A lot of people tout the philosophy of positive thinking. Oprah, for instance, pushed the so-called “law of attraction” based upon the book and movie “The Secret”. From the official website The Secret, we read:
What is The Power?
The greatest power in the universe is a feeling – a feeling harnessed by the greatest thinkers, discoverers, inventors, and saviors of the world.
You are just one feeling away from changing your life… just one feeling away from the life of your dreams.
This is The Power!
Hopefully, you can catch one of the main fallacies right away. Calling it “the greatest power in the universe” is certainly an affront to an omnipotent, Almighty God. However, that is just where the problem begins. Even if you sidestep that remark as a marketing ploy or justify it (“Well, God is in Heaven, so…”), there are still inherent problems with the whole idea.
Of course, the whole positive thinking concept has been around for some time, and it certainly has drawn a lot of criticism over the years. However, it seems that sometimes marketing takes over and legitimate concerns are brushed aside. Take this excerpt from Oprah.com:
A year ago, The Secret was drawing cheers…and even some jeers. The cheers were for the theory’s emphasis on positive thinking and living your best life through the idea of the law of attraction—but criticism arose because some believed people would use The Secret to focus more on obtaining material possessions.
No matter any criticism for The Secret , Oprah says she still believes it’s valuable. “I’m grateful that for so many millions of people the door was at least opened to the idea that we are each responsible for the quality of our lives,” she says. “ The Secret was really just the beginning.”
[Text bolded by me]
Basically, the proponents of positive thinking ask you to brush aside reality! Another article I found asks the question about people who use drugs. After all, people usually use drugs to feel better. Does their positive attitude count, or are they doomed to destruction? If the latter, then why is that any different if we truly create our own reality?
Basically, psychologists regard positive thinking as a good thing in general, but, and there always is a but, they most often caution that it can be taken too far. In an interesting article on World of Psychology, “Use Caution With Positive Thinking”, Therese J Borchard writes:
Sometimes when we tell ourselves statements that we don’t really believe (“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me”), it can decrease the little self-esteem we had to begin with. As I mentioned in my post “Happy Thoughts Can Make You Sad,” this is precisely why Dr. Smith told me to stay away from self-help books when I was suicidal three years ago. In a severely depressed state, any efforts made to reverse thinking can actually activate the amygdala or fear center of your brain. In other words, it can have the opposite effect of what you’re going for.
[Bolding mine again.]
There’s also the legitimate criticism that “positive thinking” can masquerade as simply hiding from reality. On a good day, I’m 5’ 7”. I don’t think any positive thinking is ever going to make me an NBA star! Think of the danger of this. I can waste a lot of time and money trying to become something I will never be. And, since positive thinking “always” gives you good results, whose fault is it when I don’t achieve it? This is just another way of blaming the victim.
Think about what this so-called “law of attraction” really teaches. If you have positive thoughts, you will draw positive things into your life. If you have negative thoughts, you will draw the bad things into your life. What negative thought caused the mother of a small child driving down the road to get rear-ended and knocked off of a bridge and for both mother and child to die? Out of work? You must have had negative thoughts. Sick? Disabled? It’s because you weren’t being positive enough.
Helen, a young woman with cancer, said to me with great sadness. “I feel as if I have been victimized twice: once because I have a brain tumor for which there is no known cause and a second time because I am blamed, that it’s my fault. It just isn’t fair.”
It isn’t just people that run around saying bad things, though (but I’ll get to that in just a moment). Here is what the actual founders of The Secret say in interviews for the UK’s Daily Mail Online in “It’s become the fastest-selling self-help book ever, but is The Secret doing more harm than good?”:
The hundreds of thousands killed in the Asian tsunami, the thousands who died on 9/11, the millions put to death in the Holocaust? Are we simply to assume it was all their own fault?
[Rhonda] Byrne sounds rather weary as she skirts round this subject in her book but, basically, her answer is an extraordinary yes.
“By the law of attraction, they had to be on the same frequency as the event,” she says, allowing only a small concession: “It doesn’t necessarily mean they thought of that event.”
An interviewer on ABC’s Nightline in America recently posed a similar question to Bob Proctor, one of the positive thinking experts quoted at length in Byrne’s book.
“Children in Darfur are starving to death,” she pointed out. “Have they attracted that starvation to themselves?”
Proctor replied: “I think the country probably has.”
Children starving? It is someone’s fault in that country, perhaps even their parents. Asian tsunami? Must be their bad vibes. It is the victim’s fault.
Hogwash.
And yet…
Do people in the Church get caught up in such nonsense? Do we sometimes become “Job’s comforters” without realizing it? You do remember that God was angry with Job’s three friends at the end of the book, right? You do realize that most of the book involves them blaming Job for his predicament, right? Have you heard any of these lately?:
- If you only ate right, you would be healthier.
- You must not have enough faith.
- God must be testing you.
- You must be sinning.
Words almost straight out of the mouths of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. There are many, many other examples, but just looking at these four:
- I don’t know anyone who eats “right”. Experts disagree even on what “eating right” is.
- I don’t know anyone who has “enough” faith. I would suggest that “faith” isn’t in the what, but in the Who.
- God is always testing us. Blessings are a test as well.
- Do you know any flesh and blood human being that does not sin?
So, if you hurl these types of remarks at people, I’m going to assume you are holding a mirror in your hand.
