Darth Dane

This is the step that is almost always ignored. People spend little time examining themselves because they live under the common misconception that the solutions to their problems lie in the outside world (science, organized religion, politics....) Therefore, that is where the majority of time is focused. I beg to differ.


Yes, inside seems like the faster way to cure the world of a problem: a crisis of perception.

As Gandhi said: Be the change you wanna see in the world

Haverbob, I see something in you I didn't se before, then again, how much have we talked

In my humble mind, you are blessed. And I feel blessed because you are.

The ways we get taught is amazing





DD - Love & Laughter

haverbob

True...true. I would say "best wishes" but I explained to you why I don't like to say that anymore. So I will say "enjoy yourself" Here's a funny joke you might appreciate. I guy is at a really boring party and someone comes up and asks him "are you enjoying yourself?" to which he replies "yes, in fact that's the only thing I am enjoying here".

Theli

I don't know about this... sounds abit like "I am the center of the universe, everyone else is shit" to me.

Alan N

The party joke from your later post sounds a lot like my father who would say "hey, if you can't enjoy being with yourself, you can't enjoy being with other people". Simple, but in my experience, true. In my words..."If you can't flush a [clean] thought out of your head, don't let your sewage poison the public drinking water". Hey, I'm going to copyright that. Self reflection is akin to a water treatment facility. You take in all the waste/output of others, process it, remove the obvious floaties and like, add your own treatment, and send the freshly processed water [self] back to the public to consume. I.E. (imho) Self does not exist without input.

haverbob

You got THAT right.

haverbob

This is close. However, let me add that you get clean water (input} but you dirty it and then send it back out. You dirty it by applying pre-conceived notions to the pure input that reality provides. Everyone alters reality by applying these pre-conceived notions, opinions, judgements.... and much of these come from your society, not even yourself. If you ever think deeply about it, ask yourself how many of your thouights are really your own instead of your father's, mother's, science teacher's, peer's...... and how many of their thoughts are really their own. If you think hard about it, you will see that it's very little. Shit rolls down hill.

Alan N

Agreed. But thought is cumulative and progressive, or else we wouldn't have science teachers. Of course there is little 'original material'...it's what you and I do with it (as in self reflection).

When I was a christian, a pastor once told me "the bible is objective...until you open it and begin reading". I think reality is this, that is, objective, until you and I begin to discuss it. It cannot be objectively measured, only subjectively observed.

Everyone will drink in their measure of reality, myself included, but ask them what they drank, and therein is where the fun begins.

haverbob

Great response. Thank you.
First of all, you should have never listened to that Pastor (although I'll grant that you had no choice at the time). People like that are not "awake", they are sleepwalking, although their kind of dream (or something) tells them that they are awake (or really tells them they are holy or saved or successful, likeable.... or whatever). Don't blame them. It's not their fault, they are sleepwalking just like everyone else who gave them THEIR ideas (or what they THOUGHT was their ideas). Sometimes (not always)it actually becomes the same thing with atheists, but instead of a pastor, it becomes a scientist.

Please don't confuse my "awake" comment with the common sort of "I'm asleep and therefore I am dreaming" kind of physical sort of interpretation. It's more about how common notions that you were trained about actually become reality after a number of years of reinforcement for that training. Sorry, but I'll give you a couple of examples because I can't explain it well.

1) I point to a bird and I ask you "what is that?". If you decide to answer, would I surely not get a scientific, "phylum cordata" or category kind of answer or least the word "bird" which sums up the previous?? Is that what that thing is??? I know that you ultimately understand the difference between words and reality, but you would give that description to a 2 year old toddler, wouldn't you?? Just like everyone else?? Yes , of course. When the mother tells the child that the fuzzy thing in the air that the child is pointing to in amazement, is a "bird", that thing has changed forever. That's ashame. Although I like pure science, I don't like the way people use it. Although that thing can be called a "bird", that thing is certainly alot more than a bird, but the child will become bored of things like that, because the child now KNOWS that everything like that thing is a "bird". And the child KNOWS what trees are also. Someone once asked me my opinion of God, or "who or what is running the show". My response was:

"I don't like to have too many opinions anymore, but I can say one thing, if I could explain God in a way that you could "KNOW" what God was, then surely it would be a matter of time before you became bored with the explained concept of God, just like you are bored with birds and trees."

2) Quick example (or statement)
To parallel life/reality (or our perception of it), we all think we are eating a steak (or whatever) in a restaurant. We are not. We are eating the picture and description that we found on the menu. Yes, we are actually eating the menu. But the real steak has nothing to do with the menu and the waitress has already delivered it to our table, but we can't see it because we are too busy holding the menu up to our face as we try to eat the steak section off of it.

Best I can do. If it intrigues, take a few passes on that. If not, I understand.

Alan N

The Matrix has you...

I would hope that most people are not bored with birds and trees. When I look into the sky and see a bird, or into the countryside and see a tree, I'm not thinking "bird" or "tree", I'm just observing a 'something'. Really. It's only when I'm asked to describe what I see that I think bird. Unless you talk to yourself concurrent with every observation, I would doubt you observe via words. Words are the restraints on the expression of your observation. You can only express to the degree you are restrained. Even now, in our interchange, our points are difficult to get across, because were attempting to paint a thought with words, and coalesce abstraction and symbol. Given your examples, I don't think were too far apart regarding the inadequacy of words to express an observation.

Now ask 100 independant observers to view, then describe, a "bird". You would get varying descriptions (100 to be sure). Ok, your Dad, my Dad, teachers, books, whatever source, has tought us what a "bird" is, or rather the description of what a "bird" is. To add, suppose you were abandoned and raised by a pack of wolves, never learning language (at least human). Does this mean without language and subsequent instruction you would not be able to observe a "bird". Hardly.

Now suppose as a normally(?) raised child at the age of 4 your mother and father proclaim the existence of a bearded jolly fellow that brings you gifts once a year based on how good you've been. There is such reinforcement of this teaching that you genuinely, wholeheartedly believe in this man. You look to the roof for his coming, you check the chimney for traces of his entrance. You have feelings of excitement and anticipation when he is supposed to come. You really really believe in this guy. No one could convince you otherwise. Even though this man does not exist (you've never observed him), you can describe him. You have an abstraction of him in your mind. How can something be so 'real' when it is in fact not.

The "bird" is observation (reality). The bearded jolly fellow is social conditioning. Belief, the conviction of it, even the ability to describe/express, does not confer existence on what is being described/believed in.

haverbob

Generally speaking, it looks like we are in agreement and I'm glad that you still have the same fascination for birds that you had before they were described to you (that's a difficult feat to REALLY and HONESTLY do that). I even agree with you about the Santa Claus stuff. As I have said in other threads, often the real reason why people don't believe in God isn't the "nothing has been proven to me, therefore there is nothing to believe in" explanation. It's often really because God has been described as Santa Claus with a whip and everyone gets whipped a little in life. and then come Christmas time they usually get coal in their stockings when they are sure that they have been good boys and girls and they are sure that they submitted their wish list. So who can blame anyone for becoming disillusioned with "this particular" dog food interpretation that organized religion has shoved down your throught. These people are sleepwalking also, they don't know what the words mean. None of those people have ever explained to me what Jesus meant by "to follow me one must hate their father, mother....). Let me ask you, what do YOU think Jesus meant by that statement?