I believe, spiritually speaking, everyone has their own path on this earth. Generally, I don't try to change anyone's belief system. I love to debate religion and beliefs, and I can be a fierce debater, but I hold back on things (for example, with Christians, I think I have some strong arguments against certain key things which I just don't share), and I am not setting out to change anyone's beliefs-----it is a debate and I assume that people that enter the debate understand that. On the other hand, I do like to share my beliefs with those who are interested. But my beliefs are of a spirituality---so there is no religion to join, no baptism, or guru or preacher to follow. I am not out to change anyone----but I will point out where there are similarities and so forth. On a general level, I do speak out about what I call the post-planter culture zeitgeist, and how we need to free ourselves of it----I see it as the key problem of the Post-Modern Crisis, and the current age of nihilism is the logical end conclusion of it. This zeitgeist is made up of the very values we have carried down from our late planter culture ancestors---a dualistic world view, a group ethic, an overly rational and objectivistic understanding of reality, and a dominance of the masculine. These are all the very values that have shaped all organized religions. But this should not be a surprise because it was our Planter ancestors that developed civilization and the institutions civilization is based upon. I do speak out adamantly about missionaries proselytizing Indigenous people---destroying their languages and their own connections to spirit, and their ancestors. But I do want to support everyone in their own beliefs. BUT I feel angry right now, and frustrated----and I figured this little corner of Hipforums is a good place to get this off of my chest... My dad has spent more than a few years dealing with prostate cancer. He did radiation therapy and the doctors all claimed that he was improving. But he was starting to have issues with some medicines and so forth so my mom insisted he see a different doctor. Finally he agreed, and in January they went to a new doctor who ran some tests, and discovered that it was actually worst----it had gone into his bone. My parents are Christians but they are fairly liberal. As a child I went to their church, and so I know the people there. Today they are all a lot older and many are getting sick and dying and so forth----the cycle of life. But I hear some of these people talk, and I think, practicing the Native ways that I do, I see so many people healed, and so many good things happening---amazing prayers answered. And yet these people go to church and pray, and this and that, and well-------to my knowledge, nothing changes. But I keep my mouth shut---maybe I’ll make a small comment here and there to my parents… When I heard that the cancer was getting worse, I told my mom and dad that maybe they should consider doing ceremony. My dad was surprisingly interested (I thought my mom would be more interested than my dad). We talked about it, and I explained everything involved as best as I could. I had the help of a Native friend who did a lot to help them get ready for the ceremony. We opagi’d a young Lakota medicine man I know (meaning that I took them there and did the ceremony for asking for help). And a week and a half later we did a yuwipi ceremony (spirit calling ceremony). A lot of spirits came in and doctored my dad as well as my mom and I. I told them that it would be an amazing ceremony but you have to experience it to really know. We were next to a wall in the basement of my mom and dad’s church (yes, surprisingly we did it there, and even got permission from the pastor and all). But the spirits were behind us and all around us as if the wall wasn’t even there. My mom gushed about how the spirits had given her a wonderful sense of peace and happiness. My dad too was really amazed at it. The spirits took the cancer. And my parents saw firsthand how strange this spiritual part of my life really is (from a Modern Age perspective). We are supposed to follow up with a thank you ceremony in May. That was in February. They had scheduled a trip last year to go visit my sister in Washington, for all of March. They just got back. My sister is a fundamentalist Bible toting Christian. As my mom and dad told me, after they told her about it, she really wasn’t putting down Native ceremony, she respects it, but says that it just isn’t our way------and then she went on to tell them how Satan took 1/3 of the angels to hell with him, how powerful the devil is at making things look so powerful and good, and that this was all of the dark side, etc. etc. etc. Now my mom and dad are having second thoughts about the thank you ceremony. God doesn’t want us to mess with such dark powers----so my sister says. Yes-----apparently God----well the Christian God----wants us to suffer in pain and futility while sickness eats away at us------I guess it is perhaps due to the sins we have committed all our lives… I really do hate how Christianity controls and manipulates people through fear. Before we did the ceremony I explained to my mom and dad about belief being a big part of the healing----you know, a mustard seed moving a mountain. We did so much, and they saw so much and felt so good afterwards. The medicine man explained to them that even though the spirits said they took the cancer, the spirits have no concept of time, and that the complete healing would continue after the ceremony. I expect that he would be completely healed by the thank you ceremony----but now I fear that my sister has undermined all of that. My sister tried to tell me several times that I need Jesus in my life. The last time she did this was when my wife and I had asked for ceremony. She e-mailed me, and I responded back with all the amazing things that were happening around, within, and because of the ceremony. I wanted to tell her that none of that would have happened if I just had Jesus in my life----I know because I was raised in the same church she was. I’m sure everyone is familiar with the footprints in the sand poem-----well sorry, but a bunch of damn footprints in the sand wouldn’t have helped me much… Sorry----I just wanted to get some of that frustration off of my chest. I picked up my parents at the airport at 11:00 last night----and I wasn’t able to sleep at all------there is so much I wanted to tell them after hearing what all my sister told them, but I decided to let it wait.
