trenton

I just watched a video that helped me to confront some of my deep fears regarding religion. I have grown by watching this 30 minute documentary. Self reflection I tried to figure out why I was so scared of religion. I considered the possibility that I was projecting and I was in denial of the similarities I have with the people in this video. When visiting a variety of spiritual schools in the past, I recognized that I resonated with values such as truth or God. I still did not want to join any religion and this led to inner confusion and conflict. I paid attention to how spiritual truths could easily be used to manipulate people. These deeper truths are very effective at getting people radicalized because it can easily be mixed with falsehood in order to deceive people. While watching the people in this video, I saw how delusional people became. They became sucked into white nationalism. I realized that I could be slowly indoctrinated into a toxic ideology so long as it mixed deeper truths with it. I am now oddly peaceful because I recognize that I am susceptible ideological corruptions. I could be one of the people in this video. I could be extremist who becomes a suicide bomber. My fear is reduced and I have become more capable of love. Politics This video can be used to understand what we are up against in the United States. Some people will never be convinced that Trump lost the election. At least not easily. Trump ran on anti corruption. This is one of the few spots in which Trump supporters could be worked with. These people may support term limits, anti gerrymandering, potentially anti lobbying, and other anti corruption efforts. These Windows of opportunity could be used to slowly reprogram some people. If they are not reprogrammed completely, at least it would steer them away from the most toxic ideologies. If this fails, then we will need to wait for toxic worldviews to die off, allowing evolution to progress. Religion do you think there is anything that could be done to work with the dangerous religious ideologies? If they had the chance they would put the bible in every public school. I can't see any window of opportunity that would pull these people away from this. So far Satanists are keeping them back by arguing that their religion should be taught in public schools as well.

I found another site on anti slavery. https://www.freedomunited.org There are a lot of petitions on this site as well. I signed the one on antislavery.org. I hope this helps to raise awareness of this unknown issue. Do you think petitions like these should be spread? I am considering adding these sorts of things to facebook. I am trying to be careful not to do unconscious politics and turn this into a crusade. This makes me very unsure of myself because I don't know how else to approach this issue. I think I'm doing a good thing and I don't think there is harm in trying to free the slaves.

I have been doing a lot of research on modern slavery lately. It is not a well know issue. I think this is by design because of mankind were more conscious of how we are benefiting from people exploited for slave labor, then we would not be able to maintain our current way of life. Shining a light on this issue is consciousness healing. Slavery can only be maintained through unconsciousness. There are estimated to be as many as 40 million slaves around the world. 400,000 of them are victims of human trafficking in the United States. 80% of slaves in the U.S. are women and children and are most often used for sexual exploitation. This is hurt by the backwards laws and failures of the criminal justice system. Because police officers in many countries are not properly trained to deal with the mentally ill, victims of slavery often end up being punished instead of helped. Escaped slaves are deeply traumatized by what happened to them, and they often can't speak the language of the law enforcement. This is because human traffickers target people who can't report them. Human traffickers in the United States for example, use the fear of deportation on illegal immigrants in order to keep them from fleeing or talking to the police. This is why the United States can help the issue of slavery through several policy changes. The following site has recommendations. For example, child marriage is still legal in the United States, and it creates an environment for sexual abuse. The site recommends raising the minimum age of marriage to 18. https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/findings/country-studies/united-states/ I found another site from an international abolitionist movement. They have a petition to help get victims of slavery sufficient recovery from their abuse. This petition is in the UK, so I am not sure if it would take my name. Do you think we should sign petitions like these? https://www.antislavery.org/take-action/campaigns/protect-not-neglect/ Why I thought of this issue I am attempting to recapture the spirit of the original Republican party. The Republican party was originally formed to abolish slavery. I have been following the news and I have seen how corrupt the Republican party is. This party has degraded into the party of lawlessness and does not resemble the original Republican party at all. Republicans used to be radical leftists for trying to free the slaves. If the first republicans knew about modern slavery, they would be making posts like these. The United States benefits by importing electronics and clothing made from slave labor. I learned about a riot in an Apple factory located in India. The riot happened because workers were not being properly paid. Some people split hairs over wage theft vs. Slavery. In either case, the United States still benefits from importing goods created through exploitation. This riot is one thing that made me think of this. I am not sure about when people should try to address this less well known issue. There is currently a massive health pandemic and the vaccines have yet to be distributed. When do you think this issue should addressed?

