Hi Everybody!
Just beginning a blog about my asthma medication!
I have been using Intal Spincaps for more than 40 years.They are fantastic. I have never had an asthma attack and I just use one capsule at night at most. BUT THEY ARE BEING DISCONTINUED. I have tried the alternative in a "puffer" inhaler which made me very asthmatic, getting worse and worse, and eventually, when I got some more spincaps, it took 8 months for my lungs to recover.I also tried all sorts of inhalers which didn't work. The reason I am great with hardly any asthma problems at all is because I am on Intal Spincaps.Other medications turn me into a struggling asthmatic. Bad bad bad............
Please post if you want them to keep making the spincaps....
Best Wishes to all,
Friday, 24 June 2011
When we ask for help.....
I have been in personal turmoil recently and, even knowing the psychology of vulnerability, I did ask for help! My mum has been ill and, true to human nature, this has made me vulnerable to mental abuse. So what's new?
I should read my own blog!
This blog explores what happens when we become needy. What happens to us, and what happens when we ask for help from another person.
We have long explored why it is that people who have needs are easy victims: the sick, children, women, the mentally ill.
Okay, so if we ask someone close to us, someone trusted, there is less chance of being on the receiving end of power-play, but not always. Another safeguard is the fact that with people close to us there is a RELATIONSHIP, a mutuality. An emotional bond, a history of two-way kindness and respect is more likely to be present and this balances the potential power of both parties.
The problem arises when we ask people who would take advantage of our neediness, the sort of people who need or enjoy power over someone else. Of course this disposition may be unconscious, but folks who take advantage of others in this way will have a diminished sense of what they are doing. They need to have diminished conscience BECAUSE it enables them to behave in the way they do. So, look, if you approach someone you don't know, say in a church or in many cases a professional of some sort, the fact that they are immediately put in a position of power by the very fact of you needing them, will open the door to you being mentally abused.
So what is it that the giver wants from you? Givers, those offering kindness or good deeds, usually want something. Sounds odd? Well, it's true. Often these people have a need to offer kindness. It helps them in their lives. Makes them feel better and often counteracts something bad they have done or are doing to others. Okay, so there are SOME people who are genuinely nice people, but not all. If you ask for help from someone, look out for signs that they might be the sort that might abuse you. Think. Think about what they tell you and what their motivation might be. Are you going to be used to serve some purpose for THEM.
Like I said at the start of this blog, I have recently asked for help from someone. I felt overwhelmed and was searching for someone to turn to. I saw some signs..... The man was gender-bigoted from the outset. He had a desperate need to do good deeds. These good deeds he needed to be as big, egotistically big,as possible and he had ideas that were indicative of power and control. SO why did I proceed? I think, like all of us when we are needy, that my distress was bigger than my common sense.
I'm coming back soon to explore this further...
I should read my own blog!
This blog explores what happens when we become needy. What happens to us, and what happens when we ask for help from another person.
We have long explored why it is that people who have needs are easy victims: the sick, children, women, the mentally ill.
Okay, so if we ask someone close to us, someone trusted, there is less chance of being on the receiving end of power-play, but not always. Another safeguard is the fact that with people close to us there is a RELATIONSHIP, a mutuality. An emotional bond, a history of two-way kindness and respect is more likely to be present and this balances the potential power of both parties.
The problem arises when we ask people who would take advantage of our neediness, the sort of people who need or enjoy power over someone else. Of course this disposition may be unconscious, but folks who take advantage of others in this way will have a diminished sense of what they are doing. They need to have diminished conscience BECAUSE it enables them to behave in the way they do. So, look, if you approach someone you don't know, say in a church or in many cases a professional of some sort, the fact that they are immediately put in a position of power by the very fact of you needing them, will open the door to you being mentally abused.
So what is it that the giver wants from you? Givers, those offering kindness or good deeds, usually want something. Sounds odd? Well, it's true. Often these people have a need to offer kindness. It helps them in their lives. Makes them feel better and often counteracts something bad they have done or are doing to others. Okay, so there are SOME people who are genuinely nice people, but not all. If you ask for help from someone, look out for signs that they might be the sort that might abuse you. Think. Think about what they tell you and what their motivation might be. Are you going to be used to serve some purpose for THEM.
Like I said at the start of this blog, I have recently asked for help from someone. I felt overwhelmed and was searching for someone to turn to. I saw some signs..... The man was gender-bigoted from the outset. He had a desperate need to do good deeds. These good deeds he needed to be as big, egotistically big,as possible and he had ideas that were indicative of power and control. SO why did I proceed? I think, like all of us when we are needy, that my distress was bigger than my common sense.
I'm coming back soon to explore this further...
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, hand in hand.
"Abandon yourself all ye who enter here!"
This is what you do when you give yourself into the hands of psychotherapy. It reminds me of an abdication: you do it voluntarily but there are forces beyond your control that push you into that seat!
Of course, unless you are very unlucky, you don`t put yourself into the "hands", literally, of a psychotherapist! Rather you allow yourself to be formed and moulded by the imagination of your therapist. Yes, I chose that word carefully, so I`ll repeat it: IMAGINATION. The therapist you see doesn`t KNOW what your dreams mean, he doesn`t KNOW what things, even if there are exogenous causes, are making you depressed or anxious, he just decides these things himself based upon whatever training he has received and/or where his own personal psychological makeup leads him. In other words, you`ve got, it`s subjective.
