KNOWING THE DIFFERENCE between what is real and what isn't.

by Terry 65 Replies latest jw experiences

• 

  Terry

  I will grant you that many people find the very word REALITY to be offensive!

  How dare we say something IS only what it is and nothing more!!

  Why can't each thing be whatever we desire it to be, they may well ask?

  But, sadly; for a thing to exist it must be something and not everything or anything.

  Here is a clue I finally grasped when I came out of my religious delusions way back when.

  When something precisely true is being told there is specificity involved. When something untrue is being told there is an indefinite generality involved.

  Without a rigorous definition; a true thing cannot be.

  What about "love", some will ask?

  Emotions, such as "love", follow Values. What we Value we are willing to act upon and trade something for. The more we value something the stronger our desire to obtain it. Love can be defined and measured by what we are willing to trade for it in order to obtain it.

  Love which doesn't carry a transaction of something for something is without substantial value. It is like charity without giving. Hope without action is an empty word.

  My point? Action, activity and substance must connect with lofty words or they are empty concepts. Something only exists to the extent it can be transacted with reality. Else, it is words and nothing more.

  There are differences which we should note in man's quest for knowledge.

  1.Guesswork

  2.Mere opinion (or wishful thinking)

  3.Informed opinion (some facts back it up)

  4.Data (gathered facts which are precisely enumerated)

  5.Fact (testable and provable by anybody anywhere)

  Contrast this with the Mystic's approach.

  1.Imaginative stories of a fanciful or mysterious nature which intrigue us

  2.Assertions of where power sources come from (spirits, auras, crystals, spells, gods, demons, etc.)

  3.Rituals (behaviors which invoke actions)

  4.Adherence to a mysterious authority (God, guru, shaman, enlightened master, anointed, spirit guides)

  5.An elusive claim to "proofs" which come and go and cannot be bona fide guarantees for all people everywhere

  So many New Age books have people saying things without actual definitions that it makes your head giddy reading their words!

  What is SPIRIT, anyway? What is energy? Those words crawl like ants across the picnic table and carry your rational mind away like cake crumbs!

  What is true is true for all.

  What is false is only said to be true for the "special" ones. (Enlightened, adept, tuned in, spiritual, etc.)

  How convenient!

  Imagine choosing a brain surgeon or an eye doctor on the basis of mysterious connections to a thousand year old Indian shaman!

  It is unthinkable.

  Imagine investing in a company that manufactures "postive energy" or "transcendance".

  Yet, many do. The money goes rolling in!

  More power to anybody who wants to electively go down such a road. I wish you well. I don't mock you. I am merely amazed at you.

  Peace, love, prosperity can be "wished" on anybody and it sounds wonderful.

  But, it is simply like saying to a starving person : "Go and be fed!"

  Prayer is the number one way to refute claims of God's existence.

  Prayers are not answered and those who claim they are must admit how elusively few even seem to be answered. Consequently, we must realize that Praying for somebody in trouble is the same thing as DOING NOTHING WHATEVER to help them but flap your lip.

  See how ugly that seems?

  Truth is often very ugly compared to beautiful words positively spoken.

  Sigh.

  No wonder people get angry when you talk about rational thinking or skepticism. It is very ugly.
• 

  Homerovah the Almighty

  I think its a problem for people at times when they mix emotional thought with rational thought, with not placing the rational at the forefront of their

  thinking, the end result can only develop false delusion and a further separation away from reality.
• 

  Homerovah the Almighty

  Lets give thanks to all the people in human history that did indulge themselves with reality, for if without them and their rational thinking we would not

  be capable of living the standard of which we enjoy today.
• 

  jstalin

  Terry - you are awesome!
• 

  R.Crusoe

  I read what you said but am not sure what it is stating as reality!

  What is it you feel a person ought to be in order to embrace reality?

  And if in their unhappiness they cannot transcend pains of loss from past events, how are they not actually living the reality of their loss?

  I hear some say future is reality so past is ego and meaningless, but we still see the ripples on the water from the stones of slavery thrown centuries ago, so how can one evr tune into an all action reality absent that which has taken place? You even see the world under the spell of events thousands of years old and yet psychologists suggest dysfunction in people dwelling heavily in their past. It is imprinted in human minds from the day they begin an education about their roots.

