Thread: All points of view are truth

My hell would be not to have the ability to open my mind to see the bigger picture. To me stuck in the same thoughts without the possibility of change.
I believe that everyone speaks from truth, their truth. Everything that happens, is said, or seen, has meaning. It is all how I choose to filter it and bring it into my reality. My truth is we all come from the same place and we are all here to share our experiences our perspectives so that we can grow as a whole.
I dreamt of a lighthouse and I BECAME the light. I felt it was the light from the sun, soul, God, which ever name you choose to call it. It was the place inside all of us, that spark of life. From that place there is only love and exceptance everything else is experiences and there is no right, wrong, good, or bad to an experience it just IS. When I bring myself back to this place in waking life through meditation I can put my consciousness into others even objects and see the world and situation from that perspective. Compassion is what is learned. If someone lashes out, then put your consciousness into them, what do you feel? Hurt and/ or Fear. Every child is innocent and we are but the sum of our experiences.
For example: If you dream of a snake and you are afraid of it. When you reflect on your dream in the morning put your consciousness into the snake or menacing creature (whatever that may be for you), be the snake. Are you still afraid? You are probably not afraid of yourself. All parts of your dream ARE you (this is my view). In waking life I try to use this same technique (everything is a reflection of self) with people or things I am at odds with and it helps me to understand the situation from my highest self or the observer point of view perspective and to feel compassion. When you start to do this in your waking life it will carry over into your dream life (much like a RC) and then the magic happens. I started to form a multidimensional web of realities gathering as many perspectives as possible both from my waking reality and my dream reality. We are the sum of our experiences and perspectives. How beautiful life is when we all believe it possible.

It's my point of view that your thread is bollocks and you are wrong about everything.

I understand where you are coming from, and I would agree that things like praying are useful and can give your guidance and help you 'connect' with the world around you. However, you made a leap of logic after that, in claiming that its all true. It might be useful, but that doesn't make it true.

For example, I think praying and meditation are basically the same thing. They are different ways of seeking answers, and both are useful. Now if you say surfing also helps you find answers, then I say that is useful as well. We are fine at this point, you can have any view and they are all useful. Now if you say surfing helps you find answers because aliens live in the sea and beam the answers into your head, you would be wrong. We all know that isn't true.

So yes, in some senses I agree with you. We all have different views that are helping us down similar paths. There isn't a right or wrong path to take, since we are all individuals, but that doesn't make everything you encounter on that path true. Some times you learn and can grow a person even while believing in something that isn't true.

[QUOTE=Xei;1783139]It's my point of view that your thread is bollocks and you are wrong about everything.[/QUOTEI
I accept your your view. I hope whatever you believe brings you happiness.

Aric, I should of edited this post better before I posted it because now I see I do sound a bit scattered and repeat myself, but I do believe all I wrote. I believe that waking reality is much like dreaming no one can say what is true for someone else. This includes aliens in the sea. Aliens have never been a part of my reality but I can't speak for someone else. I believe that all paths lead to the same destination (again I would like reafirm these r my thoughts) wether u believe in Buddha, Jesus Christ, Atheist, Goddesses........ It is all about discovery of self and existence.

Please do edit your posts better. I can't read that literal wall of text.

When you have really long winded and convoluted sentences with extremely poor formatting then that tends to have large implications for the legibility of the text rendering it very difficult to read to the vast majority of people which is why formatting is so useful which then will cause more people to read your posts instead of skipping over them because you have very long sentences and bad structure that run on for far too long and give people eye strain and this is not something you should aspire to do so I can only suggest you start to change your posting style to a manner more conducive to generating a discussion on the actual content of your posts rather than people discussing the formatting of said posts which results in more interesting topics because the discussion of formatting is itself not a very interested discussion so in conclusion you really should change the way you post.

Originally Posted by Photolysis

Please do edit your posts better. I can't read that literal wall of text.

When you have really long winded and convoluted sentences with extremely poor formatting then that tends to have large implications for the legibility of the text rendering it very difficult to read to the vast majority of people which is why formatting is so useful which then will cause more people to read your posts instead of skipping over them because you have very long sentences and bad structure that run on for far too long and give people eye strain and this is not something you should aspire to do so I can only suggest you start to change your posting style to a manner more conducive to generating a discussion on the actual content of your posts rather than people discussing the formatting of said posts which results in more interesting topics because the discussion of formatting is itself not a very interested discussion so in conclusion you really should change the way you post.