I made a forum post about this in the government and politics section of you want to learn more.

I would like to add that nationalism can be used to deceive people. If you romanticize your own nation, this can be used to justify great evils as well. This is similar to religion because of the many falsehoods you could easily convince people of if you mix it with deeper truths. This is how appealing to a person's values may be more effective than actually making a logic argument. It demonstrates how deeply emotional the human psyche is, and it can easily be used to make us overlook toxic lies and hurt people. This is an interesting connection.

This makes a little bit more sense now. I found that to be a confusing analogy. I will attempt to put it in my own words. Shapiro attempted to use money to change the behavior of AOC. By doing this, it attempts to make AOC look like a sellout who can be bought. This is like soliciting prostitution because if a woman is desperate for money, she might be a whore for money. AOC is not a whore for money, so she compared the money offer to cat calling. Alternatively she could have compared it to soliciting prostitution, lobbying, or bribery. AOC was not referring to the challenge to a debate, it was the money offer. I didn't immediately make this connection. The sexist component of the analogy threw me off because sometimes terms like "mansplaining" are thrown around at inappropriate times. Shapiro would probably do this to men as well because of how normal he felt it was to offer money. I hope you don't feel like this was a waste of time, but I do better understand the situation now.

@Leo Gura AOC did. She likened his challenge to debate her to cat calling. Now when people call Shapiro a cat caller I am not sure if they are serious or not. There are several sites online about Ben Shapiro cat calling. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/nyregion/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-debate-catcalling-ben-shapiro.html

One argument I have against this is calling Shapiro a cat caller. I don't think he is a cat caller, and this gets thrown around a lot with little scrutiny. I recognize that he is very misleading, but I don't think of him as somebody saying "hey girl.". Shapiro is proud of himself for remaining a virgin until marriage. Have you checked this particular criticism of Shapiro?

@ilja I did finish the documentary. I found it very educational. This is an easily ignored issue because humans feel deeply ashamed when thinking about the cruelty toward animals. Humans feel happier avoiding the issue possibly thinking of it as a necessary evil. This is how people felt about slavery when they were in denial of how cruel the actions were.

@ilja If I were considering and random context, I would save the adult. The reasoning is that the adult should be more useful for survival. For example, a man is stronger than a boy. This is the same logic I use for saving a human instead of an ant. The ant is not useful for me, but the human is. Saving the human's life is good for my social survival. The human is not actually more valuable than the ant. In the event of child or adult, there is an interesting scenario. I would choose to kill the adult if he raped or murdered children. That would be considered justice. The problem is that he could have murdered a child because the adult was more useful for his survival. I can't really kill adults for child abuse anymore because the utilitarian argument for saving the adult demonstrates my hypocrisy. I can't really choose what being should live or die without a bias. This bias is used to assign values which are fundamentally false. The ant is not really less valuable than the human unless you are biased toward a specific quality or only considering human survival. These biases come out in the form of sadism in slaughter houses.

I have suicidal thoughts related to a difficult situation I used to be in. After my grandfather died, my step father moved in. He was abusive for about 5 years before finally being evicted. My money was stolen, he punched mom in the face yelling "stupid fucking whore," and destroyed the house. Meanwhile, mom blew money on drugs and lied to all of her children constantly. She told me to stay out of everything that was happening and focus on myself. She told me that there was nothing I could do, but I refused to accept what would continue had I done nothing. I did not listen to her because I did not my step father to hurt her. She tried calling the police multiple times and they did nothing. While considering suicide, I sometimes told myself "I don't care.". I recognized that these words were not congruent with my actions because I acted like I cared about the safety of my family. By recognizing that this was a lie, I was unable to convince myself to kill myself. I continue to have suicidal thoughts because of how I handled this difficult situation. I felt that I was powerless, but refused to accept the situation. I now have thoughts of killing myself because in the process I became addicted to anger. I told myself I should hold onto it because there is otherwise nothing I can do. I hurt myself a lot in the process. When directing this anger toward my step father I considering killing him or myself. I noticed that my thoughts stopped making sense when considering killing him. This is similar to murderers whose motives can't be understood because they sound perplexing when explaining What they were thinking. This could be a consequence of lying. What happened actually is that I moved out of the house and in with my grandma where I live today. I then made a power point presentation for language studies. I explained everything I had planned and the entire situation at home. I did this because I knew that my mom and sister could still be hurt if I did nothing. I put the subtitles in English and translated it Spanish for about 100 people from many different language courses. My older sister thinks I'm inconsiderate because my younger sister continued going to school with everybody knowing what was happening in her house. I knew I could not calculate all of the consequences of my actions, so I followed my intuition. If mom is forced to be checked for drugs, the situation at home can't be kept out of the courts forever. My society would have the power to change the situation and potentially prevent my family from being hurt anymore. Eventually my step father was evicted and more students at school started writing about domestic violence. How should I approach the strong emotions surrounding this situation? I am having a lot of strong reactions during my meditations and I have a hard time handling them. "I hate myself" is still a repeating thought. I don't feel like changing the situation made me happier.

