Why Neale Walsch's rise from Bourgeoise, to Homeless, to Nouveux Riche is "touching", and I salute any person who for whatever reason escapes life on the streets. There is one reason Neale Walsch was able to escape the streets: he had not been homeless long enough to have become destroyed as a human being by life on the streets. Many spend practically their entire lives this way. In the movie, Neale W.'s resolution "I will not die in this park!" was the real reason he got off the streets and had nothing to do with his imaginary friend in the Sky. So what is the message of Conversations With God, books or this film? There is nothing new here, and in fact, virtually every tidbit from the CWG ideology is simply a rehash of New Age thought and platitudes and "Motivation Speak". Many higher level corporations use professional motivational speakers to fire up the employees with quasi New Age corporate mysticism, how the Universe is conspiring WITH you, instead of AGAINST you, how God wants everybody to be RICH, how ALL of your problems are basically yours for sitting on your butt and whining, instead of developing a "Can-Do" spirit. We all have heard this crap, and I found, although this is a little info outside of the film, that God's use of stupid word definitions based on treating words as acronyms to be highly unlikely. Here's an example of this New Age Motivation Speak from the book: FEAR means False Evidence Appearing Real. This is the kind of contrived bunkum typical of corporate motivational speakers and New Age gurus who tell people what they WANT to hear, but unfortunately an ideology about as far from reality as possible. We all want to believe that there's a nice sweet loving God up there somewhere in the Sky and when we die we'll live forever in Paradise, and reunite with our loved ones. It's even nicer to believe God is a sweetheart and not the sadistic maniac the Bible makes him out to be. It's nice to think we might live another life with our Soul-mates. All this is pleasant. All this is just swell. And unfortunately is not based on the tiniest fragment of hard evidence. It's all WISHFUL thinking. So who is Neale Walsch? IMO Neale is the World's most successful motivational speaker with all the film-flam, Newspeak, bogus acronyms of his competitors--my personal favorite is S.H.I.T or Super High Intensity Training---and essentially one and the same message. You create your destiny!
Remind a beggar child in India--who was abandoned at birth and has spent his entire life living off of garbage and refuse, living in filth and squalor, an illiterate untouchable shunned by society, regarded as totally worthless--- that ALL of his problems are HIS fault for allowing "negativity" to control his life. If he only---like Dr Phil, another ersatz motivational speaker always says---overcame his fears, got rid of his view of a judgmental God, stopped blaming parents or society for his woes and reached down and pulled some Get-Go out of his derrière, his life would turn around! If he thought positive and stopped whining, why his life would go from Hell to Heaven (poof! like magic--which is all this crap is anyway), and next thing you know, he'd be signing his runaway bestseller at Barnes and Noble, and selling movie rights to his books for 25 million dollars. Some people just can't tell the difference between FANTASY and REALITY. Reality is sometimes good, and sometimes rather rotten. Did the 31 students killed by CHO seek their murder to fulfill some spiritual purpose, teach their parents a valuable lesson in Love? Walsch would say they did. The Universe "conspired" FOR their benefit and always will. If I were the father of one of the deceased students and Neale started spouting this absolute fantastic and contrary-to-fact pseudo motivational malarkey, he'd get a one-way ticket to the afterlife.
Remind a beggar child in India--who was abandoned at birth and has spent his entire life living off of garbage and refuse, living in filth and squalor, an illiterate untouchable shunned by society, regarded as totally worthless--- that ALL of his problems are HIS fault for allowing "negativity" to control his life. If he only---like Dr Phil, another ersatz motivational speaker always says---overcame his fears, got rid of his view of a judgmental God, stopped blaming parents or society for his woes and reached down and pulled some Get-Go out of his derrière, his life would turn around! If he thought positive and stopped whining, why his life would go from Hell to Heaven (poof! like magic--which is all this crap is anyway), and next thing you know, he'd be signing his runaway bestseller at Barnes and Noble, and selling movie rights to his books for 25 million dollars. Some people just can't tell the difference between FANTASY and REALITY. Reality is sometimes good, and sometimes rather rotten. Did the 31 students killed by CHO seek their murder to fulfill some spiritual purpose, teach their parents a valuable lesson in Love? Walsch would say they did. The Universe "conspired" FOR their benefit and always will. If I were the father of one of the deceased students and Neale started spouting this absolute fantastic and contrary-to-fact pseudo motivational malarkey, he'd get a one-way ticket to the afterlife.