New Age or Christ?

Awhile back I blasted the "leadership conference" of some Catholic nuns' orders for having a keynote speaker who was deeply into "New age" stuff similar to that we all love to listen to and mock on Coast to Coast.

If you don't want to go to Art bell type programs but want to know why the Vatican is upset, for a Catholic perspective on the problems of these new age ideas, Father Mitch Pacwa, a Jesuit, has a lecture series on how these ideas differ from traditional Catholicism at EWTN: mp3 at this LINK


There is an excellent course on line from Berkeley on "Magic Science and religion" on youtube, which discusses the difference between these three ideas and traces back the various philosophical ideas behind each... the new age ideas are "magic", Dawkins is "science" and the pope is "religion"...but these ideas go way back into the days of the pre Socratic philosophers....






Of course, it's more fun to spout "ain't it awful" and conpsiracy theories, or imagine that these ideas will either lead to a new age utopia or the antichrist. But there are polite ways to discuss these ideas, and these two lecture series are good logical explanations of what these ideas mean and where they came from.

and without understanding where these ideas come from, you won't be able to counteract the utopian strains of each that could result in some folks using these ideas to destroy freedom....