  How ironical that education does that to us?
• 

  journey-on

  Healthy skepticism.....I agree with that wholeheartedly. This is how you probably should approach all aspects of life......But.....

  What if you had something happen to you personally that was truly beyond the explainable? It was so outside

  your common everyday view of life that there was no explanation for it within your rational concept of reality... yet it happened, it was real,

  and was impossible to deny because the physical proof remained. When a person experiences something

  on a personal level that they know was for them and them only, it will forever change their view of what is real.

  Things are no longer just black and white, and it causes people to look beyond the physical mundane way of seeing

  things. PERSONAL EXPERIENCES are what make people search "beyond" the normal concept of reality. If you have never

  had something happen to you of this nature, it's easy to see only the black and white view of reality. You have no frame

  of reference for anything other than that which is black or white. The problem is the charlatans and creeps see a way to push their way in and

  turn it into a sideshow that lacks truth and substance and diminishes the legitimate reasons to look beyond the mundane.

  Thank God goodness, there have been visionaries along the way that could see beyond the plain black and white landscape

  and say "what if". Because of them, sometimes what man once "knew" to be real, turned out to be an illusion and what appeared to be

  an illusion turned out to be real. Science is full of examples of this.

  But, I agree.....one must not get lost in it and become easy prey for the creeps and charlatans. I have never (to date) read a Course in Miracles.

  I base what I know on my real experiences.
• 

  Awakened07

  I base what I know on my real experiences.

  So does JCanon.

  I don't want to be an asshole here, but... there you have it. I can't disprove that JCanon literally talks to God on a regular basis, and I can't disprove your experience either.

  I've had experiences myself that some people would interpret to be supernatural if it happened to them. But they were solitary happenings that haven't reoccurred, and can also be explained by natural phenomena if I want. If it happened more frequently, and I could relay the information to others and still make sense of it (for instance being told something by a spirit that made sense in the real world even to others), then I'd probably feel I had a case for belief.

  Well - I'm not trying to take what you're experienced away from you (not that I could). I'm just babbeling here. Food for thought perhaps. I don't even know what you've experienced, so it's not for me to say what's what. Perhaps it's a good thing that you experienced something out of the ordinary. You at least seem to have a healthy attitude about it and don't throw reason out the window because of it.
• 

  Terry

  I read what you said but am not sure what it is stating as reality!

  What is it you feel a person ought to be in order to embrace reality?

  And if in their unhappiness they cannot transcend pains of loss from past events, how are they not actually living the reality of their loss?

  I hear some say future is reality so past is ego and meaningless, but we still see the ripples on the water from the stones of slavery thrown centuries ago, so how can one evr tune into an all action reality absent that which has taken place? You even see the world under the spell of events thousands of years old and yet psychologists suggest dysfunction in people dwelling heavily in their past. It is imprinted in human minds from the day they begin an education about their roots.

  How ironical that education does that to us?

  Education doesn't do anything to us.

  Education is a tool. If you don't know how to use a tool, or, use it improperly you don't get the job done.

  Reality is simply the facts as they are.

  Imagine expecting to play a game and win without knowing the rules and penalties.

  Life isn't a game, but, it has things which work and things which don't work.

  Realizing we can have all sorts of choices which end in a good, better, best or worst life is essential to having any kind of life.

  Becoming indifferent is laziness. It leads to dull skills and a flabby, dreamworld coast along.

  How many slackers do you know personally? I know plenty.

  I work around grown adults who spend more than they earn. They collect comic books. They have lousy diets. They stay up too late and have low energy and poor focus. They complain alot and only want to do the "fun" thing at the end of the day. The drive a real beater for a car or, in some cases (astonishingly) don't even own a car. They are late on bills. They pay too much for what they do buy.

  If this is the kind of life you'd call ideal (I'm sure you don't) then slacker mode is a plus.

  You only get out of something what you put into it. And that is under perfect conditions! More often than not, you get less out of life than the effort you put in. Consequently, a slow start and poor skills and little dilligence bodes disaster.

  We only live in the____now___of things. But, we rack up a track record of success failure that amounts to a pile of clues as to how competently we are living our life.

  When you turn around and look at the road behind, you discover either significant achievement or wreckage and garbage.

