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Conversations with God

Entry 672, on 2008-01-13 at 21:55:14 (Rating 3, Religion)

I listened to an interview with author Neale Donald Walsch this morning. Walsch has written several books describing his conversations with god which lasted about three years. His life had taken a bit of a downturn and he wrote a letter to god demanding to know why. God replied in person and Walsch thought the information he received was so valuable (as you would) he wrote the books.

The books have been extremely popular but I haven't read them so I am not commenting on them directly. But I am commenting on the interview I heard today which probably extends to the books as well.

According to Walsch god is not the personal deity described by the world's big religions. I'm still not sure what he thinks god actually is. Apparently he is everything, the whole Universe, and more. Of course, new age interpretations of the divine are in many ways even more annoying than the more specific representations of traditional religion.

I'm not sure what great information the books contain, but I heard nothing of any value in the interviews. Apparently god doesn't judge or punish, so even the worst type of people won't go to Hell, or be punished in any way. At least the threat of eternal damnation might limit the anti-social behaviour of some believers, but with this sort of belief we don't even get that!

So in this new age religion, god is everything and nothing. By creating such a broad definition I think any minor positive value traditional religion might have had is lost. The only thing this sort of belief achieves is to make some people feel good... and to sell a lot of books.

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