“ What’s wrong with believing in an higher power?”

I had a conversation with some very new age people and they always would repeat this .Is this an example of a “Weasel word” and are phrases like this fallacious ? They feel manipulating as hell.

Higher power is usually a Euphemism for diety or some kind of supernatural phenomenon. Or the word “Spiritual”. When I asked to clarify what did these words mean in this context, they would just beg the question. For example they would tell me , “ spirituality is about the deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Then when you ask to clarify “So your saying it’s just discovering a personal worldview with strong ethical and normative postulates?”

And here it comes again “Well it is said to be more about discovering inner peace and building a foundation in which to reach your infinite potential”. It’s almost like by command they have to give you a glittering or vague generalization. Am I overthinking this? I find any kind of language like this to be a semantic cop out. 

Remember perhaps the #1 rule with fallacies and belief... it is not WHAT one believes, it is WHY. The Question, at least from my perspective, “What’s wrong with believing in an higher power?” would be "it depends on what they mean by "higher power" and why they believe it. For example, something such as

"To me, a higher power is humanity as a whole. I Believe this because I believe that the well-being of humanity as a whole is more important than individual needs."

would prompt me to answer the question, "Nothing is wrong with believing in a higher power, if that is how one defines a higher power." This is for illustration only. I think if I tried I can poke holes in that belief, but you get the idea. The "why" is what matters most here.

My snarky joke answer would be I like to think of my intestinal borborygmus as redolent of baby unicorn's breath. Problems only arise when I try to prove it to someone else.

My more empathetic response would be to think of a great artist accepting an award for outstanding achievement when they thank Jesus or The Almighty for their guidance, good fortune, and spiritual benisons. I might find it cringeworthy and cliché but who would be so cruel as to deprive them of their muse however delusional they might seem?

Woody Allen (Annie Hall) retells the original Groucho Marx joke about a guy who complains to his psychiatrist that his brother thinks he's a chicken. When the shrink asks if he can talk him out of it, the guy replies, Yeah sure, but we need the eggs.

To me, the distinction ultimately goes back to a momentous time in evolutionary psychology when many Greek schools and philosophers began seriously investigating and differentiating between esoteric and exoteric beliefs and practices.

From these explorations, the primitive ideas of the Old Gods gradually became internalized, and from there, between the 4th century BCE and 5th century CE, there was an explosion of mystery religions and soteriological figures and Locate/ Ethical schools that focused on their initiates achieving personal purification and virtuousness in this life and in the afterlife. (See Plato's Phaedo 360 BCE).

There was no utopian ideal of universal salvation or world messiahship at the time that would later evolve (devolve?) into the Christianity of the Roman Empire in the 4th century.  The purpose of these schools was to attain ultimate goodness and virtue through the higher power of an adopted soteriological figure who would guide you to perfection in this life and advocate for you in the next. 

As Percy Gardner, Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge and Oxford writes in his excellent tome Ancient Mystery Cults : “It is shown these ancient cults were very much concerned with the destiny of the soul and the afterlife, and therefore already expressed the very same spiritual concern for individual salvation that was later expressed in Christianity. This salvation concerned not only this life but also life after death, and could be attained by sharing the experience of the ‘savior god’, especially Dionysus, Attis, and Osiris, who had himself died but risen again. These ideas have widely influenced early interpretations of ancient mysteries. The deity of the [Hellenistic] society was a θεὸς σωτήρ; and the society sought through fellowship with him to reach a state of σωτηρία, safety or salvation, salvation belonging alike to the present life and that beyond the grave... It was the deities of the Mysteries who were in an emphatic sense the saviors of those who trusted in them, and they saved by allowing the votary to have a share in their lives."

These ancient mystery schools would splinter off to become the exoteric travesties of world religion but also find esoteric renewal and new life in Freemasonry, The Illuminati, (not the conspiracy theory form), Gurdjieff's private ashrama, Sufism, Rosicrucianism, The Golden Dawn,  OTO, AA, Theosophy, Spiritualism, and other hierarchical practices where one gradually elevates from lowly initiate to supreme perfection and unification through and with one's "Higher Power". In many ways, these schools functioned like craft guilds with secret handshakes, memberships, levels of superior adeptness, and oaths of secrecy. 

In all of these modern iterations from Scientology to Alcoholics Anonymous, the path is the same i.e. to formulate or adopt a concept of perfection through an allegorical or symbolic "higher power" and gradually elevate one's self to become it.  Contrary to the exoteric world religions where "belonging" is stressed, the emphasis in the esoteric schools was on "becoming".

The wonderfully mischievous and notorious Aleister Crowley describes this exact esoteric journey in his poem:

Oh, those who set upon the path,

False is the phantom you seek.

All that you will find is bitterness,

Your teeth fixed in Sodom’s apple.

For it is fear and fear alone that leads you to wander.

But those who find the middle path,

No such phantoms will obstruct.

You stride for the sake of striving,

And fascination guides you onward.

For those whose journey’s end draws nigh,

And the path disintegrates beneath your feet.

Faster and faster do you fall,

And your weariness turns to ineffable rest.

For there never was a you along the path,

You have become the way.

So, all this is to say that there is a wealth of history, knowledge, and personal gratification found in studying the naturalistic development of these beliefs, customs, and traditions rather than merely dismissing them outright. Unfortunately, the pitfalls of the New Age interpretations can easily be bungled and bastardized into exoteric fanaticism, but that seems to be an all-too-human hazard in all disciplines.

  

 

 

As I see it, if the “ spirituality is about the deepest values and meanings by which people live.” was the definition of spirituality, then it  is something that applies to all people, which then means that all people are spiritual so you can invalidate their narcissistic 'spiritual' fantasy.

And the “Well it is said to be more about discovering inner peace and building a foundation in which to reach your infinite potential” reply does not answer the question "What does 'spiritual' mean?" but the question 'What  goal 'spiritual' people are trying to achieve?'. 

Which then leads to the question "You mean that all people who try to find inner peace are spiritual?" Again finding inner peace is something that all people try to do eventually. No one wants to fight an inner war. 

To me it feels like Distinction without a difference.

The simple answer to " What’s wrong with believing in an higher power?” is that it is not founded on reality and is illogical.

This question, like most, can be addressed reasonably well in a number of ways. As others have stated, I would begin by requesting additional information on the usage of both “wrong” and “higher power.”

The former should give some insight into context as assessing the colloquial “wrong” would require it. 

For example, in a context like epistemology, we might dub it “wrong” to accept as true that which has not been reasonably demonstrated to be so or which has been shown to be logically inconsistent. However, in fields like evolutionary psychology we find that we hold many irrational, unjustified positions (or beliefs) that while not adequately supported by evidence or found to accord with objective reality—once did, or continue to, provide behavioral success. And if we contextually tether our use of right and wrong to survival or to something like Harris’ concept of human well being (where we are sliding into morality), then perhaps the belief can be shown to be “not wrong.” However, in this context, such a scenario would immediately assign a burden for the questioner to demonstrate such utility. 

Proposition: Jesus is Lord over all and God raised Jesus from the dead.

a) If the data supports the proposition, then it is rational to accept the truth of the proposition.

b) The data supports the proposition.

c) Therefore it is rational to accept the truth of the proposition. Furthermore, any worldview is irrational that doesn't accept the truth of the proposition, including those incorporating a "new age" higher power.