Feeling Stupid. . . . . .

[_SPG]

SPG,

You might just want to go with this universe is part of an A.I. simulation. You have a lot of thoughts that can be resolved within this belief avenue, because why not?

- Doc

Well, according to Kurzgesagt we'd be on a black hole and the universe, like you alluded to, is a projection:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlTKTTt47WE

Note: If that video doesn't address the black-hole-universe-projection idea it's in one of their productions, but I don't recall which one.

eta: I think I found it:

https://youtu.be/yWO-cvGETRQ?t=469

- Doc

Usually I don't follow links, but I did and I actually enjoyed these. They present valid ideas that comply with some of the modern concepts of physics. But I'm not here parroting what I saw in a YouTube video. I think your post illuminates why people are confused by my posts, (not that they can't confusing by themselves.)

I'm presenting what a "Mormon kid" more or less pursuing Mormon questions has comes up with. Not that this claim makes my post anymore valuable or not.

I was different from the other kids, I will give you that. One night, many years ago, I was reading Robert Jordon's "Wheel of Time." In it is a mediation or mind form called the "void in the flame." I have had dozens of mystic (non-drug induced) experiences that for some reason only happened once. So there I am, in my room, practicing Void and the Flame. (imagine your in a void, focused the flame." Suddenly, all these faces started coming up out the flame, male, female, alien, animal, etc. And the crazy part, I recognized every one of them (I could the pores in their skin) as myself. I had been them all.

Anyway, I sold all my stuff, made some deals and left town 3 days later, it shook me that much. I've had other visions that shook me, that what we called "light" was really just 1 of 5 beings in the universe, that there is 4 others that are dark. The light is actually the blind one, it and those made of it cannot see the those in the dark. But the dark sees us just fine, in fact, loves and supports us.

In spiritual terms, darkness is more about ignorance. Our universe of light is actually in spiritual ignorance, thus the one in the dark. Those in the dark are consciousness of each other in ways there is nothing unknown, so they are not blind.

The simulated universe isn't about aliens, it's about the laws of life working in layers. Like the Earth creating trees. There was a big consciousness (because the laws within substances of the universe creates movement and life,) it might not even see us (we the ants) creates the bigger systems, which enable other laws to work. For example, without iron and such, the laws of magnetism are useless. Even though the laws of magnetism are probably the same as they were from the moment of the big bang, their ability to create was limited until stars collapsed and created metals.

I don't believe for a second this world is some alien government's attempt to create a simulated world. This is a simulation of higher lifeforms trying to create specific types of consciousness. We are literally becoming like God, able to manipulate and speed up natural process, purify it. But morals will be important. They don't want crazy people working about their creations being assholes.

Whether Joseph Smith is right about a humanoid god intentionally seeding this planet matches a lot of other theories. But, oddly, if that God actually exists, he hasn't stopped by to see me. I sense beings that are more archetypes, like the archangels, powers and beings that will serve those that ask.

[_SPG]

My message here, (as someone else was asking me) is that faith is important. That holding strong to faith is sometimes important, even when we don't know. Because, once you start to back off your values, because someone else has pointed out that you don't know, you weaken us all. If you give up love, family, and community because you don't know if their core belief system is true/valid/factual/pure, you lose.

So, when you assume people are not 'holding strong to faith,' you associate this with starting to 'back off [one's] values'??

And you also assume that people are giving up 'love, family, and community' BECAUSE people don't know if their 'core belief system is true/valid/factual/pure' ???

What an insulting crock of ____.

And last, you are here to deliver a message? Why? Never mind, head on up to the Celestial forum and preach away.

Celestial Kingdom? Where do you think I came from.

I'm here for you, Lemmie. You have wandered from the true path.

Jenn Kamp, why does everyone tell me to go when I feel hurt? I stay out of forums that would hurt me. Not that I'm ask you to go. You are welcome in comments.

[_honorentheos]

I get where you two are coming from. Because I express my opinion with a certain mysterious and manly confidence that I've either an asshole or ego maniac that "thinks he is right and everyone is wrong."

I thought it sounded more like a college sophomore who finished Philo 101 and was having a time with their new-found "insight" picked up from Descartes. I wouldn't expect most confident manly men to use radical skepticism to assert themselves.

I sometimes call people "wrong" because I've experienced myself being wrong with some of the same ideas. Sort of like, "here is a quote from Google so your opinion is invalid." Obviously, if I submitted to Google every time it contradicted me, I would be more like you guys. (Not that being like you is all bad, just not for me.)

My view is that everyone - EVERYONE - thinks they are generally correct about everything from their underlying worldview to the best form of entertainment to whether or not it's ok to wear white after Labor Day. And that's by necessity, as we have to take action constantly based on those things so we've evolved to favor the correctness of our perspective.

The results usually include our being fairly well equipped to point out issues other have with their views such as where they are exhibiting bias, are confabulating explanations for actions they believe to be highly rational but are largely reactionary and originated from their subconscious, or where they are confusing their own subjective preferences with objective facts. But we are absolutely terrible at seeing this in our selves.