Let me come out of the woodwork and disclose that in the past I have been the victim of a psychotherapist and have thought long and hard about what he did, why he did it and HOW he was able to do this. I have also taken great care not to colour my view solely on my own experiences; I have watched how the pattern is repeated on others.
Of course, I was a victim when I went to him, that helps! You can`t lay onto someone your ideas about them ..unless they are vulnerable in the first place. Of course not. This fits the classic victim model. After years of mental abuse, complete destruction of my self and my self-esteem, I reclaimed my real identity. It is with this experience ..and witnessing the abuse of others, that I have come to an understanding of the truth about psychotherapy.
Look, what does having someone in a weak, vulnerable, dependent state remind you of? Have you got it? Yes, it`s the parent-child relationship. A therapist is always the parent and you are the child. As such he directs and controls and creates you; he attributes your actions, or misattributes them as HE wishes. When he learns things about you, he makes decisions about why you are this way or what you do to cause others to treat you the way they do. But this is what he is meant to do isn`t it? He is sure to be correct isn`t he? Well, no, he is shaping you according to his needs, his ego, HIS psychology. What he decides may have little to do with you at all. And what is more, because you are his dependent child, you absorb and incorporate what he persuades you is really you.
But don`t therapists have supervision? Yes, they do, of course, but you have to bear this in mind: the therapist relays what he thinks is going on with you, to his supervisor. The supervisor gets it second hand, doctored, misattributed, twisted, so his views are based upon what he hears about you from your "parent". Then you have both of them on an ego trip together, upholding each other, giving each other`s position support. The supervisor will see things as changed by the therapist`s subjectivity and his psychological past, then he will change things according to his relationship with the therapist and his own psychological history.You have become something that is not you.Okay, so you follow me so far? The very practice of psychotherapy is a very power-centred adult activity in which most professionals, unconsciously, collude.
At its most abusive, a therapist will MAKE you, by one method or another, believe that you are what he thinks you are. He will even cause you to fit his view of you. He may even think that he is helping you, making you face your guilt, revealing your past, but actually, he is wanting to fit you into his psychological past. It`s an unconscious need he has. He might twist things, unknowingly, so that you fit the characteristics of his mother, but this time he is in the driving seat. Or you become his father, his father in a place where he can win. There are numerous permutations of the identity you might become in relation to him and there is no way, supervision or not, he will be aware of what he is doing.
The frightening thing about this is that no one in the system will be aware that his "professional" view is subjective, dressed up as it is with "professional" credibility and receiving as it does, gratis, the respect of colleagues.
Like psychiatry, psychotherapy it not at all interested in the real reasons why you are depressed. Isn`t it strange? Neither "professions" are remotely interested in research that might show depression or psychosis to be physical health conditions. They are interested in fitting your depression to a non-testable cause that, coincidentally, either requires psychotherapy or medication. Really the two professions are hand-in-hand, one mopping up the money that the other doesn`t, one controlling and abusing you in one way, the other in a different way. Whenever did you go to a psychiatrist or be referred to a psychotherapist, after a thorough medical? Did anyone find out if your hormones are balanced or that you have a gut dysbiosis that releases toxins into your bloodstream, before you were given medication or before you signed over enormous fees to your therapist? Or course not. The two professions would not do things that would deprive themselves of their livelihood or their credibility.It`s not just about money, either, it`s about their group needs. The belief that people`s brain chemistry is awry, or that their childhood makes them depressed, serves the theories that hold these groups together, creates a constant service of clients and makes sure that society has a hierarchical structure based upon the professional, in a parental role, and his underling, the patient or client.
We all know people who are apparently depressed because of events in their lives, who take up one or other of these self-suppressing "solutions". But have you noticed the flaw in the argument? Many people who have terrible childhoods, don`t end up depressed ! So WHAT really is the common-denominator, then? If it isn`t your brain chemistry, you`ll need psychotherapy? No, I don`t think so, do you? It might be that your gut is making you depressed.... and you can fix that all on your little own without a mental health label or handing over your precious self.
Please join me soooooooooooooooon. I want to talk about why the M.E. Association might not want research into antibiotic damage to the gut.
Very Best Wishes from me to you... Think for yourself, you`re worth it!
This is what you do when you give yourself into the hands of psychotherapy. It reminds me of an abdication: you do it voluntarily but there are forces beyond your control that push you into that seat!
Of course, unless you are very unlucky, you don`t put yourself into the "hands", literally, of a psychotherapist! Rather you allow yourself to be formed and moulded by the imagination of your therapist. Yes, I chose that word carefully, so I`ll repeat it: IMAGINATION. The therapist you see doesn`t KNOW what your dreams mean, he doesn`t KNOW what things, even if there are exogenous causes, are making you depressed or anxious, he just decides these things himself based upon whatever training he has received and/or where his own personal psychological makeup leads him. In other words, you`ve got, it`s subjective.
Let me come out of the woodwork and disclose that in the past I have been the victim of a psychotherapist and have thought long and hard about what he did, why he did it and HOW he was able to do this. I have also taken great care not to colour my view solely on my own experiences; I have watched how the pattern is repeated on others.
