Let's see how quickly this blows up.

[jamiam]

Poll

Context: harvestar e-mailed this little op-ed by Roger Ebert today, and I can't help but notice that the very first example he gives of a New Age practitioner is "the hostess at a dinner party of the nicest & brightest in New York, Chicago, San Francisco or (especially) Los Angeles." And all of the accompanying pictures of practicing New Agers also just

Comments

[anonymous]

Not sexist sfaik but bashing New Age is religious bigotry. It's as valid a religion as any.

[jamiam]

It's also, in most cases, easily disprovable.

(This is also true for Young Earth Creationism, but not true for statements such as "there is an omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent power who created the Universe, and who continues to watch over it." Even Occam's razor has a hard time with such general statements, whatever your local materialist atheist may tell you.)

[mothwentbad]

If there's not any way you could say anything about it one way or the other, then it's sort of irrelevant. It's not so clear that if there is something that does universes or whatever, that it follows that it even makes sense to talk about it in anthropomorphic terms. Speculations on the subject are pretty horribly unsatisfying.

As far as "something rather than nothing" goes, you can either not answer the question, or you can not answer the question long-windedly and maybe make up and go down to the next turtle in the process.

[jamiam]

(FWIW, I'd be more inclined to rein in my kneejerk bias and treat this response respectfully if it were not, you know, completely anonymous.)

[scarypudding]

By and large, no, I don't include Eastern medicine because they do actually perform double-blind trials and stuff.

I include chiropraxy, though.

[jamiam]

Great, now I'm going to spend the rest of the night obsessing over the persistent, uncrackable crick in the middle of my back.

[scarypudding]

I blame your chiropractor!

[jamiam]

I haven't got one, that's my problem!

[mothwentbad]

Yeah, I don't know. I sort of waffle on that. On the internet, I'm surly, but in real life, I'm sort of anxious and don't always talk about stuff. I'm not a fan of the wharrgarbl, but talking about how I feel about spirituality, religion, the human condition, or almost anything else is sort of a downer. I just feel like giving up on people, mostly, since I tend to assume that I can't reach people and that even if I could there'd be nothing to say anyway. It's not like I really think "stars exploded so you could haz cheezburger" is decent consolation for having to be mortal, despite what Dawkins and Sagan tell you.

I don't know. When someone decides that this world just isn't sufficient, down at the bottom of it, and makes up "something more" and has to really believe in it for reals, I get that "nobody's home" feeling. I don't like it.

[tithenai]

I'm curious as to how you'd approach the topic panel-wise in a way that wouldn't just be "Atheism FTW." Is it the commercialism you want to critique? The focus on magic and divination?

It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to find that women form the largest body of practitioners of something they identify as "New Age," and honestly kind of pleases me in my feminism. Considering their spiritual options for much of documented history, embracing a spirituality that's decentralised, uninstutional, and non-patriarchal seems like a step in the right direction.

[jamiam]

But it displeases me as a scientist, because, as I said above to the anonymous commenter, most New Age beliefs are easily disproved empirically--like most extremist religious belief, but unlike most basic tenets of say, monotheism.

Okay, so. There's my bias! I'm comfortable with acknowledging that I'm prejudiced, even bigoted, against empirically disprovable religious beliefs. What makes me UNCOMFORTABLE is that this intolerance of mine, and of physical scientists in general, effects mostly women.

[tithenai]

most New Age beliefs are easily disproved empirically--like most extremist religious belief, but unlike most basic tenets of say, monotheism.

That's really interesting -- do you distinguish between the basic tenets of monotheism and polytheism? Is monotheism somehow more resistant to empirical debunking than any other metaphysical system?

I think I get what you're saying, but I'm still not sure what constitutes "most New Age beliefs," and why those should be equivalent to most extremist religious belief, as opposed to something as innocuous and ubiquitous as prayer.

[tithenai]

Ah, but am now reading the rest of this page rather than just replying to what's in my inbox. Cool.

Also as to your bias and discomfort -- hmm. I see what you're saying. I think it'd be REALLY cool to read a blog post from you in which you offer up the debunking arguments for what you find objectionable, if you have time/inclination to do that.

[tinatsu]

I think that your problem is simply that you don't hang in New Age-y circles enough to see the number of guys there. Curiously, overlapping interests in New Age and SF occurs much more frequently in women than in men, in my experience.

Given your list of objectionable Gathering activities, your definition of New Age seems to be confined to divination practices, rather than encompassing the broader aspects of New Age spirituality. There are lots of people who'd identify themselves as New Age believers who'd also share your skepticism of divination.

Also, I curious how New Age spirituality as quackery differs from any other religion/spiritual beliefs as quackery. ?

[jamiam]

Well, as I explained above to the anonymous commenter: it's the empirical disprovability. A lot more fundamentalist and off-mainstream religious beliefs and practices fall under this category than mainstream religious beliefs--examples in American Christianity include Young Earth Creationism and abstinence-based sex ed. Very anti-science.

But those practices/beliefs are mostly associated with conservatism and the patriarchy, whereas the New Age stuff tends to be a liberal and predominantly female thing. And the power dynamic there makes me more uncomfortable--I feel like I'm acting as the classic Tool of the Patriarchy when crapping on the New Age stuff for being anti-science, for all the reasons tithenai gave.

[tithenai]

I don't think that being an Enlightenment Hammer (not dissimilar to a ClueBat(tm)) necessarily means you're a Tool of the Patriarchy. I think it comes down to diagnosing the harm you perceive. For me, "quackery" is bound up with the act of deliberately taking advantage of ignorance. I see that as distinct from communities who share the same core beliefs and discuss them and their practical extensions -- be they prayer, divination, ritual magic, what have you -- in good faith, no pun intended.

I think alot -- not all, and I'm not a scientist, so I'm bringing my own saltshaker to season these statements with -- of empirical disprovability can be reconciled with spiritual beliefs as a matter of different, but compatible, paradigms. In my ideal world, those differing paradigms could help nuance and expand each other rather than define themselves against each other.

[quaryn_dk]

I suggest, then, that you crap equally in all quarters, and then, to get your own back, crap a bit more in the patriarchy-derived ones.

And then clothe yourself in a tutu, so as best to be a Tulle of the Patriarchy.