The spirit and feelings

[_truth dancer]

The problem is, people the world over believe they have found ultimate truth and believe hurtful things are of God.

I spend a lot of time in meditation and am seriously into yoga and for ME, the more I move into a place of silence and wonder and stillness, the more I feel compassion, care, kindness, etc., expanding and deepening.

I DO NOT claim to know truth nor do I feel my journey is the only way to live, I do not. What I do think is that there are ways to access more of us (God), than what we are told to believe.

I have found that the more I move into a place where I feel connected (one with) Source or nature, the more I am clear about my own life and how to live.

Again, not saying this is for everyone, just me. :-)

~td~

[_mfbukowski]

The problem is, people the world over believe they have found ultimate truth and believe hurtful things are of God.

I spend a lot of time in meditation and am seriously into yoga and for ME, the more I move into a place of silence and wonder and stillness, the more I feel compassion, care, kindness, etc., expanding and deepening.

I DO NOT claim to know truth nor do I feel my journey is the only way to live, I do not. What I do think is that there are ways to access more of us (God), than what we are told to believe.

I have found that the more I move into a place where I feel connected (one with) Source or nature, the more I am clear about my own life and how to live.

Again, not saying this is for everyone, just me. :-)

~td~

I agree. I also meditate, using a form which is derived, supposedly, but who knows, from Jewish sources. (Kaballah?) There is much to be learned from what is "unspeakable".

Edit: Added x's to get the ad lower; they drive me nutz. I need to go meditate. ;-)
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[_Themis]

We need to remember that not everything is black and white. Sure nobody can be perfectly impartial or unbiased, but lets face it, how biased we are is a sliding scale with some being very biased while others being less so, and whats worse is that one who is unbiased enough can accept that what they wanted to be true, or what they were biased for is not actually what they had hoped it to be. This is the case for me and many members who have evaluated LDS truth claims.

I'm glad you feel that way.

Edit:

I have not felt that way.

I sure you felt differently:)

The problem I see with believing members on forums like this is that they don't want to accept that some members that don't believe anymore were actually biased in favor of the church but were still able to accept where the evidence lead them. Do you think one who is biased in favor of a certain belief can change or alter that belief if they come across evidence that shows their belief as incorrect?

[_mfbukowski]

The problem I see with believing members on forums like this is that they don't want to accept that some members that don't believe anymore were actually biased in favor of the church but were still able to accept where the evidence lead them. Do you think one who is biased in favor of a certain belief can change or alter that belief if they come across evidence that shows their belief as incorrect?

I think "being unbiased" is an illusion and perhaps someone had a feeling that they "were biased" and thereby felt that they should change to "being unbiased" ( a different bias) and therefore felt that the best way to do that was to employ something they felt was "reason" to question their previous beliefs because where before they were "lost and now are found" -- oops I mean they suddenly saw the light of 'reason'--

John Dewey, who is to me one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century said this:

Such considerations point to the conclusion that the ultimate ground of the quest for cognitive certainty is the need for security in the results of action. Men readily persuade themselves that they are devoted to intellectual certainty for its own sake. Actually they want it because of its bearing on safeguarding what they desire and esteem. The need for protection and prosperity in action created the need for warranting the validity of intellectual beliefs.

Incidentally, as far as I know Dewey was an atheist.

What I see on this board is just the same quest for "security" in belief I see on Catholic boards on Mormon boards, Evangelical boards etc- except here the security blanket is supposedly "reason" which is ultimately based on feelings anyway.

Edit: Here is a link to what Dewey thought about religion; make your own judgements if anyone cares

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/phi ... _dewey.php

[_Themis]

I think "being unbiased" is an illusion and perhaps someone had a feeling that they "were biased" and thereby felt that they should change to "being unbiased" ( a different bias) and therefore felt that the best way to do that was to employ something they felt was "reason" to question their previous beliefs because where before they were "lost and now are found" -- oops I mean they suddenly saw the light of 'reason'--

No one here has suggested the illusion of being unbiased, only that we are not all biased to the same degree, and that one can be biased towards a certain belief and still change that belief if the evidence shows that it is incorrect.

