Posted on 12/28/2017 6:53:38 AM PST by truthfinder9
Times reporter Michelle Goldberg notes the “well-documented resurgence of occultism among millennials.” In investigating this, she visited a “fashionable occult boutique” in Brooklyn, attending a presentation on witchcraft by an individual called Dakota Bracciale:
Bracciale, who uses the gender-neutral pronouns they and them, grew up in an evangelical household — somewhere “between ‘Jesus Camp’ and snake handlers” — and said that the new atheism of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens had a profound effect on their generation. But atheism wasn’t enough, said Bracciale: “It left this huge vacuum, and that vacuum had to be filled with something.”
This is a familiar pattern. Theosophy, the mother of all new age movements, was founded in the 19th century as the discoveries of Charles Darwin undermined faith in Christian creation stories, which led some to abandon religion altogether but others to embrace new forms of mysticism. [Emphasis added.]
Miss Goldberg doesn’t refer to Bracciale by a gendered pronoun, only by surname, but given that he is described as having a “beard and long, lavender nails,” I’m going to go out on a limb and say “he.”
He, Mr. Bracciale, says insightfully, “If you’re not ready to admit that the universe is chaos, I’m not sure how far you’re going to go.” Meaning, I think, you’re not going to get very far as a witch. And I imagine he’s right about that.
These are the kinds of points Darwin critics make. The notion of a universe where, in Michelle Goldberg’s phrase, “no one is in charge” is a portal not only to science-flavored atheism but to darker stuff, like witchcraft and the occult. It’s a “familiar pattern,” she says, going back to Darwin’s time. Because “atheism isn’t enough.”
(Excerpt) Read more at evolutionnews.org ...
Meet the new atheism. Same as the old atheism.
The reason for this is that they didn't abandon Christianity because Dawkins or Darwin convinced them that they inhabit a material universe, but for political and social reasons. Because Christianity is associated in their minds with social conservatism, rejecting Christianity is their form of rebellion. However, they still have the emotional need for superstition, so Darwin doesn't do it for them while New Age nonsense does. Even those who adopt Marxism as a surrogate religion usually aren't attracted to the materialism of Marx himself, but to various "Marxisms" that celebrate the belief systems of non-white peoples.
It all goes back to Chesterton's remark that the problem with those who abandon Christianity isn't that they believe in nothing, but that they're willing to believe in just about anything else.
If no one is in charge then witchcraft is silly superstition too, unless they’ve decided that nothing really is sentient and can be called upon to do their bidding, in which case it isn’t nothing now, is it? Same problem evos have, going on about design but nothing did it. Maybe the Flying Spaghetti Monster touched them with his noodly appendages.
Exactly.
I've tried talking to some New Agers in the past, and it's as though one lobe of their brain doesn't know what the other is doing. They invoke science to criticize Christian belief as irrational superstition, but all science goes out the window when it concerns the weird chants they engage in to bring forth the energy of "Mother Earth Spirit" or whatever other nonsense they believe in.
Throw the Flying Spaghetti Monster at them, they all know what that is, having used it to mock Christians before. They’ve been touched by his noodly appendage.
Nothing new under the sun. Verse 3 says it all.
Psalm 2King James Version (KJV)
1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying,
3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.
And up stepped Satan ...
“When you believe in nothing, you’ll fall for anything”
“...and when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”
IMHO anything besides belief in the One and Only True God is Satanism in all his various falsities and idolatries even if it is a faith in no god but self or science or whatever your snowflake mind wants.
When God said the sins of the fathers who hate him are punished to the third or fourth generation it was actually done IN the third or fourth generation and ONLY to those who hate Him. So, which generation are the snowflakes since the sexually immoral, horoscope following, child sacrificing hippies?
“It left this huge vacuum, and that vacuum had to be filled with something.”
That is what I don’t get. I can easily see being perfectly content in the vacuum, I know people who are total materialists; some of them are even Constitutional Conservatives who know the Federalist papers backwards and forwards and the Bible quite well, too.
I am never going to judge another’s faith or lack thereof unless or until it picks my pocket or requires/restrains my actions.
Some people are content in that spiritual vacuum. Maybe they’re the well-adjusted ones. Maybe they’re just empty shells. To each his own, and let whatever Judge there is be the final arbiter.
The one difference that one could note is the “new atheist’s” penchant for attributing life on earth to aliens “seeding” the planet. It may seem small, but it opens the “new atheists” up to salvation from the mothership. Or an Antichrist figure that claims these origins...
exactly!
“discoveries of Charles Darwin”...
Complete twaddle.
Darwin only theorized, he “discovered” squat.
“, who uses the gender-neutral pronouns they and them,”
Wrong. It does not USE those pronouns. It expects other people to use “they” and “them” when referring to it.
Sorry, but you don’t get to tell other people what pronouns to use when speaking to a third person and referring to you. When speaking to you, “they” and “them” are not used. “you” is used.
Miss Goldberg doesn’t refer to Bracciale by a gendered pronoun, only by surname, but given that he is described as having a “beard and long, lavender nails,” I’m going to go out on a limb and say “he.”
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