Thank you for your encouragement to be better. I will do my best. I do struggle with getting my thoughts into print. Your post was hard for me to read but I learn greatly from things that effect me in such ways. Thank you and much love!

Well, editorial comments aside, (which actually play into what I'm about to say, in a sense), something about your points resonates with me. I do think that a majority of the ideas people express are, at a minimum, attempts at honest description of something. There may be all kinds of ways that communication fails on the part of the sender or receiver, but people are rarely flat-out lying about their perception (the internet doesn't count). Therefore, opposing and even offending views can be useful. Lots of people who are afraid of ideas have a hard time with this.

My point of view is that the point of view expressed in the OP is false.

The first statement is wrong. Truth depends on either logic or factual occurrences. Without those two things there is no such thing as truth. In logic, a statement and its antithesis cannot both be true at once. There is some circularity here in that truth depends on logic and logic is based on the assumption that some statements are true and others are false, but it is what it is. And that is why the above post makes your argument fall down.

Truth is the gestalt

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Truth is the gestalt

I agree

The above is my belief which can not be wrong for me but can be wrong for someone else. Like I said this is MY view. I respect everyone's perspective and would never tell someone they are wrong in what they believe!

Originally Posted by lidybug

The above is my belief which can not be wrong for me but can be wrong for someone else. Like I said this is MY view. I respect everyone's perspective and would never tell someone they are wrong in what they believe!

What if they believe they can fly and are about to jump out of a window? What if they believe life is but a dream and do something extremely damaging?

In my opinion all delusion is like this. By believing something that you don't know you gain nothing but confusion.

Originally Posted by StonedApe

What if they believe they can fly and are about to jump out of a window? What if they believe life is but a dream and do something extremely damaging?

In my opinion all delusion is like this. By believing something that you don't know you gain nothing but confusion.

Belief is a messy word, especially if you use it like that.

From everyone's experience, a unique worldview or perspective is derived. Much like how a 3D image is not truthfully observable from one position, but rather only truthfully conveyed through infinite positions surrounding it in space, "Truth" itself cannot be observed from one position, but is actually made up of the collective of perceptions it is surrounded by.

I get the feeling people who share this viewpoint have a sort of false dichotomy in their minds - either you're a hateful egotistical materialistic, or you're a happy 'enlightened' relativist and solipsist.

One problem with the idea that there's no objective truth and that the truth is what you believe, is that saying 'there is no truth besides what you believe' would be an objective truth which would have to be true no matter what you believe.

Ok, so what you're talking about then is strictly "subjective" truth. In other words - if someone believes something, then it's true for them, even if it's not objectively true. Example, if someone believes the moon is made of cheese, then it's true FOR THEM (ie in their fantasy world) even though it holds absolutely no objective truth.

Ok, as long as we acknowledge that it's only a fantasy, then it is true. Their fantasy moon can be made of cheese. This however is an exceedingly small truth. And if the person persists and says "No - I mean the actual moon - the same one the Apollo mission visited and brought rocks back from - it's really made of cheese" - then there's absolutely no truth in that. But they can feel free to bite into one of those moonrocks if they want to or try to spread it on a cracker.

About religions - of course most of them share some core values, but they consist of more than just core values. Most religions also include the caveat that "this is the only true religion" (how can they all be the only true religion?) and some even go so far as to say "anyone who doesn't believe this religion is a heretic and heretics will burn in Hell".

So I definitely wouldn't go so far as to say all religions are true, but only that many of them share some core values in common. I think this is essentially what you were saying, but just stated in a more concise way.

If everything is true, then truth is completely relative, or even meaningless. Then what value is there in truth?

Darkmatter, LOL! Yes maybe that is what isn't clear Subjective Truth or ones own "fantasy". If a delusional person honestly believes the moon is made out of cheese even if it has been proven not to be that is the individuals truth in what everyone else would consider a delusional reality. Religion is an inner journey of self discovery its unlikely that any two are the same.
Thank you for taking the time to discuss and ask questions to help me further understand my truth.

http://youtu.be/0PjS2KYU3Is
I believe in many views and many perspectives... this is one of them.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

I get the feeling people who share this viewpoint have a sort of false dichotomy in their minds - either you're a hateful egotistical materialistic, or you're a happy 'enlightened' relativist and solipsist.

