Week 5

Expert Lecture:
It’s no secret that Religion has been the cause for many bloody battles throughout the ages. From the Crusades to the terrorist attacks on September 11. Religion has always been the justification for blood and war. Professor Juergensmeyer has illustrated that. Religion affects society in virtually every aspect, including politics as the Professor emphasizes. As a Professor of Sociology, he is well aware of the powerful connection that Religion has to society.
Being that there are so many divisions and different views, disputes are unavoidable. People will never see eye to eye on many different topics, especially when it comes to their Faith. They are required to believe fully in their beliefs and strong convictions could lead to violent outbursts to another group who opposes their beliefs. This has been seen many times throughout history. Unfortunately, after these bloody disputes, a underlying hatred is formed and prejudice is born out of this. For example, after the terrorists attacks of 9/11, there were many hate crimes committed to middle eastern people in America, even if they weren't Muslims. We are now at war because of this also. I agree with the Professor that the "War on terror" is inappropriate, but unfortunately that’s how it shall remain as long as Religion holds such an important part in society.

Assigned Readings:
Critical Thinking
I definitely agree with Mr. Schafersman when he says that critical thinking should be indoctrinated in the classrooms. I also believe it’s not only necessary, but essential to the students. Not only academically, but in everyday life. Mr. Shafersman knows that critical thinking will make students more immune to a lot of the ignorance that blankets our society on a daily basis. In a time such as now, when information is constantly changing and adapting at an immense speed, critical thinking should be a tool given to the youth coming up, to better prepare them for the complexity of independence.
"We should be teaching students how to think. Instead, we are teaching them what to think", this is one of the quotes that Mr. Schafersman uses in his article from Clement and Lochhead. This quote is the epitome of what Mr. Schafersman is combatting in the school systems. Reasonable, reflective, responsible, and skillful thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do, this is his definition of critical thinking and I think those are the ingredients to success. How can you not want to merge this kind of thinking to the sciences? It would only be beneficial. As he says, most exams like multiple choice ones only require memorization skills, it’s not necessary to think and examine the question. This is why the statistics of our educational systems are going down. Hopefully in the near future, this will be realized and implemented

BS Edgar Cayce
Edgar Cayce is a man that I believe knows the power of persuasion. Johnson has pointed out that he has many readings that have been inaccurate in the past. Yet that has not dwindled the number of followers that he has attained. Edgar Cayce a long with many guru's that we have seen, uses the power of magic and mystery to please the minds of their believers and leave them awe struck in a fantastical world, feeding the appetite of the human imagination. When people are blinded by the veil of mystique, they seldom tend to seek reality.
Johnson is right with how Edgar's expert application of his trade keeps his reputation as a great psychic alive. He doesn't overly exert his ability but he can stand his ground when it comes to defending his skill. I guess a man of his profession would have to be good in what he does in order to thrive the way he does. If you cannot learn how to step over the land mines of evidence, or side step the arguments of reason, then your persona will ultimately be short lived.

Fubbi Gakko
I commend Professor Lane for speaking not only his mind, but speaking the truth. I admire his tenacity at revealing the truth behind this pseudo-cult groups, that are nothing but a bunch of frauds and take advantage of the weak minds or the less observant. I just laugh at a man such as Paul Twitchell who fabricates his own life and takes works of others and proclaims it as his own. A man like that needed to be exposed and revealed for what he was, it’s sad when you are a writer and have no respect for other peoples hard work. I would love to have the opportunity to have a conversation with David Lane, I think it would be an enlightening experience.
I understand why the interviewer wanted to join though. Eckankar was like a big social club. Most people are vulnerable when they feel lonely with no self-worth, so when they come across a group like this, that seems to extend their arms and welcome you and your flaws, it’s very inviting. But nonetheless, when truth pulls away the cloak of lies to something you held dear, it’s not as special as it was before. Eckankar was a business and it was a business built on the foundation of other ideas of men, manufactured by a visionary fraud and a gifted financially motivated organizer, like Lane said "anything could happen". But truth cannot be denied, no matter how much you wish to deny it. I do respect the fact that David Lane limited his exposures to major aspects of Eckankar and didn't set out to bash Paul Twitchell personally and desecrate his character. This was a very interesting read and I enjoyed the reality of it.

Required Book
"Truth Lies" is an engrossing piece of work. An almost magnetic approach when you start reading it because of the truth it entails. I particularly enjoyed when he spoke of independence and how few of us are indeed independent. Many people are not built to face the risks of going against the grain of society. He says people that follow the herd of human existence already face danger; imagine those who choose NOT to march to the same beat? That is a truth that many people would not want to accept, which to me makes it truer.

