Wouldn't it be better to have no beliefs? (Page 3)

bonzono5
bonzono5: no.
Nihilism is a belief that ultimately, nothing has no purpose.

Atheism is a lack of a belief in a god. that is all. That you confuse the two is typical of a theist argument armed with nothing more than a 20 second google search.
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Purple Tide
Purple Tide: What a fascinating room. Where would I begin without reading everything. Found something to address but didn't read so not fully aware of the subject. Always just want to help.
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ssingactress
ssingactress: There's no reason to believe in anything such as what the scribes fabricated. They did that in order to scare everyone so people would not 'protest' the way the rulers were dominating them, and keeping all their money. Making it a Sin to 'not believe' was the main trick.
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WHlSKY
WHlSKY:
Will it be possible to have no beliefs?
(Edited by WHlSKY)
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Adam Southworth
Adam Southworth: The first Sceptics of the Pyrrhonian school thought suspension of judgement (epoche) would lead to peace and serenity of mind (ataraxia). They held no positive beliefs at all. The core method to achieve ataraxia was to set out the best case for and against a position. Once they realized both sides were equally likely or plausible, they would collapse both sides of the argument and suspend judgement with the mantra: "No more this than that." I find this mantra consoles me once I go through the process.

This might not be for everyone. I think some people find more solace in positive beliefs. However, I think this method could help people overcome unhealthy obsessions, disturbing thoughts and anxiety, among other things. The Buddhists teach something similar. They say we should acknowledge the thoughts which disturb us before we reorient the mind.
(Edited by Adam Southworth)
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yippeskippy
yippeskippy: Not having beliefs simply means you're secular...One can regard eating and bathing as examples of secular activities, because there may not be anything inherently religious about them. ...
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thr33
thr33: Nothing substantial to add… I’ve just always found it interesting that the word “lie” is subtly (or not so subtly) hidden in the word be”lie”f . Also if you treat “believe” it like a find the hidden word puzzle you can spell “be” , evil” , “veil” …

Things to ponder…
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Adam Southworth
Adam Southworth: I suppose the word "belie" is also contained in the word "belief". That might be an even more invidious word to find here. I doubt this fact would have meant much to whomever coined this word. I read the word "belief" actually comes from the word "be" and the Indo-European word "leubh" (love), so "be love" or "be in love" might be a more accurate etymology.
(Edited by Adam Southworth)
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thr33
thr33: Wow! That’s a really beautiful way to spin it. Thanks for sharing… “Be in love” seems a more accurate depiction of what it is to really believe in something. I wasn’t aware of the actual etymology of it. Was just making some observations of the basic English word. I always look at words like little puzzles … Kinda how evil is live backwards. Just strange how language has these quirky elements to it where we have words within words that could suggest something deeper at play. The word “Spelling” could take on different connotations too when you connect it to magic. But probably all mere coincidental gobbledygook. 😄 But I think our brains probably make these subliminal connections all the time.
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Adam Southworth
Adam Southworth: lol You know I think you might be right. People might not be aware of the connections which lead them to coin specific words. They might have a conscious reason for something which was only a surface appearance of the true reason in the depths. Still, hard to know whether you've struck one of those deep reasons, or if you've become an insane mathematician like the Marquise De Sade who found endless mathematical patterns which revealed the date he'd be released from the Bastille

Still, there might be some truth to it. Socrates seemed to think we could learn a lot about the great minds who created languages from which words were contained in others...not a bad way to pass the time. If my phone doesn't get radio on a run, I sometimes practice decimal counting on my fingers. This kind of wordplay might be good when........... my fingers have been thumbscrewed by the mafia.
(Edited by Adam Southworth)
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thr33
thr33: Yeah… Between my word puzzles and your decimal counting maybe one of us will finally discover how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie pop.
Or something…

Of course if we did discover some weird aloof secret of the universe… It would really suck if we couldn’t definitively verify it through some tangible scientific method. Then someone might actually have to “believe” something…

Aaaand here we are back to the topic. Ha!

( You listen to the radio on jogs? Wow! I love that! Who listens to the radio anymore? It is usually like Itunes or Spotify or podcasts for most.)
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ssingactress
ssingactress: Well I just don't know how religion has such a stranglehold on everyone. Some of this is so pervasive that people MUST, if they want to hold a position of any authority within a City or County, State, or Country (within the US) join a denomination or be known from a certain church as a paying member who has been one of the 'faithful' for decades, and before and before ad nauseum. The fact that these people can use their positions in criminal law to judge defendants is somewhat galling. Heaven and earth. 'though the heavens may fall' and all that jazz, it's disgusting. No way to 'shake em up' or out of this box, as they are bound to it for life.

The Bible was written by our ancestors at the behest of rulers who wanted complete domination of the crowd, by way of the intimidating character God, who began as seven of them and was editorially reduced to one guy. To 'believe in' such a character requires of a human being a tremendous denial of reality, a suspension of disbelief which is only maintained through ritual and fear, that believing it at ALL is akin to believing we can all take wing and fly on Thursdays.

By history, we drag out religion only when our community numbers become bigger than we're able to handle (over 100). Here comes the terrorist God (zilla), and people fear the spectre of his 'wrath'. It's disgusting, and the fact that religious leaders make their living terrorizing people and encouraging them to be supplicant to this non-real character, is enough to make a person wonder what in the world we can ever do to rid ourselves of this disgusting reality.
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