THE SECRET

[joasia]

Has anybody reviewed this latest craze? Apparently, we can get what we want if we just think about it.

Many hapless souls are looking for this kind of power to control their situations.

I think that this is the final phase of removing God from mankind's conscience. Be your own god.

It seems to me like this is the final plan to push it over the edge. People actually believe this stuff. They are being given the false faith of having control over their lives just by thinking about it.

BTW. Their best explanation about genocide is that the people brought it on themselves, by their own collective energy. In other words...they asked for it.

Just wondering if anybody has anything else to add.

Thank you

[ANGELA]

Hi Joanna. Sounds like Harry Potter all over again. There is a movie coming out staring Nicole Kidman called The Golden Compass and it's for children about killing God!

We must guide these little ones not to watch it, as it will confuse their little minds.

Lord have mercy

Angela

[Pravoslavnik]

I haven't read The Secret, and don't intend to, but it sounds like a variation on the Protestant "Gospel of wealth" best sellers of the twentieth century; Think and Grow Rich, and The Power of Positive Thinking, by Norman Vincent Peale. On the positive side, so to speak, there is nothing sinful or necessarily bad about learning to correct distorted, negative "automatic thoughts," as described in the work of the cognitive therapy theoreticians like Aaron Beck and Seligman. On the other hand, I never understood how the Protestants derived the so-called "Gospel of wealth" from the teachings of the Lord, and the Holy Scriptures. It had something to do with Calvinistic notions of predestination and worldly blessings as a sign of Divine favor, which ignored other Divine teachings about "those (who) desiring to live a Godly life suffering many tribulations in this world." The Protestant authors of the "Gospel of wealth" obviously never studied the sermons of St. John Chrysostomos on the parable of the beggar Lazarus and the rich man.

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 These popular Protestant and post-Protestant bestsellers are all Chiliastic and worldly, among other things--encouraging people to focus on acquiring and achieving worldly things, rather than focusing on God and letting go of the deceitful riches which will avail us nothing in the world to come.

[TomS]

Ahhh, Pravoslavnik and the typical misinterpretation of the scriptures.

Tell me, if I was to create a product which generated millions of dollars and I employed people to enable them to make a decent living, and I used millions of my own money to feed the poor and spread the gospel, are my riches still deceitful and sinful?

Do you not understand that the parable of Lazarus was about the rich man not showing compassion and not helping his fellow man - it was NOT about him being rich?

Do you not understand that when Jesus told the rich man to give away his possessions and follow him, it was becasue Christ knew that this man's riches was hardest thing for that man to give up? It was not because it was a sin for him to be rich.

The "gospel of the poor" is a lie. It was used by the Church (and remember, prior to Luther, the Church was the STATE) to keep the masses under control. "Oh, No Bothers and Sisters, it is evil to have wealth" BTW - pay no attention to the Church's wealth or the wealth of the state - that's different.

All throughout the Old Testament, God rewarded the godly with WEALTH. David, Job, etc.

How come he decided that wealth was bad in the New Testament.
It is not scriptural.

Greed and Pride and Hubris is wrong, not riches.

[TomS]

The Secret is, as Pravoslavnik says, just the taking of Positive Thinking to another level; The level of the absurd!

It's graham!

[Pravoslavnik]

Tom,

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      Who is misinterpreting whom here?  I am very familiar with the sermons of the divine Chrysostom on this parable.  They have been published in a monograph called [i]On Wealth and Poverty[/i] by the St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, and are certainly worth reading, if you have not already studied them.

      There are righteous saints, including the Patriarchs Abraham, Job, and David, who were blessed with worldly riches.  The Tsar-Martyr Nicholas is a more contemporary example.  There are also many teachings of Christ God and the Holy Fathers on this subject.  Consider, for example:

1) "It is more difficult for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."

2) "Blessed are you poor in spirit, for yours is the kingdom of heaven."

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     I distinctly remember a teaching of one of the saints on this subject, but I do not recall who it was.  A disciple asked him if it were not better to amass wealth so that more could be bestowed upon the poor.  The saint replied that this was all a deception, since the kingdom of heaven could be purchased with two farthings, as in the case of the poor widow.

      What say you, Tom S.?  Should we believe the saint, or should we "think and grow rich" with our Evangelical brethren?

[TomS]

What say you, Tom S.? Should we believe the saint, or should we "think and grow rich" with our Evangelical brethren?

We should take the saint's opinions under consideration, along with Napolean Hill, Earl Nightingale, Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, Zog Ziglar, etc.

We should choose the path that enables us to use our God-given talents to their fullest. Otherwise, we are in sin by squandering God's gifts.