Feeling Stupid. . . . . .

[_cwald]

I have tried to share my ideas and experiences with what I might consider parallel ideas or sciences. I am trying to discuss my ideas and perspective with a common language.

Well, you are not doing a very good job. You are INVENTING language and changing the meaning of words and language to support your beliefs.

I am not trying to convert anyone...I don't try to brain was them,...

Actually, that is EXACTLY what you have done the last few days here.

I see so much more than what science tries to explain.

Yep. That about sums it up.

[_SPG]

It looks to me as if judging the result is exactly what you are doing. Your whole pitch here seems to be something like: believing in things that are false isn't bad because the belief itself can have net positive effect. You can't make that pitch without judging the results. If all you were saying is that a person's beliefs affects their behavior, I don't think you would have gotten any pushback.

I don't think we normally take the time to judge the "good or bad" of a belief. Like, "Russia did it!!" While we don't know and therefore choosing to believe, are we reviewing the moral value of believing? Or do we just want the effect of it.

But, I'm suggesting we really don't know what is true, but choose to believe things for the net benefit.

Why do you suggest that? In my experience, my brain doesn't even work that way. I know that if I walk into my coffee table, it's going too hurt and I'll get a bruise. At no time has my brain ever said anything like "regardless of whether or not the coffee table is there, is there a net good from believing it's not there? If so, let's believe its not there. You can suggest my brain actually flips a mental coin to decide what it believes, but that doesn't make it a valuable suggestion.

Take my previous example. Politics promotes ideas that very often complete BS because of the effect of it. "Don't like Trump? Let's investigate him so everyone who doesn't like him will think he a criminal." This past few years was literally overwhelming with all of the BS being promoted. And when it was proven fake, something else sprung up to create the same effect. Personally, I have come to the point I might reject an idea, not because I think its untruth, but maybe I don't want that effect in my life. With all of the BS being promoted, I simply don't want to think humans are so sick.

I know a lot of people disagree, but I think that without religion, we would still be swinging in trees. Believing that God was angry with us, or wanted us to do something, has more or less brought us here. I don't think it has all been good, but the overall effect I think is.

Isn't the truth that you have absolutely no idea whether without religion we would be swinging from the trees or swinging from the stars? And the same is true for overall effect -- you have no idea what the world would have been without belief in God. So why think that? Is it that you like the story with the tiger better? Because that's what it kind of looks like from here. All of these paragraphs of mangled science look like a brain that has serious doubts about the existence of God and also desperately wants to believe in the existence of God. If you have to torture scientific knowledge to this degree to get the doubting part of your brain to confess that God is real, maybe you're on the wrong track. Maybe treating dreams and visions as true and meaningful and then bending reality to try and fit isn't the best way to go.

I have many ideas. I even agree with some other about the nature of man and how we got here. But can I prove it? No. If I was going to launch a nuke based on the question, "Did monkeys evolve religion, or did religion evolve monkeys?" I would hold off. I really cannot prove it. But, I do believe the religion evolved monkeys. I'm not desperate for God to exist. Really, I couldn't imagine life without him. But, my version of God is different then mainstream religion.

There was a movie I loved called the "Hog Father." The specters of the universe put out a hit on [Santa Claus] because believers were messing with the universe. But the end lesson, taught by the Grim Reaper was, "we teach the little lies so that people can believe the big lies. Because if you grind down the universe to dust you will not find one particle of honor, courage, hope, or loyalty.

Haven't seen the movie so I don't get the point. What big lies? I agree that if you grind "the universe" down, you won't find any of those things. God either.

By "big lies" the Grim Reaper meant the stuff we believe that makes life cool. Ideas like "countries, families, religions, honor, hope, courage" are basically lies we make up. We practice them to create other lies, like safety, security, property, ownership, borders, etc. The theme was that if the "Hog Father" (Santa) died, the sun would not rise the next day. The Grim Reaper explained that only a big ball of burning gas would come up. This implies, and I personally love this part, that everything we have is really based on a lie. We have mystical relationships with the moon, the wind, the eagles, the dolphin, and countless other things that have to be believed. The Great Pyramid is really just a pile of stones, unless you wonder about it and believe the history about it, knowing that whatever you believe is probably wrong.