Of course, I was a victim when I went to him, that helps! You can`t lay onto someone your ideas about them ..unless they are vulnerable in the first place. Of course not. This fits the classic victim model. After years of mental abuse, complete destruction of my self and my self-esteem, I reclaimed my real identity. It is with this experience ..and witnessing the abuse of others, that I have come to an understanding of the truth about psychotherapy.
Look, what does having someone in a weak, vulnerable, dependent state remind you of? Have you got it? Yes, it`s the parent-child relationship. A therapist is always the parent and you are the child. As such he directs and controls and creates you; he attributes your actions, or misattributes them as HE wishes. When he learns things about you, he makes decisions about why you are this way or what you do to cause others to treat you the way they do. But this is what he is meant to do isn`t it? He is sure to be correct isn`t he? Well, no, he is shaping you according to his needs, his ego, HIS psychology. What he decides may have little to do with you at all. And what is more, because you are his dependent child, you absorb and incorporate what he persuades you is really you.
But don`t therapists have supervision? Yes, they do, of course, but you have to bear this in mind: the therapist relays what he thinks is going on with you, to his supervisor. The supervisor gets it second hand, doctored, misattributed, twisted, so his views are based upon what he hears about you from your "parent". Then you have both of them on an ego trip together, upholding each other, giving each other`s position support. The supervisor will see things as changed by the therapist`s subjectivity and his psychological past, then he will change things according to his relationship with the therapist and his own psychological history.You have become something that is not you.Okay, so you follow me so far? The very practice of psychotherapy is a very power-centred adult activity in which most professionals, unconsciously, collude.
At its most abusive, a therapist will MAKE you, by one method or another, believe that you are what he thinks you are. He will even cause you to fit his view of you. He may even think that he is helping you, making you face your guilt, revealing your past, but actually, he is wanting to fit you into his psychological past. It`s an unconscious need he has. He might twist things, unknowingly, so that you fit the characteristics of his mother, but this time he is in the driving seat. Or you become his father, his father in a place where he can win. There are numerous permutations of the identity you might become in relation to him and there is no way, supervision or not, he will be aware of what he is doing.
The frightening thing about this is that no one in the system will be aware that his "professional" view is subjective, dressed up as it is with "professional" credibility and receiving as it does, gratis, the respect of colleagues.
Like psychiatry, psychotherapy it not at all interested in the real reasons why you are depressed. Isn`t it strange? Neither "professions" are remotely interested in research that might show depression or psychosis to be physical health conditions. They are interested in fitting your depression to a non-testable cause that, coincidentally, either requires psychotherapy or medication. Really the two professions are hand-in-hand, one mopping up the money that the other doesn`t, one controlling and abusing you in one way, the other in a different way. Whenever did you go to a psychiatrist or be referred to a psychotherapist, after a thorough medical? Did anyone find out if your hormones are balanced or that you have a gut dysbiosis that releases toxins into your bloodstream, before you were given medication or before you signed over enormous fees to your therapist? Or course not. The two professions would not do things that would deprive themselves of their livelihood or their credibility.It`s not just about money, either, it`s about their group needs. The belief that people`s brain chemistry is awry, or that their childhood makes them depressed, serves the theories that hold these groups together, creates a constant service of clients and makes sure that society has a hierarchical structure based upon the professional, in a parental role, and his underling, the patient or client.
We all know people who are apparently depressed because of events in their lives, who take up one or other of these self-suppressing "solutions". But have you noticed the flaw in the argument? Many people who have terrible childhoods, don`t end up depressed ! So WHAT really is the common-denominator, then? If it isn`t your brain chemistry, you`ll need psychotherapy? No, I don`t think so, do you? It might be that your gut is making you depressed.... and you can fix that all on your little own without a mental health label or handing over your precious self.
Please join me soooooooooooooooon. I want to talk about why the M.E. Association might not want research into antibiotic damage to the gut.
Very Best Wishes from me to you... Think for yourself, you`re worth it!
Monday, 25 October 2010
Why Improve Ourselves? 3
I was lucky enough to catch Rosa Monckton`s documentary "Tormented Lives" last night on BBC 2. I was really struck by Rosa`s compassion and her disposition to relate to people in an accepting and non-judgmental way and I really hope that this documentary`s powerful expression changes things for people.
Of course I have talked about why we need to bully others, both as individuals and as a society, in my blogs many times, covering the abuse of women, the elderly and children. We saw in the program how bullies, very much in their raw, animal state, victimise those who are obviously weak. I have explored previously why certain people, or groups, are picked on, by whom and for what motive. I am not going to go over that here because this blog takes a slightly different angle in regard to my previous blogs entitled "Why Improve Ourselves?".
Though I understand bullying and victimisation from both first-hand experience and careful observation of life around me, I am always shocked to see the affects of it. Of course, bullying in schools is no better for the attention it receives and with time -old opportunities to bully the sick and the elderly, nothing changes very much. Why would it? Unfortunately, there is societal need for it as well as the systems to enable it and protect the perpetrators. We are all complicit in this.. My blogs "Teachers who Bully" show how a closed system like a classroom, for example, is a training ground for what we see in our wider society in the adult world.