I agree sometimes they preached faith, peppering innocences of people.... And you seem pretty interesting, I would wanna hear your key things on Christians ?
Yeah you are interesting. I too would like to hear your points about Christianity if you have time. So the cancer is gone?
My dad has felt incredibly better since the ceremony. He had a catheter and he went to the doctor and had the catheter removed. After that he went straight to Washington so he hasn't actually seen a doctor to see what has happened to the cancer since the ceremony. During the ceremony the spirits said they took the cancer, and healed his legs of the arthritic pain (which he also asked for). He had no problem walking and getting around in Washington and says that his legs still feel great. But the Medicine Man said that the spirits have no concept of time as we do, and that he is still healing which is why the wopila (thank you) ceremony is scheduled for the middle of May. He was also told to take a glass of water, offer a little bit to the spirits outside, and then pray over it, and do this every morning and evening and that this would be his medicine. I don't think he is doing that anymore and they want to back out of the thank you ceremony. He also explained to him that the spirits will help him as far as he wants to go, and after that they will let him be. The implication here is that it is important for him to do his part to be healed. The spirits are one side, but the human side gets down to how important it is to you to be healed. But I have seen healings where we knew the cancer was gone within a few days after the ceremony. There was a lady who had breast cancer. Her mom died of breast cancer at her age, and so did her sister-----they grew up on Pine Ridge Reservation where the water and so forth has been contaminated by Uranium mining (against the treaties---I might add). She had a biopsy done by IHS (Indian Health Services) several weeks earlier and it was found mailgnant. She was supposed to go back for some more tests on the following Tuesday after the ceremony on a Sunday. When she went back, they did the tests, and shortly after told her that there was something wrong and needed to do the tests again. She asked what, and they said that the test results somehow got botched. After the second time around they told her that they couldn't find the cancer. But I have seen all kinds of healings in these ways------beginning with my Stepdaughter in the Philippines who was having, what we would call, a psychotic crisis. A small peasant farmer, for the gift of a small amount of tobacco, healed her in a ceremony that lasted no more than about 30 seconds. This was after two doctors, one of who was a close friend, told us that at the best scenario it would take years for her to heal, and possible institutionalization, but it was also possible she would never heal. That was the turning point that got me into these ways, after years of searching for truth and then resigning myself to the possibility that it just didn't exist. I will send a message with one of my key arguments on Christianity.
A lot of the efficacy of medicine comes from the placebo effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/placebo-effect.htm A lot of illness has psychosomatic involvement and is susceptible to psychosomatic cures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosomatic_medicine http://journals.lww.com/psychosomaticmedicine/pages/default.aspx http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1922663/ I think it's unfortunate Christians have shown such hostility to pagans, who were in fact their major competitors in the Roman Empire. Saint Augustine uiltimately was successful in selling the idea that all pagan deities were demons. And the opponents of Jesus claimed that he used Satanic powers in his healings.Matt.12:27; Luke 11:15, 19. Jesus seems to have been highly effective as a healer. Marcus Borg characterizes him as a "spirit person". For an argument that Jesus was a shaman, see Pieter Craffert, The Life of a Galilean Shaman. My atheist friends are fond of saying Jesus never healed amputees. Right.
The fact that placebos and what not work is reason alone to let things be, despite your own religious zealousness. I have seen kidney stones be removed in a single ceremony, the day before the doctors were going to remove them by using sound to crush them. I have seen breast cancer removed in a single ceremony. I have seen heart disease cured in a single ceremony (even after two surgeries that did not resolve the issue.) My wife and I had an issue that was resolved in a single ceremony (a legal and financial issue), and 7 days before the ceremony (a sacred number) and elk came into my backyard where I had previously tied tobacco ties, then ended up in a nearby schoolyard where the yard was surrounded by police, animal control, game wardens, and TV reporters. They never caught it, and the news story on it simply read, "Authorities hope it got back to the wilderness." It was on a Sunday afternoon, and numerous people saw, what was described as a 9' buck, so it is surprising it made its way through the city without being seen. (We have elk up in the mountains---mainly to the North, but it is not something we see down here in the city, especially this far from the mountains.) All of the things that happened before and after the ceremony would fill a book. My mom and dad cannot deny what happened in the ceremony. And at the time they felt very good, but it is very easy to turn such power into an evil thing by Christians...