  Look at people in their twenties and thirties who look like they just fell out of bed and a negative, clueless mumble on their lips. They look fifteen years older than what they are. Young girls now have pot bellies and love handles which they sport with pride (high midriff fashions).

  Society is littered with people who don't really know anything at depth which doesn't involve popular culture.

  Pop culture is phoney reality and society has become a reflection of that ineptitude at dealing with problems. The blame game is everywhere. The attitude isn't one of personal responsibility. Unless, of course, you want to call lip service to being "green" some sort of agenda for world betterment.

  Not everybody is like this, certainly.

  Those who become educated with a view to a practical use of knowledge do quite well for themselves. The rest moan and complain and act like the world owes them something.
• 

  Terry

  PERSONAL EXPERIENCES are what make people search "beyond" the normal concept of reality. If you have never

  had something happen to you of this nature, it's easy to see only the black and white view of reality. You have no frame

  of reference for anything other than that which is black or white.

  Look, honestly--we all live in the same world.

  We are all entitled to our own opinion. But, we aren't entitled to our own facts.

  That is the simple truth of it.

  What I feel may seem real and not be real at all.

  I may taste salty soup and exclaim how delicious it is. But, that is subjective opinion about personal taste.

  This we cannot confuse with objective realtiy.

  Plenty of people hallucinate. Some see Elvis, bigfoot and the Virgin Mary in cloud patterns. But, their mind is playing tricks.

  Objectivity is far different from hallucinations or the taste of your soup.

  Here is a good fact check for all of us.

  In any meaninfgul statistical sampling of a large group of people, the tendency is toward the correct answer. But, in that crowd there will be a few nutjobs. In statistics, you throw out the marginal nutjobs on both ends of the spectrum; the highest and lowest are eliminated.

  Meaning what?

  We all live on the same planet. The same laws of Physics apply everywhere. If anybody thinks there is an exception for THEM, they are fooling themselves. You won't convince them otherwise, certainly.

  But, if everybody is marching West and you are going East it might be time to stop and ask yourself why you think you are so different?

  Are you really smarter, better informed than others? Or, are you delusional?

  There are plenty of delusionals walking around.

  Preoccupation with UFO's, alien abuductions, vast conspiracies, demon possession, angels, germ phobia, politcal ideologies, religious zeal, mysticism, dietary quirkiness, etc. are all good clues that you are swimming against the tide of reality.

  Knowing the difference between what is real and what isn't real requies a commitment to the objectivity of realtiy.

  You have to know when you are lying to yourself. You have to know when you are deluding yourself. You have to recognize when you are wishing, hoping and praying instead of commiting to fact based living.

  Beyond that---deuces wild is how your life will be lived.

  You will find crowds gathered in front of Messianic heroes, pop idols and such--but, they are deluded.
• 

  BurnTheShips

  Thinking as a Science

  Henry Hazlitt

  http://www.mises.org/books/thinking.pdf

  THINKING AS A SCIENCE

  THE NEGLECT OF THINKING

  EVERY man knows there are evils in the
  world which need setting right. Every
  man has pretty definite ideas as to what these
  evils are. But to most men one in particular
  stands out vividly. To some, in fact, this
  stands out with such startling vividness that
  they lose sight of other evils, or look upon them
  as the natural consequences of their own particular
  evil-in-chief.
  To the Socialist this evil is the capitalistic
  system; to the prohibitionist it is intemperance;
  to the feminist it is the subjection of women; to
  the clergyman it is the decline of religion; to
  Andrew Carnegie it is war; to the staunch Eepublican
  it is the Democratic Party, and so on,
  ad infinitum.

  I, too, have a pet little evil, to which in more
  passionate moments I am apt to attribute all the
  others. This evil is the neglect of thinking.
  And when I say thinking I mean real thinking,
  independent thinking, hard thinking.
  You protest. You say men are thinking more
  now than they ever were. You bring out the
  almanac to prove by statistics that illiteracy
  is declining. You point to our magnificent
  libraries. You point to the multiplication of
  books. You show beyond a doubt that people
  are reading more now than ever before in all
  history. . . .
  Very well, exactly. That is just the trouble.
  Most people, when confronted with a problem,
  immediately acquire an inordinate desire to
  " read-up" on it. When they get stuck mentally,
  the first thing such people do is to run to
  a book.