Anyway, back to this blog: it struck me during Rosa`s program that our society's ubiquitous tolerance for bullying begins with small behavioural lapses that seem so ordinary and innocuous. And we let them go. Behaviour in schools is appalling. Children in mainstream education aren`t taught how to behave in a polite respectful manner and where they slide are not pulled up for it. There is no one to care about such basics as saying "please" and "thank you", or holding a door open for someone.Still less for a child calling another child a hurtful name. Indeed, as I discussed way back, the bullied child is more likely to be treated as a misfit, a psychological problem, than the bullies, proving that as a society we in fact SUPPORT bullying.
So what`s this got to do with the behaviour of the bullies in Rosa`s program? Simple, the behaviour of Rosa`s victimisers has slid way beyond the omission of a "please" and "thank you".They have spent years in an environment that, frankly, allows them to vent their animal drives however they want to. Basically, it`s animal expression.
So you have to catch all aspects of behaviour early, in primary school. In my view the threshold cannot be drawn at bullying, it has to be a threshold that desires basics, as part of a process to de-animalise our behaviour from very small issues upwards. To do this you can`t just take out certain behaviours you don`t want, 5 or 10 or 15 years too late, you have to cultivate a nature that cleaves to higher values of respect and courtesy, and a desire for approbation.
What does "desire for approbation" mean? Well, it means you have to CREATE children who wish to please and wish to be helpful. But look, input has to match output, which it certainly does not in mainstream education. You just can`t get the sort of kids you want in society by telling them what to do: you have to example it! That means that classrooms should not reflect the animal nature of the outside world, survival of the fittest, children should never fall victim to group runtification(*see footnote) at school, none should be left behind educationally, none should be sent to the educational psychologist when they are bullied.... I could go on. The point in the obverse is that, of course, one, just ONE example of how society operates, the classroom, demonstrates to all the children in the school that THIS is how society works. Are we then so surprised that they go out and overtly copy what is being exampled from the day that they start mixing with other kids and adults outside the family?
I think that we should always try to improve ourselves, to escape our animal nature as much as we can and Rosa`s bullies show us that. If small things were important I think that all of us could enjoy better lives, but we really have to wake up to things that are almost invisible to our rightfulness-radar. What we don`t apprehend is just off the screen, I`m afraid, causally.The bullies in Rosa`s documentary have been taught by example.... and the animal behaviour they exhibit carries with it the fire of resentment born out of received disrespect and projected failure that keeps them fuelled up.
If we expand this logic we can see that all behaviors are important and significant and we see that any improvement is worth it in any area or with any issue. But, but, but, we must try to see that OUR societal framework engenders the bullying we disapprove of in others. Not just that some kids are disadvantaged -by the animal function of a classroom or by the social, financial or educational status of their parents, but that our whole system is riddled with our animal needs to compete and gain position over others. If we look at what really happens in schools, the survival of the fittest at work right in front of our eyes, we can see that Rosa`s bullies learned their behaviour from everything we show them: certainly from the way schools make a percentage of children fail, the use of psychiatric labels given to various misfits,etc.
Take a look around you...Then take a closer look.
Of course, raising ourselves above our animal state, our animal soul, is one of the main themes of one of the primary texts of chassidic Judaism, the Tanya, by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi. In my discussions I am going to come back to religion in this context a bit later on. Hope you will join me.
Very Best Wishes from me to you.......
*Runtification: my word for the process in our society for creating runts.Runts in this context are failures and rejects,people pushed to the margins of our "civilised" western culture.
Of course I have talked about why we need to bully others, both as individuals and as a society, in my blogs many times, covering the abuse of women, the elderly and children. We saw in the program how bullies, very much in their raw, animal state, victimise those who are obviously weak. I have explored previously why certain people, or groups, are picked on, by whom and for what motive. I am not going to go over that here because this blog takes a slightly different angle in regard to my previous blogs entitled "Why Improve Ourselves?".
Though I understand bullying and victimisation from both first-hand experience and careful observation of life around me, I am always shocked to see the affects of it. Of course, bullying in schools is no better for the attention it receives and with time -old opportunities to bully the sick and the elderly, nothing changes very much. Why would it? Unfortunately, there is societal need for it as well as the systems to enable it and protect the perpetrators. We are all complicit in this.. My blogs "Teachers who Bully" show how a closed system like a classroom, for example, is a training ground for what we see in our wider society in the adult world.
Anyway, back to this blog: it struck me during Rosa`s program that our society's ubiquitous tolerance for bullying begins with small behavioural lapses that seem so ordinary and innocuous. And we let them go. Behaviour in schools is appalling. Children in mainstream education aren`t taught how to behave in a polite respectful manner and where they slide are not pulled up for it. There is no one to care about such basics as saying "please" and "thank you", or holding a door open for someone.Still less for a child calling another child a hurtful name. Indeed, as I discussed way back, the bullied child is more likely to be treated as a misfit, a psychological problem, than the bullies, proving that as a society we in fact SUPPORT bullying.
So what`s this got to do with the behaviour of the bullies in Rosa`s program? Simple, the behaviour of Rosa`s victimisers has slid way beyond the omission of a "please" and "thank you".They have spent years in an environment that, frankly, allows them to vent their animal drives however they want to. Basically, it`s animal expression.
So you have to catch all aspects of behaviour early, in primary school. In my view the threshold cannot be drawn at bullying, it has to be a threshold that desires basics, as part of a process to de-animalise our behaviour from very small issues upwards. To do this you can`t just take out certain behaviours you don`t want, 5 or 10 or 15 years too late, you have to cultivate a nature that cleaves to higher values of respect and courtesy, and a desire for approbation.