Well here is a little update. My dad is now cancer free. I wrote a long letter in response to my sister, which I intended to share with my mom and dad first before talking with them about all of this. It is about 50 or 60 pages. But before I e-mailed it to them, my mom found a book at their church which was written by a Native American woman who is a member of their church (it is a fairly liberal one), and she related how she practices her native ways and mainatins her belief in the church and sees no conflict with it. That seemed to resolve the conflict for my mom and dad and they decided that they did not agree with my sister. Then my friends who stayed a few weeks at their house and helped prepare them for the ceremony, needed a ride up to the rez in South Dakota for a sundance, and I was trying to help them get up there. Yesterday morning I got a call from my mom and dad at 5:30 in the morning saying that they driving up there and will stay and participate in the Tree Ceremony (where the tree is selected for the Sun Dance.) LOL! Now they got one up on me----while I have supported at several sun dances, I have yet to participate in a tree day. I'm jealous! ;-) Anyway, the medicine man that di the yuwipi for them has a sun dance in a few weeks, and so I think we will schedule the wopila (thank you) cermony after that.
You cannot win when dealing with people who are crippled by their mindless deification of a book. If you show them a healing which occurs outside the context of their religious belief system, they will claim it is Satan doing the healing for the purpose of turning people away from the god of their deified book. And if you ask them why their god wouldn't heal the person, they will say that it is a test from god, to see if you will hold fast to your faith. They have arranged things in their mind in such a way that even when they lose, they win. Also, religious people who contend that spontaneous healing can be explained away by the placebo effect are nevertheless attributing supernatural qualities to the human mind; and in essence, are promoting the idea of mind over matter.
logic good, dominance of aggressiveness very very bad. i think people make a mistake when they see logic as restrictive. i don't see it as logic that they're talking about when they see it that way. of course i'm not seeing logic as a container, but as the secret writing of bark beetles forming labyrinthine networks connecting a diversity with no visible ending or limits. what liberates logic is the realization that knowledge in no way limits existence. the idea that it does is a perspective that i see as being an artifact of that late planter perspective. knowledge itself though, while always expandable, is of course not more then it is. it is a challenge for the ego to accept these things, apart or together. that is where reality comes to the rescue in a way, though not from a perspective again that sees reality as limits, but rather as not being limited by ego. reality itself is immune to any demand of the ego. however much one ego might impose on another. of course when i say reality, i'm not talking about egos perceiving it, but rather the infinity that begins beyond the tiny gran of sand, of even all of egos together, that are of course a part of it, but such a tiny part. only the ego thinks the ego is big, but when you look at what starts beyond all egos, its so much bigger and goes on for ever, i'm talking about distance wise, not time, in a way that even all of ego, has only so much reach, but that which is beyond ego, just goes on for ever and ever, or at least, if it has any end, it is beyond ego's furthest grasp. time we don't really know either, only that it passes and things change. and of course some egos can't even accept that change happens. an old man rambles and that's my ego doing that. because my own ego still wants to think that it knows. i call myself old as an excuse. really i've been doing the same tying everything together rambling all my life. in the end i think its sufficient to know that we don't know. the hard part is the ego just loves to throw a tantrum and squirm every which way to not accept that. if the next question is why is aggressiveness bad and its dominance worse, it doesn't take looking very far to find the endless harm it has caused and continues to. christianity i avoid mentioning by name as much as i can because it is simply one expression among many, of the ego's demand to claim and be acknowledged to know all, which of course i can never do. gods are another thing, that may or may not exist, but if they do, there is no connection between them and beliefs. and while we might not be greater then the gods we have invented, we may still be greater then the selves we have.
i hadn't gone to sleep yet when i rambled all that. didn't even realize this thread had been here this long and that i'd already said something in it. woke up realizing "what liberates logic is the independence of reality from ego", would have sufficiently summarized the whole thing. logic isn't violated by the existence of strangeness, but ego violates logic frequently, and mine doesn't even require the help of organized beliefs with name brands to do so.