@BipolarGrowth I had a very limited control over the situation described. The only thing I could have done was call the police on my mother, father, or step father. Without that I could barely do anything without resorting to convoluted plans which set off a series of reactions ultimately benefiting the family. As for metal illness, I try to stay away from this topic because this website does not want to see it. Since it may be relevant here, I am on the functional end of autism spectrum disorder. I am also taking anxiety pills which my doctor said is probably linked to racing thoughts and autism. I usually avoid judging others harshly. I don't apply this to myself because I want myself to be better.

@Javfly33 good question. This is harder than I thought. Hating myself either means I am disgusted with my past motives of I dislike the trajectory of my life given a current pattern. This pattern can include hating myself as a counter productive active. A major component of hating myself is a failure to live up to my ideals of who I should be. I don't like it when I engage in petty squabbles in which I try to get people to see my way because it benefits me. It sounds like I think I'm supposed to be peaceful and self aware enough to not shift the blame to other people. Some of this formed because I thought my family was a terrible example for me when I was a child and I didn't want to be like them. I also think that my life should be more significant than it actually is. When I see myself as insignificant, it can lead to suicidal thoughts if I don't matter and my talents are completely under utilized. If I am unable to prove myself worthy in my own eyes then I hate myself. This is supposed to stop me from getting comfortable with mediocrity. In this way hatred is supposed to be good. So far im better off without it.

@snowyowl I am talking to a professional every Monday. I write about things that could cause suicidal thoughts. This site has also been helpful in many other emotional problems. The combination has made my suicidal thoughts slow down. Thank you and the others on this site for their help.

I noticed some similarities I have with white separatists and grammar Nazis. These people insist on something being done one way while resisting evolution. It is a fruitless battle because evolution does not stop because I don't like it. "Ain't" is now a word in the dictionary and the white race can't be separated forever. In my case I noticed sentimentality with video games. Speed runners broke the game and are not playing it the way intended. I'm not the only one who feels disappointed by this. I nevertheless would rather enjoy the effort people put into beating games as fast as possible. some people try 10,000 times before they get a world record speedrun. Purist thinking is similar to conservatism. The objective is to maintain the status quo. This is a form of collective homeostasis. This idea of keeping things the way they are is meant to serve our survival. Why do I resist a better way though? Especially when it is clearly good. Other examples include "I didn't get student debt forgiveness.". " this is how our ancestors did it. ". "This ideology or religion is true and any change to it is a corruption." " Psychedelics are invalid because enlightenment is not a state. ". " Don't kill the penny. " "save our history."(sentimentality), How should I approach my sentimentality toward evolution? Can I stop thinking of the death of the old way as a bad thing? Have you noticed your own purist thinking?

@Raze thanks for telling me that. There are many other art works destroyed by the Taliban. maybe this was just to destroy other cultures rather than to promote Islam.

First of all Leo made a video on Islam. Secondly, as for my opinion, I will start with my direct experience with Islam. I went to Washington D.C. and met a Muslim family. I feel sorry for Muslim women because it was a very hot summer day. Her big black dress was making her sweaty, and she could not tolerate walking around like that. Eventually she ran out of the elevator frustrated and her husband, who was dressed much more lightly, chased after her. I then continued my vacation. One thing I don't like about Islam is the fact that women are not allowed to wear lighter clothing when it is 100 degrees outside. They could be hurt by heat strokes walking around like that. My next experience loosely related to Islam was my conversation with a Mormon. I used what I learned in AP art history when I studied different religions and their art work. We both made comparisons to other religions to see the similarities. I discovered that modern religion is aware of the deep similarities it has with other religions. We discussed paradise, nirvana, and heaven. Further comparisons were prayer and mediation, and Yahweh, Allah, teotle, and others, and the true self, no self, and Self. Mormons acknowledge some validity in Islam which is helpful for spiral dynamics stage blue by resolving xenophobia and violence caused by religious bigotry. Speaking of violence caused by religious bigotry, according to my art history class, there are Muslim terrorists destroying the art work of other cultures. Their idea is that if they destroy a cultures history, they have no power and no force to unify their people. It is pretty dark. They don't speak English in the video. Just remember that terrorists are not representative of all of Islam. The vast majority of them are peaceful and in some Muslim cultures they are very welcoming of visitors. Most victims of Muslim terrorism are themselves Muslims, but with a different interpretation. In less developed parts of the world, I hope that there is some way to resolve these disputes without needing one faction of Islam to win out over the others in order to create a unified people. The violence that is motivated by Islam is a dispute over who the descendants of Muhammad were. I am agnostic on this issue, but extremists seem to know how to tell who the descendants were.