John Dewey, who is to me one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century said this:

Such considerations point to the conclusion that the ultimate ground of the quest for cognitive certainty is the need for security in the results of action. Men readily persuade themselves that they are devoted to intellectual certainty for its own sake. Actually they want it because of its bearing on safeguarding what they desire and esteem. The need for protection and prosperity in action created the need for warranting the validity of intellectual beliefs.

Incidentally, as far as I know Dewey was an atheist.

Again I haven't suggested any intellectual certainty. I'm well aware I could be wrong. Even though I think their is sufficient evidence that shows the church is not what is claims, I recognize that I may be missing important information, the information I have may not be correct or is presented incorrectly. As far as my bias goes, I would still like the church to be what it claims to be.

What I see on this board is just the same quest for "security" in belief I see on Catholic boards on Mormon boards, Evangelical boards etc- except here the security blanket is supposedly "reason" which is ultimately based on feelings anyway.

Although we can't separate our feelings and emotions when evaluating the world around us, there are things that can be done to try and limit their influence. IF we couldn't then we would never be able to accept that some of our understanding and beliefs are wrong.

[_mfbukowski]

No one here has suggested the illusion of being unbiased, only that we are not all biased to the same degree, and that one can be biased towards a certain belief and still change that belief if the evidence shows that it is incorrect.....

Again I haven't suggested any intellectual certainty. I'm well aware I could be wrong. Even though I think their is sufficient evidence that shows the church is not what is claims, I recognize that I may be missing important information, the information I have may not be correct or is presented incorrectly. As far as my bias goes, I would still like the church to be what it claims to be......

Although we can't separate our feelings and emotions when evaluating the world around us, there are things that can be done to try and limit their influence. IF we couldn't then we would never be able to accept that some of our understanding and beliefs are wrong.

I wouldn't disagree with anything said here.

And because I am new here, just for the record, I am a TBM.

[_Themis]

And because I am new here, just for the record, I am a TBM.

I know, and Welcome. I am fairly new as well.

[Rikiti]

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[_mfbukowski]

What I have concluded it that there is no certainty when pursuing absolute truth as far as it is connected with external reality. The Medicine (Wachuma and Peyote sacrament) has taught me that the search for external truth is next to impossible. We only get fragments at best. God only knows absolutes and God is incomprehensible to humans in my opinion. The pursuit of truth is not impossible, but we will never "figure it out" (absolute external reality). All we can do is clear all untruth, dishonesty, insincerity and lack of integrity out of our own hearts. When the heart is pure, it is the truth. We become truth, rather than figure out what the truth is. I think becoming is more important than understanding.

Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he said "The kingdom of God is within you." Begin within, with your own heart.

Well just logically, all we experience is what we can experience, and clearly we do not experience all that is "real" through our five senses directly.

Light enters our eyes and is immediately organized by our brain into pictures of what is supposedly "out there" but all we know about it is what our brain tells us we see-- nothing more nothing less.

So I am inclined to agree with you. In a very real way, all of "reality" is within us in the sense that it is perceptions which are culturally conditioned by the way we are taught to think about things.

If you drop a baby in the desert with no one to take care of him, he will die, though if you are Native American you are probably very aware that your people historically have been much more adept at being in harmony with the natural world than Europeans. But for any human, culture is survival. We literally cannot live without each other until we reach a certain age of maturity, and for most of us, unless we have been trained in survival techniques could not live without modern conveniences more than a few days.

So what we know really is a "cultural reality" filtered though our conditioning - culture is inside us and even what we see as "outside" are houses and cars and cultural products, or computer screens upon which we use language to communicate.

So what is intellect and what is feeling and what is real? The distinctions are all very very blurry indeed.

But you make an interesting point of course about spiritual experiences which are induced by drugs. There was a time I would have totally agreed with you that that is possible.

But I think what you are saying more is that the methodology--the fact that "reality" can be induced though drugs shows that in some sense we are all constantly "under the influence" of brain chemicals of one kind or another naturally or artificially, -- that I understand and agree with.

So again, the idea that "rationality" and "feelings" are somehow opposed just doesn't make sense when you understand that both are just variations in brain chemicals and everything else is too.

At least that is one language game we use to describe this whole mess we call reality, and there are others just as valid.

And I think you are right about "becoming" too. I would call that "praxis" but it is essential to become "truthful people" not only in the sense of not lying- that is kind of superficial- but in the sense of being authentic in all we do and say and think.

Good post- thanks- I like it!

[Rikiti]

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