In an example of good intent, bad example I give you this. A friend of mine dropped a mention of a talk that was given at a church’s retreat. One of the featured speakers was talking about the use of language. (Or something along those lines, I wasn’t there so I am left to speculate.) One of the apparent proofs used to make the point was a study by Masaru Emoto regarding the power of words. The basic premise is that words have power. The premise is that water, once frozen would form beautiful or ugly crystal clusters depending on whether or not the water was exposed to positive or negative words, like “love” and “polution” respectively. Sounds nice right? It is great, except that it’s total garbage, and the odors that come off it are legion. Let’s take a look at why I say this.
Let’s consider how language works. Words don’t have any inherent meaning. Words are just a combination of letters. Language is arbitrary and changing. If it were fixed, reading the older books would be much easier than it is. (Take for example William Paley’s, Evidence of Christianity, which I am struggling to get through right now!) Words and their usage change. We create new words and use old words in new says. Consider the word “gay” a generation ago versus today to see just how meanings of words change.
Words have the meanings we ascribe to them. This is why two people can use the same word in two separate ways. Take Christians and Mormons as a good example. Both follow “Jesus” but what each one means by “Jesus” is wholly different. It’s what we mean by the words that matter; it’s the ideas behind the words that have any real meaning.
If this isn’t clear, let’s use some questions to show just how absurd the claim that the words themselves have transformative power.
- Would words that mean different things in different places produce different results? Does water “speak” different languages based on location? Consider “fag.” One would assume that the negativity in the US would result in ugly crystals. Maybe in Europe it would produce something else. Or, what about the aforementioned “gay” word. I’d assume that in times of old the term gay, a positive description would produce beautiful crystals while today, you’d get results that would, I assume, vary depending on how tolerant the water is. Conservative Christian water would obviously produce ugly crystals, while free-thinking San Franciscan water would be glorious and maybe well-dressed.
- What about sarcasm? Can the crystals account for that? If I call my friend genius because he has a good mind and said something provocative that’s a positive. If he did something dumb and I said, “Nice work, genius,” I suppose the water in his body would react differently? Sarcasm alone seems an obvious defeater here.
- Do the crystals know they are being lied to? Could you praise crystals and not mean it? Would they know and get angry? Or would they take the compliment and form precious unique snowflakes?
The ideas here seem frighteningly similar to views pushed in The Secret and other new-agey movements. Other than the ideas being nonsensical and ridiculous, it’s not at all a biblical idea. Christians should be much more discerning than to let this stuff creep into our churches.
