Last Sunday I had the incredible displeasure of attending the 'New Age Healing & Psychic Expo'. Here is the full program. In trying to think of some words to accurately describe the expo, all that seems to come to mind are money-grubbing assholes. I am of course, being terribly nice.
When I got there I was expected to pay $7 for entry. I thought, oh okay because what's inside will be FREE or at least minimally charged and they need to pay for hiring the hall and other costs. Not so. Every single stall was selling their crap for at least $20 for 20 minutes. Others were selling detox potions and aura photos for even more.
And it's not like they weren't getting many customers. Most stalls had a new customer every time I walked past. The only two stalls that gave me anything for free were what turned out to be Christian 'information'. One gave me a nice little bag of goodies with a lovely picture of a butterfly on it and a sticker.
It came with a book called Rumours of Another World: What on Earth are we Missing?' written by Philip Yancey. He is of course, Billy Graham's (who?) most admired and appreciated evangelical writer, so he is obviously something worth looking into.
The bag also included a catalogue of such priceless DVDs from VeggieTales, who brought us the classics:
Gideon: Tuba Warrior
Hosted by the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, Gideon is the incredible story of one of the greatest heroes of all time -- the story of a cucumber carefully chosen to defend his people against an undefeated army of over 30,000 excessively hairy and malevolent pickles.
When Gideon's sizable army is reduced to a mere six carrots and six peas, will Gideon be able to defeat the dilly nemesis? Can a few good Veggies stand against an army of thousands? Find out in the all-new, all-exciting VeggieTales adventure ... Gideon: Tuba Warrior!
and
Larry Boy and the Bad Apple
Something is rotten in the peaceful town of Bumblyburg! The Bad Apple has dropped onto the scene and is trying to take control of the town by making all of its citizens give into their temptations. Everyone is in danger -- Mayor Blueberry, Reporter Petunia, Butler Alfred -- even the town's fearless defender, LarryBoy!
Will the good people of Bumblyburg be able to resist the tricks of the Bad Apple? Can LarryBoy see through the sour plot and save the day? LarryBoy and the Bad Apple teaches kids that we can't fight temptation on our own -- we need God's help and the help of our friends.
I also received some lovely words of wisdom personally written by teh god in the form of postcards with pictures of pretty things. One has a rainbow and one has a sunset and one has a garden. It really makes you think, like how god makes all these beautiful things and there is no way that they would exist if evolution and natural selection were the only things guiding existence in the universe. If the latter were the case, then we would also find floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, murder and rape and stuff because if god caused those things, they'd be on the postcards too. If god created everything, he should probably be attributed to causing those things as well, right?
At the other free stall I was beckoned over by a guy sitting at a table. I sat in front of a purple felt cloth and some gemstones, looking very spiritual indeed. He assured me that they had no power and they were just symbols. Pointing to one cluster of gems, he told me how they represent clarity in life because they are clear, and once we achieved that we could move on to the next group of gems which represented relationships, etc. Eventually he got to his point; Jesus was the way to achieve all of these things the stones represented.
So i pressed him a little with some often-used arguments, i.e. how does a good god allow bad things to happen if, by his definition, he created us knowing this would happen. To his credit, this guy was pleasant to talk to and was willing to discuss his personal position. Whatever my criticisms of the bible, he would fall back on claims that the bible fulfills prophesy. "Like what?" I asked. He said there were hundreds.
He told me two. One was that Israel would be destroyed and rebuilt. The other was regarding jesus' resurrection. I had no arguments for that and I didn't particularly want to suggest that maybe the text was written after the events in order to fit with prophecy. Why? Because he wasn't looking for an argument. I'm not bothered by moderates and liberals, whatever their religion. As my mother suggested when I came home to discuss the day with her, when she gave psychic readings people came to her to ask, "why?"
So if people's answers are different to mine, that's okay. It doesn't mean they don't get to avoid criticism and discussion. I think it is abhorrent that people claiming to be psychics charge for what they do. Why do they need to charge people for what they consider to be a gift? That is why they should be criticised openly and repeatedly. Christians believe that the only way to heaven is through jesus and they are the only ones going there. They also believe that all morality comes from god. I disagree; atheism does not imply immorality and that’s why Christianity should be criticised openly and repeatedly. There is some kind of automatic respect given to people’s beliefs that is not given to anything else. In the U.S. parents can legitimately be protected by law from any harm to their children caused by neglect if it can be demonstrated to be based on religion.
And that was my day at the new age festival. Oh, and the scientologists were there giving out free stress tests.
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