What does "desire for approbation" mean? Well, it means you have to CREATE children who wish to please and wish to be helpful. But look, input has to match output, which it certainly does not in mainstream education. You just can`t get the sort of kids you want in society by telling them what to do: you have to example it! That means that classrooms should not reflect the animal nature of the outside world, survival of the fittest, children should never fall victim to group runtification(*see footnote) at school, none should be left behind educationally, none should be sent to the educational psychologist when they are bullied.... I could go on. The point in the obverse is that, of course, one, just ONE example of how society operates, the classroom, demonstrates to all the children in the school that THIS is how society works. Are we then so surprised that they go out and overtly copy what is being exampled from the day that they start mixing with other kids and adults outside the family?
I think that we should always try to improve ourselves, to escape our animal nature as much as we can and Rosa`s bullies show us that. If small things were important I think that all of us could enjoy better lives, but we really have to wake up to things that are almost invisible to our rightfulness-radar. What we don`t apprehend is just off the screen, I`m afraid, causally.The bullies in Rosa`s documentary have been taught by example.... and the animal behaviour they exhibit carries with it the fire of resentment born out of received disrespect and projected failure that keeps them fuelled up.
If we expand this logic we can see that all behaviors are important and significant and we see that any improvement is worth it in any area or with any issue. But, but, but, we must try to see that OUR societal framework engenders the bullying we disapprove of in others. Not just that some kids are disadvantaged -by the animal function of a classroom or by the social, financial or educational status of their parents, but that our whole system is riddled with our animal needs to compete and gain position over others. If we look at what really happens in schools, the survival of the fittest at work right in front of our eyes, we can see that Rosa`s bullies learned their behaviour from everything we show them: certainly from the way schools make a percentage of children fail, the use of psychiatric labels given to various misfits,etc.
Take a look around you...Then take a closer look.
Of course, raising ourselves above our animal state, our animal soul, is one of the main themes of one of the primary texts of chassidic Judaism, the Tanya, by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi. In my discussions I am going to come back to religion in this context a bit later on. Hope you will join me.
Very Best Wishes from me to you.......
*Runtification: my word for the process in our society for creating runts.Runts in this context are failures and rejects,people pushed to the margins of our "civilised" western culture.
Sunday, 3 October 2010
The Murder of God: Is it Moral?
Hello! Hope you are doing great!
Okay, so let`s make a start on the next big subject.....
I saw recently that Humanists are titling a lecture, "The God Virus". This prompted me to think about whether it is right to try to destroy God simply because you yourself don`t believe in "him". (Okay, okay, we`ll come back to the philosophy later! I can hear you saying, how can you murder God anyway?")
When someone uses such emotive and pejorative language they are telling us that they mean to convince us of THEIR VIEW, that God is indeed the equivalent of a virus. Using the word "virus" cashes in on fears we already have about viruses. Combining it with "God" causes us to, they hope, associate the two things as one. It`s a psychological tactic that plays a trick on the mind. If used often enough, it is a tactic that implants into our thinking the notion of God as something bad.
Of course, there are many words and names and places that are inexorably linked to something bad. We cannot hear the name "Adolf" without thinking of concentration camps, or "Cambodia" without thinking of Pol Pot. We can all test this out for ourselves.... Based upon the knowledge that names associated with certain heinous crimes stick fast in the human mind, a mind that stores information (a glossary for the primal brain) to warn us of danger, we can see the value to humanists of demonising God on this way: if they get enough exposure they will surely infect us all with the idea that God is a virus and that we are all "carriers", spreading infection to those around us. It`s the same memetic technique that turned Germans against Jews! and it works. Memes kill. Big time. Bang up to date (whoops! perhaps I`ll delete the word bang!) we have seen how governments have successfully demonised Muslims! (Did you know that you were being infected with ideas to MAKE you fear Muslims? That you have been manipulated as a pawn in a wider group/animal drive?)
Of course, we don`t realise it, but we all get "infected" with ideas all the time. Memes are far better at perpetuating themselves than our DNA! The question is, though, whether a group concerned with intellectual freedom is right to endeavour to take away the freedom of others to believe in whatever or whomsoever they wish to believe... and, I suppose, whether this takes the form of mere "persuasion" or whether it is,or will become, more than this. (We`ll look at this in the future......)
But why do they want to do it? Well, believe of not, it is all to do with freeing everybody from the indoctrination that religion brings.They don`t want children to be brought up on any religious narrative because this prevents a child from seeing the "truth" about the world around us. The only truth is science. The one truth. Bit like "the one God" !!!!!
Look, let me come clean here: I am not batting for God or willing to do any God-bashing, this blog is about the rights and wrongs of trying to dictate what others may or not believe, not to uphold one side or the other. My blog title "The Murder of God: Is it Moral?" is a parrying gesture to show my readers that anyone can use emotive language to manipulate someone else`s ideas.
