So see if you can do likewise with what made you start this thread: you likewise don’t know if they’re right, and so it’s once again on them to prove it — and not on you to counter it — right? And you just now showed that you’re capable of telling me a given claim “doesn’t seem to follow” from other claims, so — well, keep that at the ready, too, in case they say a thing that doesn’t seem to follow.
Because, well, why not treat them the way you treat me: noting that it’s not on you to counter, but on them to prove; and noting when something doesn’t seem to follow? You can clearly do that when reading my stuff; why not do it to theirs?
How do you know that you are living a lie? Isn’t on them to prove that you are living a lie and that you will suffer unless you listen to them? Why are you willing to show some critical analysis in the magic sword scenario but not in seemingly any philosophical one?
My guess is that I perceive them to know better and when I see or read people praise them I tend to believe that they might be on to something. Like this:
…there are, what, a billion Catholics in the world? What the heck happens when you see or read plenty of them praising the Pope? And there are a billion Muslims, and a billion Hindus; would you “tend to believe that they might be on to something” once enough of either of them express praise for this or that?
Help me out, here: how much praise do you need to see or read for something else before you’d give it as much benefit of the doubt as you’re giving this?
Try to think what YOU believe. Not what someone tells you to believe. No one has your best interest in mind more than yourself. Personally l would quit reading and listening to that stuff. You may as well watch Star Trek exclusively and get your morals/spiritual views from Spock. Good as any. IMHO.
Well the sites I list tend to disparage logical thinking and point to some sort of mystical understanding. In other words special knowledge. Considering I was raised on “mysticism” through my mother I could have a bias to such claims.
I know the argument doesn’t make sense. I have use those examples myself against me. But in my mind THIS is the exception (god knows how many times I’ve said that), and that if I have nothing to replace their words with our say why I dismiss it then I am guilty of being closed minded and confirmation bias.
Like in the YouTube video I linked. It seems like the guy knows something but really I’m just basing that on the claims people make of him being some wise man. “Mysticism” has been a hard thing for me to shake off. Not to mention that if I disagree with someone about this guy and I fail to convince them as to why I don’t agree I believe myself to be in the wrong (even though logically I tell myself what if the other person is, though it never works).
It’s like part of me makes the logical points you guys too, but the fear and the other part doesn’t listen.
That YouTube guru certainly looks and acts the part - but what he actually says in the video is fairly bland, if generally agreeable stuff. Just because someone spouts some things which are undeniable, doesn’t mean they know the rest of the Truth. If I reeled off some world capital cities correctly, would you then also feel obliged to agree with me that the Earth is flat?
I also see a certain hypocrisy in teaching people to give up their wordly attachments, when I expect that 7-day meditation course doesn’t come cheap.
And I wouldn’t follow anyone who wears their wristwatch on the underside of their wrist.
You “could” have a bias in that direction, but this and previous threads indicate you are desperately trying to find a rational reason to justify your belief. But if you don’t actually believe it (whatever IT is), then you’re not going to accept it as “truth.”
So decide whether you want to believe because “it feels right” or whether you have to drill down and find causes and reasons for everything.
In the past what “feels right” hasn’t always been right. The problem is that the logic and reasoning that I initially show is subsumed by fear. I know the people on this thread make good points and I have considered them before, but they don’t take root. It’s the fear of being wrong and then being right that takes over.
This isn’t the first time, it’s pretty much the same with every new thing. The rational response I start with gets lost.
I guess because it just seems so ridiculous and the fact that you used it as an example that I don’t take it seriously. It’s not like someone telling you how to live. Like how they can make more out of their lives with less and that “enhancing your life” is “wrong” (at least I think that’s what the video said. It’s this feeling like you’re doing something wrong living life your way.
I would urge you to question the motives of self-proclaimed wise men who seek to undermine your way of life while offering a magic solution. If they are selling residential meditation packages, you could surmise their motives aren’t entirely selfless and benevolent.
Sure it is. The magic sword just pushes it to an extreme, but it has the exact same amount of evidence as this latest new silly philosophy you’ve latched on to. You just aren’t willing to let yourself look critically at philosophy as long as people wrap it in pretty language and speak in impossible to prove generalities. Why that is, is up to you to figure out. But like pretty much every thread you’ve started here, it all pivots on you being willing to use critical reasoning. Until you do that you’re never going to break the cycle you seem to be in.
Having spoken to someone who was there it came down to how you are the universe and that you aren’t alive. I just smiled and nodded even though the questions I asked didn’t really get answers and that it ended with trying to get me to go to the class. Apparently you have to meditate to “get it” or you have to live it to understand it.
She said that we think we live in a universe but that universe is me (you). That the world we live in is of our minds but that we really are the universe and we must cleanse the false mind. Plus some things about living to the age of the universe (instead of whatever chronological age you are) and something about knowing all things.
None of it made a lick of sense to me and the more I listened the less it did. It sounded like Buddhism but I don’t think so. I tried to ask how one can be a mother or married if they believe such teachings or practice detachment and abandoning things, but i didn’t get an answer. Well not one that answers my question. It almost felt like I was talking to someone who lived in a different world. But it always ended with: you have to live it to get it, you have to meditate, specifically meditate there to get it.
Strange thing is that despite the “waste of time” it was I can’t shake giving her the benefit of the doubt.
Well my thought process is that because she believes it that there must be something to it. I know that the molecules and atoms that our bodies are made of come from the universe. Though it is a stretch to say that you are the universe. You are the body which is part of and included in all that, but not the whole thing.
Organizations like The Church of Scientology are full of people who buy into that notion. They make hundreds of millions of dollars from people who feel that they are somehow “wrong” or “lost”. Don’t fall for it. See a shrink and get some perspective on yourself.
