12-30-2010, 10:19 AM
Hey Zenmaster,
thanks for your post #15. What you say is completely true! I wanted to quickly relate with a personal anecdote, if ya'll will humor me..
For most of my life I fell in to the open minded category. Neither believer or skeptic, simply undecided and basically uninterested in spiritual or paranormal things. Then in 2008 that changed pretty dramatically, and I'll skip the details as to why as it's long and not directly relevant here. Anyways- I became, and am interested in still now, PSI research, UFOs, spirituality, and those bits of scientific evidence that we have to support the validity of such things.
Shortly after 'awakening' to the possibilities of these things, I found that one of my good friends was also interested in them... er, that is, "debunking" them. He was and is way skeptical of most things. I was really excited to talk about everything I was learning, and doing this caused much friction that resulted in heat on my brow. I felt angry by his skeptical responses which felt (to my perspective) as if he was marginalizing what was very profound and important to me. I didn't realize it at the time, but I see now that at this point I became much less objective and discerning. My greatest wish was to have some sort of bullet proof evidence that my friend could not refute. But it wouldn't be for his benefit, it would have been for me. Just as you said happens, I was selective in what I looked at and ignored what didn't support my ideas. That's what moves someone away from that slippery thing we call "truth".
I'd like to fancy myself more objective these days. I guess it's worth noting that people such as us (meaning, those of us who accept the LOO as true to the best of our reckoning) can easily bend in the direction of 'true believer' simply by living in a society where such concepts as channeling are routinely laughed at. Channeling is the first thing you have to accept if you accept anything in the LOO. To me, the LOO philosophy is extremely elegant and beautiful, and I DO hold it close to my heart. So hearing people laugh at channeling, UFOs and other things that are related to it does hurt me a little tiny bit, and may contribute to my unconsciously moving in the direction of true believer / unobjective.
What do you guys think of that last train of thought?
thanks for your post #15. What you say is completely true! I wanted to quickly relate with a personal anecdote, if ya'll will humor me..
For most of my life I fell in to the open minded category. Neither believer or skeptic, simply undecided and basically uninterested in spiritual or paranormal things. Then in 2008 that changed pretty dramatically, and I'll skip the details as to why as it's long and not directly relevant here. Anyways- I became, and am interested in still now, PSI research, UFOs, spirituality, and those bits of scientific evidence that we have to support the validity of such things.
Shortly after 'awakening' to the possibilities of these things, I found that one of my good friends was also interested in them... er, that is, "debunking" them. He was and is way skeptical of most things. I was really excited to talk about everything I was learning, and doing this caused much friction that resulted in heat on my brow.
I felt angry by his skeptical responses which felt (to my perspective) as if he was marginalizing what was very profound and important to me. I didn't realize it at the time, but I see now that at this point I became much less objective and discerning. My greatest wish was to have some sort of bullet proof evidence that my friend could not refute. But it wouldn't be for his benefit, it would have been for me. Just as you said happens, I was selective in what I looked at and ignored what didn't support my ideas. That's what moves someone away from that slippery thing we call "truth".I'd like to fancy myself more objective these days. I guess it's worth noting that people such as us (meaning, those of us who accept the LOO as true to the best of our reckoning) can easily bend in the direction of 'true believer' simply by living in a society where such concepts as channeling are routinely laughed at. Channeling is the first thing you have to accept if you accept anything in the LOO. To me, the LOO philosophy is extremely elegant and beautiful, and I DO hold it close to my heart. So hearing people laugh at channeling, UFOs and other things that are related to it does hurt me a little tiny bit, and may contribute to my unconsciously moving in the direction of true believer / unobjective.
What do you guys think of that last train of thought?