And isn`t this where Humanism is going wrong? Anyone could believe something.. and believe that others should believe the same thing ..and then set about a crusade to achieve it ! Why is this any different from the germ of totalitarianism? In my view, the humanist belief that religion is invalid because it does not check with the reality of science, is a similar position to that held by many a Christian through the ages who would kill to prevent anyone else from having another view-point. And isn`t this the exact same animal/group motivation that is displayed in the thrust of, "The God Virus". Isn`t it just exactly the same thing coming from the opposite camp!
I`ve not finished on this subject by a long way ! Please join me later!
Very Best Wishes from me to you!
Okay, so let`s make a start on the next big subject.....
I saw recently that Humanists are titling a lecture, "The God Virus". This prompted me to think about whether it is right to try to destroy God simply because you yourself don`t believe in "him". (Okay, okay, we`ll come back to the philosophy later! I can hear you saying, how can you murder God anyway?")
When someone uses such emotive and pejorative language they are telling us that they mean to convince us of THEIR VIEW, that God is indeed the equivalent of a virus. Using the word "virus" cashes in on fears we already have about viruses. Combining it with "God" causes us to, they hope, associate the two things as one. It`s a psychological tactic that plays a trick on the mind. If used often enough, it is a tactic that implants into our thinking the notion of God as something bad.
Of course, there are many words and names and places that are inexorably linked to something bad. We cannot hear the name "Adolf" without thinking of concentration camps, or "Cambodia" without thinking of Pol Pot. We can all test this out for ourselves.... Based upon the knowledge that names associated with certain heinous crimes stick fast in the human mind, a mind that stores information (a glossary for the primal brain) to warn us of danger, we can see the value to humanists of demonising God on this way: if they get enough exposure they will surely infect us all with the idea that God is a virus and that we are all "carriers", spreading infection to those around us. It`s the same memetic technique that turned Germans against Jews! and it works. Memes kill. Big time. Bang up to date (whoops! perhaps I`ll delete the word bang!) we have seen how governments have successfully demonised Muslims! (Did you know that you were being infected with ideas to MAKE you fear Muslims? That you have been manipulated as a pawn in a wider group/animal drive?)
Of course, we don`t realise it, but we all get "infected" with ideas all the time. Memes are far better at perpetuating themselves than our DNA! The question is, though, whether a group concerned with intellectual freedom is right to endeavour to take away the freedom of others to believe in whatever or whomsoever they wish to believe... and, I suppose, whether this takes the form of mere "persuasion" or whether it is,or will become, more than this. (We`ll look at this in the future......)
But why do they want to do it? Well, believe of not, it is all to do with freeing everybody from the indoctrination that religion brings.They don`t want children to be brought up on any religious narrative because this prevents a child from seeing the "truth" about the world around us. The only truth is science. The one truth. Bit like "the one God" !!!!!
Look, let me come clean here: I am not batting for God or willing to do any God-bashing, this blog is about the rights and wrongs of trying to dictate what others may or not believe, not to uphold one side or the other. My blog title "The Murder of God: Is it Moral?" is a parrying gesture to show my readers that anyone can use emotive language to manipulate someone else`s ideas.
And isn`t this where Humanism is going wrong? Anyone could believe something.. and believe that others should believe the same thing ..and then set about a crusade to achieve it ! Why is this any different from the germ of totalitarianism? In my view, the humanist belief that religion is invalid because it does not check with the reality of science, is a similar position to that held by many a Christian through the ages who would kill to prevent anyone else from having another view-point. And isn`t this the exact same animal/group motivation that is displayed in the thrust of, "The God Virus". Isn`t it just exactly the same thing coming from the opposite camp!
I`ve not finished on this subject by a long way ! Please join me later!
Very Best Wishes from me to you!
Thursday, 30 September 2010
Gift from the Dead 3
What is "eternal love" anyway? I think it`s all about sensitivity. Perhaps we can see that sensitivity IS eternal love, carrying as it does a fine atunement to the things around us, carrying a sensitivity from one generation to another, carrying caring to people and things alike. Of course, we acquire sensitivity as a learned behaviour. It`s more likely that sensitive parents will produce sensitive children, just as with any other attribute. This we pass on in turn to our children. A thoughtfulness, considerateness, a quality of empathy and respect we engender in others and they become the eternal chain.
What happens generally, though, in the cut and thrust of life, is that we select those people or things to care about most and ignore most of those folks around us who are needy: we shut them out if they aren`t directly part of lives. We compartmentalise those we care about and those we don`t. We tell ourselves that there is only so much we can cope with and we can`t include the old lady next door because we are already overloaded.
The reason why we make a hierarchy of people we care about and people we dismiss, is that we feel obliged to those with whom we have an emotional exchange, a connection. We ourselves benefit from the exchange, mutual support, a unity, a belonging, and for these reasons we do a deal of reciprocity.
It is much more difficult to jettison someone who levers our guilt, someone with whom we have some kind of bond, than it is to shut out someone who has no power to come back at us. With people who can pull on our guilt for things they need from us, we are hooked into them emotionally. I was saying way back in my blog "Socially Acceptable Forms of Abuse", that parents with diminished levels of guilt can treat their children however they want to because children have a lesser power to hold parents responsible for their actions.Okay, so kids can try to pull the guilt-strings, but they cannot by means of relationship restrain parents morally....they just have a bit more of a chance than dead people!
