Deepak Chorpa on Hitchens.

[Animavore]

Excerpt.

By making belief in God their enemy, atheists deprive themselves of what spirituality is really about: a process of inner growth. There are wisdom traditions around the world that do not use the word God (e.g., Buddhism, Vedanta) or advocate religious worship in the conventional sense. Countless people have seen through the faults of organized religion and turned instead to their own spiritual journey. Hitchens and other atheists stand at the door to that journey and slam it shut, assuring all who approach that to seek God, the soul, or higher reality is a fool's errand. How do they know? It's not as if they have inquired deeply into the great saints and sages who have successfully traveled such a journey. Hitchens dismisses every spiritual person out of hand, which means that he dismisses William Blake (the source of his phrase, "mind-forged manacles," which Blake applied to modern industrial life, not religion) in the same breath that he dismisses Bible Belt preachers.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... z1Mbb91Xrv

When will theists ever understand that the enemy is not "God". There is no fucking God. The enemy is them. The peddlers of complete bollox. Dickheads like Chopra himself who claimed that his meditation caused an earthquake in Mexico and apologised for it like an idiot. And people buy this crap?! And buy in large numbers because this guy has made obscene wealth from peddling bollox to people.
It's ironically funny that he accuses atheists of a sort of sticking their fingers in their ears and saying "La la la". Is it just me or do religious people constantly play a "I know you are but what am I?" game?
I hope he gets the Hitch-slap he richly deserves.

[Svartalf]

That's one thing I miss with the old RDF... stuff like that would have been segregated to the woo section

[Callan]

Chopra doesn't seem to know very much about Blake, either.

[Rum]

Its baloney and he is making huge generalisations. I don't 'hate' god. I just hate what has been done in its name and more importantly I don't think it exists. I also have time for other (in the widest sense) spiritual approaches - particularly Buddhism - things which help the individual in their perspective on existence and bring perhaps a modicum of serenity.

[Hermit]

When will theists ever understand that the enemy is not "God".

Be fair. Chopra did not say the enemy is god. At least not in the bit you quoted. Chopra wrote: "By making belief in God their enemy...".

[Animavore]

Oh yeah.

He's still an arsehole.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The enemy are people who do shitty things and use God as an excuse.

[Cunt]

The 'enemy' is taking something mundane and plain and labelling it 'spiritual'. I have been accused of being a spiritual person often, and when it happens, it pisses me off because it is usually because I decided to be a bit self-sacrificing for some reason. It has nothing to do with spirits, it usually has everything to do with supporting my neighbours and community because improving my community is a damn good idea.
'Spirituality' is an insult to reality.
When a person makes their partner a sandwich every day for decades, it is a generous act multiplied by thousands of times and made all the more impressive by the consistency. Calling it 'true love' or anything else that sounds magical takes away from the reality of contributing hard work day after day to improve the life of another human. Without spirituality or magical love it becomes, for me, much more impressive.

It's like Tim Minchin said in 'Storm' - "isn't this enough? Just this world? Just this, beautiful, complex wonderfully unfathomable natural world?"

EDIT - to embed terrific video

[Horwood Beer-Master]

I'm deeply shocked that Chorpa didn't try to blame Hitchens' cancer on his atheism.