Some doctors have recently tried to prove the gender roles are purely imaginary, lies. Women are not the weaker sex, they just play that role. And men, are not really men, but rather females with a special marker gene that give them an alternative or Option B sex of equipment. For men to be men, they must pretend to be men.

Believing that we should be nice isn't a cosmic rule, and sometimes is actually destructive, but mostly it is good. The idea of "father" is made up. Nature, mostly doesn't care who the father is. Fathers have "evolved" out of the belief that we are committed to the mother. We still practice this idea, and not everyone does a good job. But its a "belief" that isn't necessarily based on truth.

I have the same problem understanding this that Gad has pointed out. You use different meanings of the term "belief" and treat them as all the same. But the fact that we believe things that are not true does not mean that, given the choice, we should believe false things.

Most words have multiple meanings. I have studied the word "brief" rather extensively. Wikipedia had some of my thoughts on the matter for almost ten years. (That's a competitive word on a global scale.)

To me, belief is a basically a thought form. In the brain, a belief isn't much different then a knowing. You can add metadata to a belief or knowing that could be conditional. Like, I know water will freeze IF the temperature is low enough and exposed long enough. I believe most politicians lie. They are really be both beliefs, thought forms in the brain. They are treated much the same. If it gets cold, I will assume exposed water will freeze. If a politician speaks, I'm looking for the lies.

What I meant by believing false things is that it might justify false or unproven information to create a thought form. To think you are right about something, you basically have to believe others that disagree are wrong. Many of us do this willingly, even eagerly, so they can believe they are right. The way I get around that sort of thing, and think that maybe I'm right, is I believe every perspective is valid. If it conflicts with me, it doesn't really mean that its wrong, but that we have a conflict. Sometimes, maybe its worth fighting over. Mostly, it doesn't really affect me. That people think I'm wrong, or crazy, doesn't fill my soda, or pay my bills. But, I get that they have thoughts, probably false, that justify their disrespect of me.

[_Lemmie]

Some doctors have recently tried to prove the gender roles are purely imaginary, lies. Women are not the weaker sex, they just play that role. And men, are not really men, but rather females with a special marker gene that give them an alternative or Option B sex of equipment. For men to be men, they must pretend to be men.

I'll ask for a CFR for this, to add to the many other CFRs you have left unanswered.

What I meant by believing false things is that it might justify false or unproven information to create a thought form. To think you are right about something, you basically have to believe others that disagree are wrong. Many of us do this willingly, even eagerly, so they can believe they are right. The way I get around that sort of thing, and think that maybe I'm right, is I believe every perspective is valid. If it conflicts with me, it doesn't really mean that its wrong, but that we have a conflict.

Let's try this. You believe every perspective is valid, and I don't. Since you get around that sort of thing by believing every perspective is valid, then you also must believe that every perspective is not valid.

So the end result is you simultaneously believe every perspective both valid and invalid, at the same time. You are conflicting with yourself, but it doesn't really mean either mutually exclusive perspective is wrong, even though for one to hold the other must not. Therefore, you are left believing that neither perspective can be right.

In fact, since anything you think can be disagreed with, by the above process, you are left with the belief that nothing you ever think can ever be right.

Yea, that works.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Res Ipsa, you say this as if I haven't basically admitted it. In my search for God, I haven't found the Mormon God. I have met Archangels, Michael included, but none of them brought up Mormonism.

But, I have found so much more. There is no shortage of stuff to believe in. In fact, I feel like a kid in a candy show, diabetes not withstanding. I was angry at God. Then I cursed God and went about trying to understand the world without God.

I didn't get far. A world without God made no sense to me. The more I tried to explain life without higher beings the more stupid it seemed.

I see so much more than what science tries to explain. Someone said that science admits they don't understand everything. But they don't even acknowledge stuff like the soul, memories of past lives, connection to higher beings through mediation, psychic visions of other beings.

I have tried to share my ideas and experiences with what I might consider parallel ideas or sciences. I am trying to discuss my ideas and perspective with a common language. I am not trying to convert anyone. But I have found a few people that seem to understand. I don't try to brain was them, they just seen to see what I see, in part.

That you guys think you have nailed me down and boxed me in, you haven't even come close. I admit I don't know much, but I believe a lot of things strongly enough I would be my life on.