However, generally speaking, the more sensitivity, engendering guilt, a person has, the more they can be prevailed upon to act in a way that bends to the needs of others. It is a higher state indeed when someone is sensitive to the needs of others regardless of whether the other party has leverage or not. The more we are able to do things selflessly, the higher is our attainment. Attending to our loved ones who have passed away is a high and noble act because they have no recourse to us for our inadequacies in not looking after their burial place. Dead people have no fight-back. Because they haven`t, our attendance demands our highest sensitivity and awareness, more so than the old lady next door. We have to be super-sensitive and selfless when we decide to hear and fulfil a call to honour our deceased and this tunes us up to the highest awareness that impacts on our lives in other areas.
Dead people have no fight-back. It`s true. They are more defenceless than the elderly or the mentally ill, and that`s really saying something. I note how as status diminishes.... one`s ability to speak up for oneself, one`s social position..... the less rights we have.This tells us that our rights are subject to our ability as animals to compete with the other animals around us. The elderly find that they lose their rights as they become more infirm, the mentally ill lose theirs when they are considered insane. How much more so, then, if you cannot speak at all because you are dead! This sounds silly, I expect, but I actually make a profound point here: why should burial sites be abused and neglected just because there is no one with the rightfulness to stick up for something (or somebody) so defenceless.
So, anyway, what do we get from looking after our family graves? Well, we get the knock-on benefits that any positive action brings us. It doesn`t matter that this particular action is not directed at the living, it still has the same affect. We raise up the quality of our output into the world and enhance our ability to care about ourselves, our nearest and dearest and our living world. Does this sound a bit "preachy"?.......... Let me show you what happened in my case: I went to a graveyard, sparked my concern for these past, and some very very past, relatives and found several of our lost family. Because of my actions these people have been gifted love and family and belonging and in their turn have raised their own energy. I am sure that I am a much happier and fulfilled and positive person, a million fold, than before I began my quest. And this is what I mean, you always get back blessing by the bucket load when you output like this ! Why don`t you try it!
What happens generally, though, in the cut and thrust of life, is that we select those people or things to care about most and ignore most of those folks around us who are needy: we shut them out if they aren`t directly part of lives. We compartmentalise those we care about and those we don`t. We tell ourselves that there is only so much we can cope with and we can`t include the old lady next door because we are already overloaded.
The reason why we make a hierarchy of people we care about and people we dismiss, is that we feel obliged to those with whom we have an emotional exchange, a connection. We ourselves benefit from the exchange, mutual support, a unity, a belonging, and for these reasons we do a deal of reciprocity.
It is much more difficult to jettison someone who levers our guilt, someone with whom we have some kind of bond, than it is to shut out someone who has no power to come back at us. With people who can pull on our guilt for things they need from us, we are hooked into them emotionally. I was saying way back in my blog "Socially Acceptable Forms of Abuse", that parents with diminished levels of guilt can treat their children however they want to because children have a lesser power to hold parents responsible for their actions.Okay, so kids can try to pull the guilt-strings, but they cannot by means of relationship restrain parents morally....they just have a bit more of a chance than dead people!
However, generally speaking, the more sensitivity, engendering guilt, a person has, the more they can be prevailed upon to act in a way that bends to the needs of others. It is a higher state indeed when someone is sensitive to the needs of others regardless of whether the other party has leverage or not. The more we are able to do things selflessly, the higher is our attainment. Attending to our loved ones who have passed away is a high and noble act because they have no recourse to us for our inadequacies in not looking after their burial place. Dead people have no fight-back. Because they haven`t, our attendance demands our highest sensitivity and awareness, more so than the old lady next door. We have to be super-sensitive and selfless when we decide to hear and fulfil a call to honour our deceased and this tunes us up to the highest awareness that impacts on our lives in other areas.
Dead people have no fight-back. It`s true. They are more defenceless than the elderly or the mentally ill, and that`s really saying something. I note how as status diminishes.... one`s ability to speak up for oneself, one`s social position..... the less rights we have.This tells us that our rights are subject to our ability as animals to compete with the other animals around us. The elderly find that they lose their rights as they become more infirm, the mentally ill lose theirs when they are considered insane. How much more so, then, if you cannot speak at all because you are dead! This sounds silly, I expect, but I actually make a profound point here: why should burial sites be abused and neglected just because there is no one with the rightfulness to stick up for something (or somebody) so defenceless.
So, anyway, what do we get from looking after our family graves? Well, we get the knock-on benefits that any positive action brings us. It doesn`t matter that this particular action is not directed at the living, it still has the same affect. We raise up the quality of our output into the world and enhance our ability to care about ourselves, our nearest and dearest and our living world. Does this sound a bit "preachy"?.......... Let me show you what happened in my case: I went to a graveyard, sparked my concern for these past, and some very very past, relatives and found several of our lost family. Because of my actions these people have been gifted love and family and belonging and in their turn have raised their own energy. I am sure that I am a much happier and fulfilled and positive person, a million fold, than before I began my quest. And this is what I mean, you always get back blessing by the bucket load when you output like this ! Why don`t you try it!
Friday, 24 September 2010
Gift From the Dead 2
Hello ! Nice to see you!
