pull down to refresh
11 sats \ 71 replies \ @didiplaywell 15 Oct \ on: Have you ever completely changed your mind on something big? alter_native
I was a devote Christian. I'm a fundamentalist atheist now.
I was a devote socialist. I'm a fundamentalist libertarian now.
Do we really need any of those labels?
reply
Yes, we absolutely do. Things have names. Wherever a clear thing-name connection is absent, the power of rhetoric can manipulate the will of the ignorant at whim.
reply
I suppose labels can be helpful.
reply
There're not just helpful, they're all we have to make sense on anything. Conversely, wherever we don't have them, there's no sense, no compass.
The sterile debate on labels happens when there's already a meaning associated to the label yet "there's a more fitting label". Like the fact "liberal" means "libertarian", yet it became associated with "socialism". Ok, we can go past that one, for everyone, even the ones who disagree, perfectly recognize the label-meaning connection. At the end of the day it doesn't matter what's the specific sound, only the sound-meaning connection matters.
reply
I feel like I make the most sense of my reality through silence. And also, I understand what you are saying. Words are powerful.
reply
The fact I might have words for something doesn't mean I have to express them aloud. Words have equal meaning when kept to one-self.
reply
Maybe even more so. That's like prayer. I think speaking things into existence is powerful when are alone. Or even just in the mind.
reply
It absolutely is on it's own. I practice that daily. The good thing is that, since you where capable of making sense of something because of the words, you do can share them if the opportunity arrives.
I think humans may choose to live more like animals. My dogs don't reason with words. They move with sense and intuition. Humans get the gift of language. With great power, comes great responsibility. It seems it often confuses us. People often use words to trick others. Like the media does.
reply
My dogs don't reason with words
All living beings with a brain do process information through finite abstractions. Your dog perfectly identifies "hunger", "human", "owner", "own name", "sadness", "food", "walking", "stick", "water", "happiness", etc. Those are all abstractions which the dog connects either to a feeling, a specific bark pattern, or a sound (like when you call him by his name). We only got more sophisticated at barking, but the logic remains the same for the brain can not operate otherwise but through connecting a thing to a label.
reply
Yes. And experiencing things for what they are, is more important to me than the word we give it. The essence. Dogs identify and catalog thousands of smells. No names needed. Do words make that process better?
reply
is more important to me than the word we give it
Everything haves its place. Eating is more important than worrying about the word "eating" in itself. Yet to survive within a society you better know the word "eating".
Dogs identify and catalog thousands of smells. No names needed. Do words make that process better?
The label exists, though, for it's needed, as you said, to identify and catalog. The specific wording of the label becomes important when the information as to be transmitted. Like when a dog identifies you by your smell, and emits a barking that's specific to you, either to call you, or to announce your presence to others.
I mostly know people who became christian after being atheist. Is that a common path? Have you shared about it on stacker?
reply
Yes it is, I have heard of atheists becoming religious many times. I have no personal accounts to share for my path was the inverse.
reply
Yeah. Many of my peers have become christian recently.. most of them were raised that way when they were young and rebelled against at. And then went back.
I never had any kind of faith, and now I feel some kind of connection to my own version of "GOD"
reply
I don not have anything against being religious, my experience in my childhood was great. It just lost sense by itself until it vanished, and time did nothing but to consolidate that path. The idea of a god disturbs me, makes everything lose sense. I took engineering as my religion and never looked back.
reply
I love engineering. I was an electrician for many years. Now I tinker.
reply
Then you understand me
reply
I think it is possible to be logically minded and still spiritual. It all works together when we zoom out enough.
reply
I would never go against the belief structure of someone that has found peace in it. That actually stems from my engineering religion: if it works, don't fix it.
That said, in my specific belief structure, the idea of "spirituality" haves no sense, at all. It just blurs my understanding, so I got rid of it, and I even feel better that way. But that's me.