The heresy of positive thinking

https://oevenezolano.org/2024/08/7nas3gpcw Positive thinking in the correct sense is good; no one wants to be around a chronic complainer, but XXXXXXXX’s [name removed by Fr. Orthoduck] idea is far different. He promotes the “pull myself up by my own bootstraps so I can be all that I can be” stuff. In his sermons he never mentions sin and human depravity. — from a conservative Christian organization’s blog

All of these errors are based on the heresy of Science of Mind, taught by Ernest Holmes, the founder of the Church of Religious Science, that your mind can create reality, that through thinking positively, you can do anything or achieve any success you want. — from a conservative pastor’s blog

Order Xanax Overnight Online False teachings emerge anew in every generation it seems, but inventing a new heresy is quite a challenge. After all, once every doctrine vital to Christianity has been denied, all that remains is a change in packaging. … Millions of Americans are buying, reading, or talking about a book that repackages ancient paganism in the guise of positive thinking and mental energy. … Americans have long been especially attracted to ideas associated with “New Thought,” a movement centered in positive thinking and mental power. The New Thought promoters have promised health, wealth, success, comfort, popularity, and much more through the exercise of positive thoughts and mental focus. — from AlbertMohler.com, a 2007 article

Buy Cheap Xanax From Canada The day before yesterday I posted a video that does an excellent job of visually poking fun at the positive thinking emphases that have so caught the USA in their grip. Sometimes humor is a more efficient way of pointing out the fallacies of a certain way of thinking than long analytical papers.

https://www.completerehabsolutions.com/blog/lwh3s6b1l The problem is that we do not realize how far into every corner of our culture the idea of positive thinking has sunk. Were an Eastern mystic to come from India to tell us that if we were to only meditate and visualize positive outcomes we would be successful, conservative Christians would rise up in a group to denounce those teachings as heretical. Yet, in a much more subtle way, the heresy of positive thinking has taken over just about every part of our culture and influences in a negative way.

Frankly, it influences the middle-class (and up) baby boomer generation and the immediate middle-class generation after them much more than those who were still adolescents and late pre-teens when 9/11 happened. That generation has grown up with 10 years of war and a stagnant economy, while the middle-class baby boomers grew up with an ever expanding technological horizon and ever expanding opportunities. The generation that has come of age, particularly during the last five years has an unemployment rate that is actually larger than the unemployment rate of the Arab youths who have helped lead the “Arab spring.”

https://sugandhmalhotra.com/2024/08/07/26y0opet Yet, the idea of positive thinking is so strong that most of the pre-9/11 adults have trouble relating to the challanges of the post-9/11 adults. How often have you heard someone say to a younger person that if they just keep trying that they are certain to find a good job. Or, if a younger adult cannot find a job in their field of training and takes a lower-training lower-paying job, our attitude is that this is only temporary and that they are just marking time until they “make it.” We have trouble admitting that the job reality is such that there may be no job to be found or that if a lower-paying job is found, that may be what is available for a long time to come.

https://inteligencialimite.org/2024/08/07/w40t0b6x1y8 The problem with the heresy of positive thinking is that is has severe problems dealing with negative realities. It shows up in the name it or claim it movement, in which if one is not rich, then one has not really claimed it correctly. It shows up in many of the old-time healing movements, in which if one is not healed, then one lacks faith. But, though we denounce those movements, we do not realize that the heresy has sunk much deeper into our psyche than we realize, and it has been that way for decades.

https://www.clawscustomboxes.com/krwtzx0 You see it when we showcase the few people who have made it out of poverty as proof that anyone can make it out of poverty if they just try hard enough. Just like the faith healer, we use the few to say to the many that it is your fault that you are poor. You see it when our schools “push”  the idea that everyone should go to college, that that is the dream. Shop classes are really only for “lesser” students who obviously are not trying hard enough. You see it when we push the idea that if everyone were to read their Bible well enough and go to enough conferences that everyone would be able to be a Bible scholar. Apparently to be a faithful holy believer is simply not good enough.

https://udaan.org/jco4yd9u.php The result is that we do not face reality and we give people either false hope or false ideas. Not everyone will be a Bible scholar, being a scholar depends rather heavily on how the Holy Spirit has gifted you and to what He has called you. I suspect that there are many priests who would give their eyeteeth for more people with the gifts of helps and fewer people challanging everything they say because those people have read a book or gone to a conference! Talk to many economists and they will tell you that our economy could stand fewer college graduates and more people willing to be skilled and certified craftsmen/women. [In passing, talk to many of those same economists and they will tell you that they wish Congress would face reality, but that is another subject.] We have almost lost the class of skilled craftsmen as a result of pushing everyone toward college.

Buy Xanax Mexico Online Finally, part of the reason why too many are able to turn a blind eye to the destitute, the widow, and the orphan is their internalized heresy of positive thinking. You see, it is all too easy to come to believe that the poor are simply their through their own fault. They are lazy. They are drug-abusers. They are not trying hard enough. Why are we willing to say all this? Because, obviously, if they tried hard enough, there would be no poor. Little do we realize that such a thought has more to do with positive thinking than it has to do with sociological realities. We take the few who make it as proof that the rest could if they would (positive thinking). Then we take the few lazy and criminal as proof that those who do not make it are obviously engaged in some type of sinful behavior. Yet Our Lord says, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” — Luke 6:20.

https://transculturalexchange.org/p8e3tcsfq May Our Lord teach us to think correctly and to see reality as He sees it.