So, where was I? Went off on a rant for a while there! ..........Ah, yes, I was wanting to tell you about what happened when I was making enquiries at the first church about the whereabouts of my great grandfather`s grave.............. "Don`t you have relatives in the village?", she said. I said that we hadn`t had relatives there for donkeys years. But she told me the names of the people and I immediately knew who they were, long since thought to be dead!! I felt... and still do, very upset and like I'd had a miracle at the same time. We had found living people directly from these enquiries about dead people! "Back from the past!" I feel I want to say "never was a visit to a graveyard so propitious!" We have since found, spurred on by this one momentous find, another long-lost close relative and I find myself wondering whether it is not just a coincidence that this has happened.......Not quite on the divine intention level, but somehow intrinsic to caring, the ubiquitous reward for positive output.
Graveyards are thought of as places of closure, not places of openings, yet it was a simple desire to honour my deceased relatives that brought me rich fruits in my life. I have a philosophy that "output", positive output, of course, brings us good things. It`s not just a single action, it`s to do with quantity and consistency and quality. If you go on doing doing doing some of these things will produce good things for you. These good things don`t always come back directly, but somehow, maybe it`s just positive energy, the more output we propel the more potential we give ourselves. The quality of the output is important, I think, the more well-intentioned, happy, confident, the better "results". When we reap life`s bonuses the religiously ingrained amongst us might think "God made me lucky", but whatever you believe, certainly output opens the gates to good fortune.
It is a tragic paradox that when we are depressed we do not have the ability to output the energy that will make changes in our lives and give us the return energy we so much need. On a very cynical note, I am driven to say that it is strange that "God" gives less to folks who are depressed than he does to those who thrive.... I wonder why this could be? Animal hierachy? People who are "down" deserve less? At least, one would have to say that if you can`t muster yourself to emit a positive energy, you block off God`s nature to help you! Reminds me of the old body-blow, "God helps those who help themselves" !!!!!!! And yet, hmmmmmmm, if we thought of our image of God, not as the religious construction that he is, but as light and positivity, good-energy and higher emotions, the fact that we snooker ourselves when we are depressed makes a lot of sense.
Anyhow, so let`s get back on track.....So caring about those at rest in the earth is at the top end of quality output? Why? We don`t know if they know we are doing it, we don`t know if they are grateful or have pleasure in heaven from seeing us bring our love to them, so why would I equate visiting a graveyard with taking your neighbour a bowl of fruit or giving someone a lift to Sainsbury`s? Hmmmmmmm...., it`s a profoundly sticky question. Is it something to do with eternal love?
I am continuing with this very soooooooooon. Hope to see you here!
Oh, and I`ll let you into a little secret ! After this blog the topic is
"Murder of God: is it moral?" Humanism wants God finished off. I want to talk about it. Will you help me out?
So, where was I? Went off on a rant for a while there! ..........Ah, yes, I was wanting to tell you about what happened when I was making enquiries at the first church about the whereabouts of my great grandfather`s grave.............. "Don`t you have relatives in the village?", she said. I said that we hadn`t had relatives there for donkeys years. But she told me the names of the people and I immediately knew who they were, long since thought to be dead!! I felt... and still do, very upset and like I'd had a miracle at the same time. We had found living people directly from these enquiries about dead people! "Back from the past!" I feel I want to say "never was a visit to a graveyard so propitious!" We have since found, spurred on by this one momentous find, another long-lost close relative and I find myself wondering whether it is not just a coincidence that this has happened.......Not quite on the divine intention level, but somehow intrinsic to caring, the ubiquitous reward for positive output.
Graveyards are thought of as places of closure, not places of openings, yet it was a simple desire to honour my deceased relatives that brought me rich fruits in my life. I have a philosophy that "output", positive output, of course, brings us good things. It`s not just a single action, it`s to do with quantity and consistency and quality. If you go on doing doing doing some of these things will produce good things for you. These good things don`t always come back directly, but somehow, maybe it`s just positive energy, the more output we propel the more potential we give ourselves. The quality of the output is important, I think, the more well-intentioned, happy, confident, the better "results". When we reap life`s bonuses the religiously ingrained amongst us might think "God made me lucky", but whatever you believe, certainly output opens the gates to good fortune.
It is a tragic paradox that when we are depressed we do not have the ability to output the energy that will make changes in our lives and give us the return energy we so much need. On a very cynical note, I am driven to say that it is strange that "God" gives less to folks who are depressed than he does to those who thrive.... I wonder why this could be? Animal hierachy? People who are "down" deserve less? At least, one would have to say that if you can`t muster yourself to emit a positive energy, you block off God`s nature to help you! Reminds me of the old body-blow, "God helps those who help themselves" !!!!!!! And yet, hmmmmmmm, if we thought of our image of God, not as the religious construction that he is, but as light and positivity, good-energy and higher emotions, the fact that we snooker ourselves when we are depressed makes a lot of sense.
Anyhow, so let`s get back on track.....So caring about those at rest in the earth is at the top end of quality output? Why? We don`t know if they know we are doing it, we don`t know if they are grateful or have pleasure in heaven from seeing us bring our love to them, so why would I equate visiting a graveyard with taking your neighbour a bowl of fruit or giving someone a lift to Sainsbury`s? Hmmmmmmm...., it`s a profoundly sticky question. Is it something to do with eternal love?
I am continuing with this very soooooooooon. Hope to see you here!
Oh, and I`ll let you into a little secret ! After this blog the topic is
"Murder of God: is it moral?" Humanism wants God finished off. I want to talk about it. Will you help me out?
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