One problem with the idea that there's no objective truth and that the truth is what you believe, is that saying 'there is no truth besides what you believe' would be an objective truth which would have to be true no matter what you believe.

By the same principle that I believe that there are real, discernible reasons for why people hold the strange beliefs that they do, I believe that there are real, discernible (and perfectly sensible) reasons for why people generally don't venture outside their comfort zones to try to understand strange beliefs to the extent that I do. In fact, both of these frameworks are telling about human nature and can be learned from. So I, at least, don't fall into that false dichotomy.

My first principle on this is that there is always a reason for any belief. This doesn't mean it's true, that's a separate issue; an important one, but less important than the reason for the belief. This applies reflexively to myself... only once I understand the reasons for my own beliefs do I stand a chance at honesty.

Also just to soften the dialogue, the idea isn't that all points of view "are" true, pov's are complex things. It's more useful to say all pov's "contain" truth. I wouldn't bring it up but some people are arguing this too literally.

Very well stated IndieAnthias. Yes, when I refer to all points "are" true I am referring to truth for the individual. Yes some are taking this very literally but I love the discussion and the emotion it evokes in people. Thanks for posting!

Ok, I guess I was taking it a bit too literally.

There aren't many people who honestly believe the moon is made of cheese! And the ones who do would be crazy. It's hard to define whether a crazy person truly believes the things they say. I suppose I was taking it more as "everything anybody says is true is true." - which of course is a whole different issue.

One example I almost posted is terrorists. But thinking about it - I suppose even what they believe does have truth to it - the West certainly is decadent - especially from their perspective. I don't know that committing mass murders will do anything to help their cause, but their belief still does hold some validity - at least that part of it.

But they also believe they need to kill infidels to cleanse the earth for Allah. What does it mean to say "this is true for them"? Well obviously it is true as far as they're concerned... just because it's unjust doesn't mean they don't believe it.

But again I feel this is a truth devoid of meaning or value.

We have to realize that some people believe what they believe because they're deluded or have been indoctrinated (same thing). So subjectively their viewpoint might be true for them, but some people's viewpoint fails to align with concrete reality.

This is the kind of belief that told us the earth was at the center of the universe (it is - visually - for anyone on the earth, and until good telescopes and scientific observation proved otherwise everyone believed it). And metaphorically of course humanity does occupy the center (most important place) in the universe - as far as we're concerned. Barren rocks orbiting distant suns with no life on them are of little importance except scientifically or for possible mining in the future.. so for most people you could say the earth is still the center of the universe. It's true both metaphorically and visually. And the scientific viewpoint that the earth is only one of countless trillions and trillions of dirtballs circling countless trillions and trillions of stars is also true from the scientific perspective..

Ok, I can accept this. Yes, all viewpoints contain some truth if you search enough to find it. But I find that once I start thinking like this it becomes almost impossible to make a decision. In order to be myself I have to stop thinking about everybody else's viewpoint and return to my own.

I don't know what my point is - I'm just thinking out loud.

You also have to keep in mind that that's your perception of muslims from your point of view, that's not necessarily the way they are. That's the way we are led to think about them from the Western Perspective.

And furthermore, you must remember that some people have higher vantage points where they can view a lot more of the truth than others, but they're not in the shoes of any of the positions they're looking at, they have a different vantage point which they believe is true but is just one angle. You don't know what it's like for someone who actually believes that stuff. Maybe, for them in that position of life, that simply has to be true as it provides a vital wrung for them to climb to a higher vantage point.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

You also have to keep in mind that that's your perception of muslims from your point of view, that's not necessarily the way they are.

I never said Muslims - I said Terrorists. I'm talking about the ones who bomb embassies. But you're right - I don't necessarily know if they BELIEVE they're striking a blow against Western decadence - many of them might have much more pragmatic reasons for why they do it and only spout fanatical rhetoric as a cover. Even still though - I'll admit that they're doing what they believe is the right thing to do for them. Including the lying about their reasons. In the same way any murderer believes he has to hide the evidence. In the same way American government tells us stories about weapons of mass destruction and an Axis of Evil to cover what they're really doing in the Mideast.