubt, religion and the secular, and literal and poetic language. Perhaps this is a scam to market products. Perhaps it is a genuine esoteric religion that intends to bring in adherents using stealth means. Perhaps it is a genuine attempt to make the world a better place through meditation. Probably all three and more, depending on who you are talking to and what the context is.
| You must have learned the word from a different dictionary than I did. In no way is "transcending consciousness" (as the TMers mean it) a synonym for "working intuitively." |
I think it is absurd to think - given the vague and abstract wording they constantly use – that all TMers understand "transcending consciousness" in the same way.
| I bet it'd be a great stress-reliever to let the kids splatter holy water all over each other, too, in some sort of secular way. |
This, like the prayer example, is the sort of thing you can easily frame in a way that makes it seem simply ridiculous because the act of the ritual itself isn't tied to any other cultural meaning or practical purpose. If it were – as the meditation is – it would not seem ridiculous, and it could indeed seem secular.
| No, miming prayer isn't anything like either of those. The first is because you have an emotional response, and the second is because you know people will appreciate the thoughts. |
You asked for examples of religious ritual that has been stripped of its religious meaning. Both of those fit that bill. There are secular Jews and Hindus who practice many Jewish and Hindu rituals simply for the sake of being connected to their cultural heritage. Is there something wrong with that? And if not, why would there be something wrong with those from a Christian heritage adopting various Christian rituals without keeping the literal religious meaning?
| And we ought to stop those charades, also. |
I think perhaps you view the grey area between religion and secularism to be much thinner than I do.
| No, those sorts of activities are overtly about religion, plurality and understanding, and as such should be encouraged. |
I concede this point.
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 08/27/2007 21:48:31 |
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JEROME DA GNOME
BANNED
2418 Posts |
Posted - 08/27/2007 : 22:45:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
By the way, would you people learn to link without using the whole URL in a post? It screws up the pages…
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Like this?
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What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. - Bertrand Russell |
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AU's Beef w/ Transcendental Medidation in Schools