Countless times in society has lies been cloaked in truth. Society buys into it because of the authorities that enforce it. In the time of strong Christianity, when the power of the church was unquestionable, can you imagine the strength and courage of a man to sway away from Religion? Nietzsche says that us being human beings, when it comes to things that we do not understand, we tend to believe whatever explanation is provided as long as it makes a little sense. If worded right and a hint of logic is presented in the explanation of something not understood more than likely people will believe it to be true, even if its fabricated. Sometimes it is hard to compete with your own brain.

Critical Thinking
Thakar Singh

I have to say, I have no idea how people get to follow these types of cult so blindly. I mean, blindfolding kids till the age of 5? No playing, 6 hours of meditation, that is just ridiculous. I feel that anyone with common sense would see how fallacious this kind of group is. I don't think it’s surprising at all when stories of foul play and abuse arise from a congregation of this nature. It’s obviously based on control and weakening the mind of any of its followers so that they can easily be manipulated and turned into lifeless believers. To think they have over 100,000 followers is mind boggling.
I was glad to see people actually raising questions in the Town Meeting. He is no doubt a con man, but when you bombard anyone of his character with questions to explain his position or his proposition, all the holes in his claims will be revealed. "Special Powers", "Direct channel to the almighty", I guess when you're that "holy" its ok to abuse women and children sexually and physically. You can plainly see how Eric Peterson is so blinded by this man's beliefs, without question. How can people follow a man who embezzles money and abuses women? Using his beliefs to justify his actions. Unbelievable! He's the worst kind of man, taking advantage of weak or broken people. Providing them with false hope for life improvement.

Sai Baba

Its sad that a person would take advantage of people and their beliefs in such a manner. He obviously likes the attention and feeds his ego with the praises of the people he fools every day. It’s easy to see the sleight of hand when you watch a video in slow motion, but I can imagine it was very effective when he is speaking words of inspiration and his audience is distracted by their own awe of this "miracle" man. A magician without a conscience is a savvy person for making money and gaining followers, as we have seen plenty of times before. People like Sai Baba are a plague to society.

Conference Presentation
BB6
Susan Neiman has an interesting view. She says when deciding on what religion to believe in, you have to consider what is required of that particular religion. Whether it hinders your thinking or enriches it. I agree with her position. The most important thing about religion should not be the belief in a God, but it should be how it can improve you as a person. That is, will it offer you than just a set of rules to follow without question instead of the freedom to explore the main theme of the belief?

Most people only have good ethics because it is required of them in their respective religion. What would happen if the religion would allow them to act less morally with no consequence? I believe that morality should come from us first, it should not stem from religion. Religion should just further enforce it. Morals and values are supposed to be instilled in us regardless of religion or not. I think it is because of this that many heated religious disagreements lead to bloodshed. Both sides feel justified because they think its morally right to do so because they are defending their own God and religion. But at the end of the day, murder and imprisonment are morally wrong.


BB 7
Mahzarin Banaji speaks about things reminiscent of Faqir Chand's beliefs. She speaks about how we manifest things and believe them to be reality, when in actuality they're just things that we fabricated in our own minds. In the example she used to further support her position, she substantiated that our brain differentiated 2 table shapes. In our brain the shapes were of 2 different proportions but she proved that they were indeed the same shape.

Her approach to the whole way of presenting her position was very convincing because of how factual she was. Demonstrations, statistics plus her confident demeanor made what she was talking about believable. It could not be easily dismissed. She made it apparent that our brain does not always perceive things the way it should. This ties in to what Faqir Chand said about with religious manifestations and divine help. Sometimes what we see and take for what is reality is just an illustration of our own thoughts.


BELIEVER MAG ISSUE - Summary

This is an interesting topic to discuss. Of course its definitely based on perspective on which side you agree upon. I most certainly think its somebody's own manifestation as to the vision that appears before them. I think the argument that Faqir Chand brought to the table was a very insightful one. I think what he said made a lot of sense as to why people from different religions all have visions of different figures based on what their belief was, instead of all of them seeing one prophet who is perceived as "God".
What would you tell somebody who said they saw the stay puft marsh mellow man and helped him in some task? I bet he would be ridiculed, by like the author illustrated, what is the difference between Stay Puft, Virgin Mary or The Master K.H? I say whatever works. If whatever vision helped you achieve something you wanted, then it doesn't really matter what it was. What's important is that you don't get caught up in the hype as Faqir Said in "Realisation of the Reality". You could end up getting exploited for your ignorance of your situation by sly so called "Guru's" as we have seen before happen. These are gonna be one of those topics that will