So, my view is the most honest form of skepticism requires one balance the absolute need to take day-to-day actions as if one WERE absolutely correct while recognizing that our biases and blind spots are largest when they come to our own selves so of everyone I should be most skeptical of my own rightness as well as those that agree with me without justification beyond it aligns with my own pre-existing views. Or because it just sounds right to me so it must be right. At which point I feel it's necessary to examine my own underlying assumptions when asserting them, attempt to assume the most charitable form of an opposing position and treat it as if it were my own and absolutely rational (because it probably is equally rational compared to my own, if perhaps seen from a different perspective) and qualify statements of belief or assumed fact to the extent possible.

That's what I'm comparing your behavior against and finding wanting for someone who isn't taking advantage of what is really well understood conditions among the social and behavioral sciences in the way a young, undergraduate college student is prone to do after having gained a bit of knowledge on the subject.

It's in that regard that I say it seems like you are using it to assert you actually know what others don't, instead of a more developed understanding based on the science and some practical thought that sincerely seeks to shed ego rather than eliminate everything as real but ego.

[_cwald]

To be honest, I'm not really sure if I feel stupid for having believed the Mormon myths and lies, but I sure as hell feel stupid for allowing myself to get pulled into this discussion. I do feel a little dumbed-down after this thread.

[_Lemmie]

My message here, (as someone else was asking me) is that faith is important. That holding strong to faith is sometimes important, even when we don't know. Because, once you start to back off your values, because someone else has pointed out that you don't know, you weaken us all. If you give up love, family, and community because you don't know if their core belief system is true/valid/factual/pure, you lose.

So, when you assume people are not 'holding strong to faith,' you associate this with starting to 'back off [one's] values'??

And you also assume that people are giving up 'love, family, and community' BECAUSE people don't know if their 'core belief system is true/valid/factual/pure' ???

What an insulting crock of ____.

And last, you are here to deliver a message? Why? Never mind, head on up to the Celestial forum and preach away.

[irrelevant stuff, but no explanation of why I think people without faith, as defined by me, don't have values.

Also no explanation of why I assume people are giving up love, family and community because their beliefs aren't what I think they should be. ]

[_Lemmie]

To be honest, I'm not really sure if I feel stupid for having believed the Mormon myths and lies, but I sure as hell feel stupid for allowing myself to get pulled into this discussion. I do feel a little dumbed-down after this thread.

I know, right? People took his comments and intent seriously at first but the game-playing is getting stupid. It's just gymnastics.

[Guest]

To be honest, I'm not really sure if I feel stupid for having believed the Mormon myths and lies, but I sure as hell feel stupid for allowing myself to get pulled into this discussion. I do feel a little dumbed-down after this thread.

In a lot of ways, it's easy to look back at life and find things that one would have done differently if one had different knowledge or a different upbringing regardless of whether one was raised LDS or something else. We're not that special in that sense. Mormonism was sold on misinformation and supported by a large group of others who made it seems like doubt had to be a personal failing otherwise all of the other good people who supported it would have left in most of our cases, too. So there were likely so many reasons for believing and adhering that it seems unreasonable to me to see it as anything more than I was acting on the best information I had available at the time.

It's one of those questions I file into the box of "Outside My Control" and, beyond finding means for learning from it, don't dwell on as I don't imagine it's healthy to do so. I might have become a lot of different things had I been raised otherwise. But odds are I wouldn't have been born at all without Mormonism, and for all of the deception involved I also gained from it. The time spent serving a mission alone was invaluable to my becoming a self-realized adult. Maybe things would have turned out even better for me, but I have to think a quick survey of most people's lives in the world suggests I've got it pretty good. I can't regret that. Anyway.

Now, it seems SPG wants to use this to convince people that they are still sleeping like the people in the movie Inception who know they were asleep before but can't quite be sure they have woken up FOR REALS this time. The problem he can't overcome is he's relying on the fact we've all experienced and understand "the figurative sleep of being deceived in Mormonism" to do all of the heavy lifting to make the case we might be deceiving ourselves still when we look around at the body of scientists and others who we take for trusted experts who inform our post-Mormon worldviews and don't question them as rigorously as we recognize we should have the adults and leaders who seemed to make Mormonism trustworthy. I think the movie Inception captures well what his game is, really. He's a prophet claiming we're all still in a dream. To which I would argue he doesn't understand how skepticism works outside of the one trick he learned somewhere. He doesn't understand how the scientific method works to combat human ego to make progress possible despite our human failings. He doesn't accept that knowledge is a placeholder for "as best we can tell given what we seem to understand in the moment" that also corresponds with being able to depend on reliable, repeatable cause=effect outcomes that are not dependent on the subjective things that myths and god-beliefs take advantage of to be able to create effects out of human belief. But he thinks we don't have the background and are deep in Plato's cave believing the shadows are real while he's seen the objects behind them because he has "seen" something different from the shadows. He's had his chance to make a case. Turns out he had a personal hallucination and is spreading the gospel of it. Ok, that's cool.

[_cwald]

...a bunch of good stuff...

Honor, have you read this thread?

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=51304&start=42

[_honorentheos]

...a bunch of good stuff...

Honor, have you read this thread?

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=51304&start=42

LOL, I hadn't but you and Shades cracked me up. Thanks for sharing it!

[_Lemmie]

He's had his chance to make a case. Turns out he had a personal hallucination and is spreading the gospel of it. Ok, that's cool.

Ok, sure. What's not cool is the stereotyping- saying that people who stop having his type of faith are people without values. Comments like that should be challenged.