Which belief is strongest?
Beliefs behave quite biologically and follow the "law of the jungle". I have a belief that has survived that jungle for a long time and it is "believe only that which empowers you most, everything else is used to instill fear in you and doesn't serve you in any way, even if it is true." What do you take o this? How do you build the best belief for the most empowered individual? Answer below.
Comments (34)
Quoting Thinking
I think depends of every human and their goals. First of all, we have to develop de ability of believe in. It doesn’t matter the objective but it looks like humans will always have something to believe in (for example: reduce climate change).
When we get this development, then we start to have beliefs. that follow us during our lives. Some stay for so long others can fall during the journey.
For example: I believe in the fact of reduce climate change (premise 1)
I have the belief of take action (premise 2)
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Then, my beliefs are so powerful that I believe we can reduce it.
It is debatable (and doubtful) that we can just 'choose our beliefs' from a menu of options. We can change beliefs, we can believe new things, and abandon old beliefs, but it is fairly hard to do it.
The issue I see with this statement is that it is open to many interpretations and comes with some odd assumptions from where I sit.
What does empowerment mean in your context? How do you know when something is empowering and when it is not?
What do you mean by 'everything else' - what are you turning away form? And what is 'instill fear'? With respect, it all sounds slightly paranoid to me. Who is instilling fear? And why? Or is this a by product? How do you determine the diving line between the empowering knowledge and that which is 'everything else'?
People's world views are often self-fulfilling. If they believe life is a jungle - that's what it will look like. If they think life is transcendent - that's what it will look like.
I personally have little interest in social Darwinist/law of the jungle models - what makes life interesting for me is not following a formula or a schema as much as is possible in the full knowledge that there are influences and factors beyond our control and knowledge. I am not looking to be empowered or enhanced by any particular worldview. I am mostly comfortable just being - with all the usual swirling mass of influences and constraints that might entail.
Quoting Thinking
This is a terrible way of thinking.
Imagine you wanted to try MMA or Judo. It might "empower" you the most to think that you're the greatest Judoka or MMA fighter who ever existed, but this belief is going to be extremely detrimental to your development in that area.
See reality as it is, not according what empowers you the most.
This is hubris and it'll come back to bite you.
I am clever and you are stupid; you wouldn't understand.
In Yogic logic you always create your own reality from the beliefs you hold to be true.
But a belief is not part of the set of 'what is true', :sad: Until you believe it to be! :razz:
So you have picked your beliefs wisely! :up:
[quote=TMF]Truth empowers you[/quote]
A person X believing something is hardly going have practical consequences without that belief being true. For instance, you would feel empowered - confident, influential - if you believed that you were the president of the USA but that wouldn't be real power if you actually weren't the US president, right? Much to your chagrin, you would find yourself in a mental asylum, constantly interviewed by men in white coats and that's definitely not what empowerment is.
I don’t think discussions of this level really make sense. Your disposition towards what to believe and what to reject precedes any beliefs, so no one can really change your mind about it. If I tell you “Hey that’s a terrible way of thinking” then that counts as a disempowering belief and so you will reject it.
Similarly, if you were to attack my disposition then I would think “I want to believe he’s right, so I won’t”.
These “dispositions” are largely impervious to attack or discussion. And there isn’t really any set starting point when it comes to them, since they precede all argumentation and belief. They seem to be more like personality traits than beliefs.
Way I see it, this thread might as well be a discussion of which flavor of ice cream is best. No one is going to change their mind, because there is no objective answer.
people are crazy.
If there exist something true in the world why don't more people know about it?
Told you you wouldn't understand. If you are to teach me something, you will have to be less predictable.
This contradicts/undermines what you said earlier:
Quoting Thinking
It's what they crucify you for speaking.
I don't know if it's true or not but all religions have that hard-to-ignore sense of desperation that characterizes a person who knows fae's doomed. No, not empowerment at all but a last ditch effort to escape from the inevitable...end [death & decay].
We don't have a collective reality. We create our personal reality from the beliefs we hold to be true. We each have a personal reality - as is evidenced by the variety of understanding expressed in the comments of threads in this forum. This is the problem! If we all agreed then we could live in harmony!
But then life would have placed all its eggs in the same basket, which would be a problem if we were collectively wrong. :smile:
Quoting Thinking
I think this would be monism. Dualism is largely the mode of understanding that has led to the situation we are in today. I think a monist understanding, where everything is self created from information, energy, and matter would be a step toward universal relatedness. If we understood ourselves as being fundamentally related to each other, and to everything else on this planet, then it would be easier to empathize with, and thus respect everything else.
Buddhism is the closest to this mode of thinking. There is only one Buddhist country - Bhutan. They measure Gross national happiness, 75% of the country is nature reserve, and they are the only carbon negative country. There would be a substantial tradeoff of lifestyle however.
Keep it coming! :up:
You forget that lies must mimic truths for them to be a force we must reckon with.
Lies must dress up as truths, if not, lies are worthless.
Interesting story, no? This woman was living a lie and the lie was keeping her alive. After she discovered the truth, life became unbearable enough to make her commit suicide. The falsehood/lie/delusion was what sustained her will to live. This ain't empowerment in any sense of that word but it sure does make your thesis - believe what empowers you - relatable.
I think there is a collective of some kind, be it culture, or humanity, perhaps now social media, but we relate to it individually. As you say, you create your own reality from the beliefs you hold to be true, as does everyone else, either knowingly or unknowingly.
Quoting TheMadFool
I think there is a little bit of this in all of us. Royalty is a little absurd, but given the weight of beliefs ( not facts ) creating human consciousness, it seems unlikely all the beliefs can possibly be true, so there is a certain amount of delusion in us all.