Thread: What to believe?

I believe in stuff that others have said and proved around me. But only if it makes sense to me and doesn't hinder how I live my life in anyway and/or clash with everything else I believe in. But with all the uncertainties, I'll make up my own stuff to believe in (which can be pretty out there).

But it'd be nice if there weren't so many lies being generated daily by humans. I mean, some of the shit ppl say aren't even necessary. It's like a compulsive thing.

Filters. Along with lying, humans have developed a clever set of filters to block out a lot of garbage and allow in truths more often than not. Of course, it is not bulletproof, and all kinds of crap can slip through, but it's better than nothing. If someone told you they had a dog that speaks fluent Greek, you could identify the lie and dismiss it, which is nice. Of course, some lies are a lot harder to detect and disprove.

Yeah, fewer lies in this world would be very nice.

Some things can be verified, and it's always good to verify them. Other things won't harm you or anyone if you believe them until proven otherwise. The worst that can happen is to be corrected.

As for some of the big, other beliefs, I'm of the opinion that if possible, you should just experience whatever they're saying for yourself, and judge based on your personal experience, not just word of mouth.

The trick is really knowing how to categorize new potential beliefs that come into your belief inbox.

To a religious person, they look for answers from their community - a family member, a priest, or religious literature. Overall, it comes down to the person's opinion and whether or not it fits their own beliefs.

To a non-religious person, they look for facts, theories, and experiments that can be replicated to reach the same conclusions. Overall it comes down to what has the least room for error or what best explains a result.

Indeed, people lie, but anything that's scientifically proven can be recreated and explained to show what makes it scientifically proven.

I'm not a religious person, so I can't really say how they prove things, since they tend to refute anything scientific.

I have two methods

one, personal experience. for example, I have a ghost experience I share with three other people. I'm not satisfied with the scientific explanations for my shared experience, so I believe the picture is much larger

two, try on every belief. seriously! just read every religious and spiritual idea, and or every conspiracy, post pone what you think is true, and just consider what you have learned to be reality. how does it affect your reality? does it make your reality more fearful? does it make you angry? does it make you paranoid?

does it make life meaningless or meaningful? does it empower you?

when you try on every belief, you won't be consciously choosing. some ideas will stick with you for the rest of your life, some will spark something within you and forever change you. others you'll will just fade away and have no meaning

Believe yourself.

To quote Terrence McKenna: "No One is Smarter than you are".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6hBduXSBEg

Damn, this guy was a genius philosopher. So many of his ideas make sense.

"By 'Knowing Thyself' we shape thy spirit. By shaping thy spirit, we discover our power. By discovering our power, we learn to focus our intention and create consciously. Through our intentions and our creations, we shape the world. When we shape our world through our power, we realize authentic power, not the abuse of power. Here, we find our joy... our peace... and our bliss! By following our bliss is how we learn to be, and from our being, we grow... At that point, we are free ... enlightened and enlivened to 'Live, Love and Laugh!'"

Nothing is true...the only thing that's true is how you feel about it.

The first step to deciding if something is true or false is to discern whether or not you understand it. If you can't understand it then there are two things you can do, the first is to decide that you simply aren't sufficiently prepared to place a probability on the validness of the thing in question (of course if you understand it to a certain extent you could put a probability on it without accepting it). For example, I know nothing about string theory, so I don't place likelihoods on its validity. The second is to decide that the reason you can't understand it is in fact because it is false. For example, negative 1 is equal to 5. This is an obviously false statement, assuming of course we are using the same base unit for each side of the equation.

If you can understand it then you have a framework to start where you can discern the likelihood of the event. At this point it is all about the specific claims that are being made, and how important it is to know whether it is true or false. Or perhaps a better phrase would be how much would this change my world view to know whether it is true or not? For example, my world view won't change if you lie to me about your name and I believe you, but my world view will change if you tell me the government is experimenting on me with flu shots, even though there are examples in my particular government's history in localized areas of this actually happening.

I frankly don't care what I should believe... this world can be as fantastical or depressing as I like. After many experiences, over many years, I've decided the best world to live in is mine... so I'll believe what I like!

Originally Posted by mindwanderer

I frankly don't care what I should believe... this world can be as fantastical or depressing as I like. After many experiences, over many years, I've decided the best world to live in is mine... so I'll believe what I like!