Do I have doubts? Tons and tons. Do I want God to exist? Absolutely!

But one doubt I don't have: Is there a God? I could not find evidence that there wasn't a God. I could describe God several ways. But you cannot show someone God, they have to find him.

SPG,

Do you understand you're a gnostic?

- Doc

[_SPG]

Some doctors have recently tried to prove the gender roles are purely imaginary, lies. Women are not the weaker sex, they just play that role. And men, are not really men, but rather females with a special marker gene that give them an alternative or Option B sex of equipment. For men to be men, they must pretend to be men.

I'll ask for a CFR for this, to add to the many other CFRs you have left unanswered.

What I meant by believing false things is that it might justify false or unproven information to create a thought form. To think you are right about something, you basically have to believe others that disagree are wrong. Many of us do this willingly, even eagerly, so they can believe they are right. The way I get around that sort of thing, and think that maybe I'm right, is I believe every perspective is valid. If it conflicts with me, it doesn't really mean that its wrong, but that we have a conflict.

Let's try this. You believe every perspective is valid, and I don't. Since you get around that sort of thing by believing every perspective is valid, then you also must believe that every perspective is not valid.

So the end result is you simultaneously believe every perspective both valid and invalid, at the same time. You are conflicting with yourself, but it doesn't really mean either mutually exclusive perspective is wrong, even though for one to hold the other must not. Therefore, you are left believing that neither perspective can be right.

In fact, since anything you think can be disagreed with, by the above process, you are left with the belief that nothing you ever think can ever be right.

Yea, that works.

What is a CFR?

And no, you miss a step in the logic process.

Say you and I are walking the desert, dying of thirst. We see a well ahead. Even though I am better looking, you beat me to the well because you can run faster. But, the well is dry. You turn away. I look, I turn away, but then remember a story where the dying people dug in the well. So I jump in and dig, and sure enough, there was a water. The more function perspective in this case was the mine.

But, the possibility is that the reason you didn't jump in was you had read a book about Camel Spiders and that they might hide near water. And sure enough, I jump in get attacked by a million spiders.

Both perspectives were "right" in this case, but because of past experiences the value vs risk benefit is different. You guys, most on the forum, see my willingness to believe something that hasn't been validated by the high priests of common knowledge as too risky. I don't.

But your perspective, given the information you have and your experience, it valid to me. It's a part of universe. Just because a person is crazy, doesn't mean their perspective isn't a part of reality. Like, do you watch those psycho episodes on Criminal Minds where what the guy/gal is doing is completely messed up, but when you understand what happened to them, it makes sense? I mean, sure, you have kill the psycho because what they are doing is bad for everyone, but you realize that if you had gone through that like they had, you would be the one getting shot?

So, what I meant is that sometimes someone's perspective might conflict with me to the degree I must protect myself and my family. But maybe that person was jacked up on drugs and needed more money for more drugs and he sees my house as a place to get some valuables. He isn't wrong, per se, but I'm not going to allow them to take my stuff. I don't have to moralize his actions to realize I have to protect what is mine.

So I don't think you guys are wrong in your stances, per se, but I think faith in church is valuable and worth holding on too. That doesn't negate that some people have had nasty experiences with church. From their perspective, church is toxic and worthless. Am I wrong? Are they wrong? It's matter of functionality in my opinion, just like the dry well. If I get water and we live, great! If I die in a camel spider attack, that sucks.

[_SPG]

SPG,

Do you understand you're a gnostic?

- Doc

I have three thoughts and share them as:

Gnostic: The Art of Knowing
Agnostic: The Art of Not Knowing
Atheist: The Art of Knowing Nothing.

When you think you know something, you get the powerful feeling of knowing. It can be cool, powerful, and very beneficial. But, it doesn't make what you know true.

So I practice the Art of Not Knowing too. Even though I allow myself to feel like I know something, the result is a cocky and arrogant attitude, I also admit that I really don't know anything. My knowing something, is sort of a conscious pretending, (even though I hope I'm right.) It's embarrassing when I'm catch not knowing that crap I claim to know.

