Lacewing wrote: ↑Sun Dec 18, 2022 9:47 am
Yes!
It suggests that 'the rest of us' are separate and below those who claim to 'know' such things. It's an ego trip... which, as you pointed out,
lacks the courage to explore and see beyond the self-serving nature of such beliefs and claims.
I'm not at all closed to the idea that someone knows more than me, though the presumption is rude. My irritation at the lack of courage has to do with my since being a teenager really feeling into the horrbile or potentially horrible aspects of any belief system that was in the air around me. That includes secular ones and religious ones. I have met people who also can readily admit, even, that they have felt/thought about this also. I mean existential terror and sorrow.
When I meet people who just seem happily avoid those areas AND they are taking an authority position AND they can't seem to actually admit they might not know or can admit to fears, etc., then I think of this as a lack of courage. For example, DS thinks that any victim is actually to blame for their suffering. The only other possibility is that God is a sadist, for him. That is the binary pair of options he sees. Since I did not think that victims are as a rule being punished for past sins or past life sins, he assumed I thought that if there is a God, God must be a sadist. This is how I know he sees the options as binary, as two.
To believe that God is a sadist is a terrifying thought, so he cannot even for a moment examine those people/souls he blames for their own suffering, including children who are raped. They HAVE TO BE GUILTY or.......
Huge fear avoidance. If he could manage to feel his fear there and actually look/feel these people, he would realize that there are other options. But he's too cowardly to look.
And hell, I understand the fear. I've felt it. I have sympathy for anyone's coping mechanisms. But when you go forth and tell many people that if a child is raped that child deserved that punishment...Now you bear a lot of responsibility for your coping mechanisms. If it helps you sleep at night to hallucinate that, fine. If you want to be a guru and have followers and preach here and elsewhere, sorry, then I will call you out as a coward. He has not with an open heart and mind truly listened to victims of rape, for example. His idea HAS TO BE TRUE OR....and he doesn't want to feel that or.
It doesn't take long for people who make such absolute claims to become tripped up in them. It is valuable to be discerning in all things, because (from my own experience) there are errors and nonsense as well as value and insight in all directions. Noticing how something is being presented is a clue (I think) of the energy that might affect (and distort) the value of the content.
I am pretty eclectic about where I pick up information and inspiration, role modeling, advice, heuristics, etc. I don't mind absolute claims. It's a very different topic, but I think pretty much everyone is at least implicitly making absolute truth claims, even in how they rule them out. And I kinda like stuff being thrown out. I do a creative art form and I like it when one of these teachers comes along with THE method. I may not become a disciple but that kind of near fascist approach (as long as they don't have power over me) makes it so clear what is good and bad about their method. It's bracing. Heck, I might even agree or agree with one part. So, to me it's not his absolute claim quality, it's more the interpersonal dynamic. I suppose I would prefer if they would say that their intuition is what gives them certainty at some level. And also to not pretend that deduction proves their belief to be true.
I believe things that I could not convince most others of and certainly not with words on a screen. I don't know where this idea came from that everything true can be demonstrated by words on a screen or even that we learn mainly through arguments. That seems implicit in a lot of online silliness.
So, DS presents us with arguments that he thinks are just so clearly true and final and they are just silly.
There are answers to be found everywhere. It just takes being observant of that. I'm not a follower of anything in particular -- I think that's limited, as well as risky. So, I tend to offer observations and comments and challenges from that perspective here on the forum. And I find it entertaining to do so, to the same dramatic degree as the absolute claims are being made.
I think this is a better use of the forums than many uses. I mean if we really wanted to learn about philosophy there are better places to learn. Here we meet characters, memes, attitudes...often ones that hold sway and power in parts of real life. What happens when one pushes on those things? How do these characters maintain their positions? Do their positions still get their hooks into me and why? What happens if I say this? or this? Do the old arguments still flummox me? Is part of what they are saying necessary for my own balance? Or more than part?
That's the investigation/experiment for me. I have many of these voices in my head. Here I can meet them outside me, which makes the interaction between the main part of me and these voices easier to flow, in slow motion on a screen.