"The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make a hell of heaven or a heaven of hell."

"The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make a hell of heaven or a heaven of hell."

Interestingly enough, that's a satanic/Luciferian philosophy. It makes sense to, Life is what you make it..do whatever makes you happy.

I believe stuff based on whether or not someone can provide me with a logical argument and/or evidence for its truth. Easy.

Im something of a psyhconaut. The mind is a wonderful place to explore.

I would suggest learning about people and what makes them tick. I have not studied physcology in deph but have learnt enough to give me insights in to people and how they behave. There are some good books out there on why and how people lie and how to spot this - and ineed how to lie effectively. I took some courses on the psychology of persuasion - this was very useful both in practice and also to recognize when someone is trying to "play" you. Learning personality types and taking tests such as myers briggs or belbin is very useful to learn to recognize your own and others preffered behaviour preferences. Learn body language also and intentional language/NLP.

I also like to work on myself. Its important to be skeptical about everything and run experiments in your own lab - eg your mind/brain. LDing is an excellent example of this.

I like using techniques to understand emotional responses and how the ego prompts reactively to these - and make myself a better person by attempting to train the ego rather than be a slave to it.

If you are interested with something - then try it out - but be analytical and critical of the results.

And always follow your own free will. Everyone has an agenda. Learn to look for what is driving/motivating others and then decide whether this is aligned with your free will.

Thanks for the responses Sometimes I just get overwhelmed by the amount of information I recieve and it becomes hard to decifer and know what to believe, and knowing what people's motives are. Sometimes I even question how reliable my own thoughts and memory are. Sometimes I have a memory that I'm not even sure if it really happened or not? I have a long scar on my arm that I have no idea where it came from and have no memory of how I got it. Makes me wonder how reliable are people's memory's?

Originally Posted by Mario92

Filters. Along with lying, humans have developed a clever set of filters to block out a lot of garbage and allow in truths more often than not. Of course, it is not bulletproof, and all kinds of crap can slip through, but it's better than nothing. If someone told you they had a dog that speaks fluent Greek, you could identify the lie and dismiss it, which is nice. Of course, some lies are a lot harder to detect and disprove.

Yeah, fewer lies in this world would be very nice.

then what about religion?
lot a ppl dont figure out that thats bullshit

I believe what makes sense to me, either on its own or when explained. Other then that, I have some persons that I've come to trust on particular subjects, due to their history of being right when it comes to that particular subject, and I'll be more than avragely inclined to believe what these persons tell me. That would be people like my parents, or famous persons like Einstein. Also, I try to be open to disgard my beliefs if I'm shown convincing evidence that they are wrong, or if someone makes a good logical argument, as to not be too close minded.

Originally Posted by stnicka

then what about religion?
lot a ppl dont figure out that thats bullshit

Originally Posted by Mario92

Filters. Along with lying, humans have developed a clever set of filters to block out a lot of garbage and allow in truths more often than not. Of course, it is not bulletproof, and all kinds of crap can slip through, but it's better than nothing. If someone told you they had a dog that speaks fluent Greek, you could identify the lie and dismiss it, which is nice. Of course, some lies are a lot harder to detect and disprove.

Yeah, fewer lies in this world would be very nice.

I agree, there are a lot of dense people out there. They would rather trick themselves into believing something that is probably false instead of simply saying, "I don't know!" Pretty sad, really.
In answer to that, I have two ideas: First, people want to believe in religion so badly for whatever reason (hope, etc.) that they are able to bypass their filters. Also, through some forms of conditioning (brainwashing, really), some people basically have their filters reprogrammed to ignore the fallacies of religion. Just my two cents.

Originally Posted by Mario92

I agree, there are a lot of dense people out there. They would rather trick themselves into believing something that is probably false instead of simply saying, "I don't know!" Pretty sad, really.
In answer to that, I have two ideas: First, people want to believe in religion so badly for whatever reason (hope, etc.) that they are able to bypass their filters. Also, through some forms of conditioning (brainwashing, really), some people basically have their filters reprogrammed to ignore the fallacies of religion. Just my two cents.

i think its because on a primitive level they know that the end of civilization or humanity in general is coming and would like to believe there is something left after that