And then the Art of Knowing Nothing. This is where some of my funner stuff comes from. Like, how did we came from "nothing?" Some of my favorite explanations of God comes from the Knowing of Nothing. But, they are pretty high level metaphors. Like, imagine a void, so deep and lacking of anything that it's just completely empty. Within the emptiness is all of the possibilities that can exist, and that somehow, the emptiness becomes aware that it is empty, thus becoming all knowing, as that knowing its emptiness is all there is no to know. That consciousness is God the Mother, observing God the Father in his infinite expanse of nothing, is also knowing. But, she wants something, because the emptiness is just so wanting. She split the nothing which creates something. The consciousness takes on ideas, which gives consciousness form, things begin to happen.

How nothing created something, is my favorite imagining.

[_Lemmie]

What is a CFR?

Request for references, of which you have many outstanding.

And no, you miss a step in the logic process.

No, you are now changing the role of perspective, by adding additional bits of different perspectives. That's an entirely different thing. You said:

To think you are right about something, you basically have to believe others that disagree are wrong... The way I get around that sort of thing, and think that maybe I'm right, is I believe every perspective is valid. If it conflicts with me, it doesn't really mean that its wrong...

Your example is nonsensical in that framework, and my point holds: the end result is you must simultaneously believe every perspective both valid and invalid, at the same time, which leads to the result that nothing you ever think can ever be right.

That's the logical extension of your logic. Of course, that's my point, it is an entirely illogical approach to take.

But your perspective, given the information you have and your experience, it valid to me. It's a part of universe. Just because a person is crazy, doesn't mean their perspective isn't a part of reality.

And now you are changing the subject.

[_moksha]

The amount of sugar Americans eat is 20x as we did 100 years ago. We might be eating 1000x that we were eating 1000 years ago.

There is an absolute limit as to how much of any substance a human body can consume before it reaches a toxic level. Too much water, sugar, alcohol, air, or Doritos will lead to death.

[_I have a question]

The amount of sugar Americans eat is 20x as we did 100 years ago. We might be eating 1000x that we were eating 1000 years ago.

There is an absolute limit as to how much of any substance a human body can consume before it reaches a toxic level. Too much water, sugar, alcohol, air, or Doritos will lead to death.

Doritos? Sometimes you go too far Penguin....

[_SPG]

Request for references, of which you have many outstanding.

Fair enough.

No, you are now changing the role of perspective, by adding additional bits of different perspectives. That's an entirely different thing. You said:

To think you are right about something, you basically have to believe others that disagree are wrong... The way I get around that sort of thing, and think that maybe I'm right, is I believe every perspective is valid. If it conflicts with me, it doesn't really mean that its wrong...

By adding additional bit of different perspectives I have changed the role of perspective???? No understandeee

I meant, the traditional method of thinking you are right is to believe in conflicting perspective are wrong. ie, I'm Mormon, Catholics are wrong.

My way of thinking I'm right (enough to act upon my belief) is accept that other people are right, given their experience. I made up another phrase, "Everyone is exactly where God would be if He was in their shoes." Multiple meanings here, but basically, if you traced every person's history back to the beginning, it would make sense. A person has a sum total of parts, (including spiritual) and everyone is. If I had gone through exactly the things you have, I would in your chair arguing your argument.

If I'm to believe I'm right, I really have to believe that everyone else is right, too. But, that doesn't mean we won't have conflicts. If I do argue with someone, it's not because I think they are wrong, per se, but maybe I think idea is more functional. Maybe I just want to have my way. Maybe I'm the boss and people need to do as I say. It doesn't make their perspective wrong.

Your example is nonsensical in that framework, and my point holds: the end result is you must simultaneously believe every perspective both valid and invalid, at the same time, which leads to the result that nothing you ever think can ever be right.

I admitted that I believe they are all valid, not seeing where I said they were invalid. Say that I disagree with a person, like, who gets to set in my big chair. I know they have reasons in their head that they think are valid, like, "I was here first," or "I live here, too" or "he love me, he won't kick me out." I don't have to disrespect their perspective in order to exert mine. Even if that people is intentionally believing something not true, it has a reason at some level I will agree with it. Doesn't mean I take my chair back.

But your perspective, given the information you have and your experience, it valid to me. It's a part of universe. Just because a person is crazy, doesn't mean their perspective isn't a part of reality.

And now you are changing the subject.

It happens