@Leo Gura I heard that the Reddit users are at it again in other parts of the market, not just GameStop. This market manipulation is happening constantly. I would love clarification about what would happen if these Reddit stunts continued. Do you think it could cause many economic recessions, or even a depression? If these stunts continue, how could it hurt me? Is there anything that can be done to stop these stunts? They seem to happening too fast. Meanwhile, plots like the Reddit users could pop up all over the internet, over a phone, ect. It does not look like they can be stopped fast enough.

@Leo Gura I am very curious. Why is it that you make so many comparisons to rapists? You make these comparisons in many threads. How can you tell when rape is a valid analogy?

I think the United States needs a third viable political party. I have some ideas as to how this could happen. First 38% of American voters identify as independent. This could occur when people are dissatisfied with both democrats and republicans. During the presidential elections American voters often feel like they are trying to choose the lesser of two evils. If they get sick of this pattern, it could give rise to the third party. I remember trump ran on anti corruption in 2016 seeking term limits, but did not deliver. Seeing how anti corruption is a bipartisan issue, it could unify the third party under a common cause, similar to the Republican party being created to abolish slavery. The goal of this party would be an anti corruption amendment to the constitution. In order to help a party like this again power, a coalition between many independent parties would be useful. In other counties this is how a party with the most votes could lose because of coalition of other parties that add up to more. One example of a coalition being attempted is in Spain. One it's own, one independent party does not have a chance of gaining significant influence. The only way to do that would be through a massive coalition untied to create an anti-corruption amendment.

I have been dealing with this problem for a long time sense before discovering this website. I am still struggling to end the fear surrounding the implications that my entire worldview and sense of reality is maintained through self deception. It means I lie more than I consciously comprehend. This problem of self deception has bothered me since I was eight when I tried to lie to myself by white washing my memories so I could accept a false version of myself. This means that I don't really love myself at all. I then struggled to love myself, but ended up being very anxious the whole time. It lead to racing thoughts, fear of my own thoughts, and self hatred. One problem I ran into is that I said that I would not let myself lie to myself because I was afraid of what would be exposed if I did lie to myself. My life becomes a challenge to convince myself that I am not self deceived in order to avoid confronting my biggest fear. My entire worldview is a defense mechanism. This fear comes up when I contemplate ideology. I see Christian vs. Muslims, science vs. Religion, democrats vs. Republicans, and so forth. People hate each other and end up killing each other. I was drawn to religion a lot as a child. I couldn't tell what drew me towards it, but I didn't like the prospects of locking myself in a narrow worldview without the freedom to explore many perspectives until I die while putting on an act of being religious while hating people who make me doubt my decisions. I am now 22 and I have still yet to resolve this intense fear. I think my life could be amazing if I could resolve this issue somehow. I think I do pretty good at not hating other people. The problem is that I direct it inwards when I detect a quality about myself which I constantly struggle to change. In this thread I hope I can clarify what is the exact quality about myself I want to change, and what do I want to change it to? My main question is how do I stop any inner turmoil associated with relativism and all implications which follow relativism?

@Mu_ my understanding of relativism is that my world view is imaginary, very partial, and false. All beliefs are false from the point of view that my real goal is survival, and I must convince myself that my beliefs are objective. In this way I would be lying. As for what role I am playing, it is very significant. I want to hurt myself. There is an underlying pleasure in many inner conflicts. One example is where I tell myself I am lying in order to make me less effective at it which I view as an improvement. I know that hating myself fuels the fire further and it is the point of beating myself up. I get disgusted with myself to the point that I struggle to admit all of this to myself. It leads to suicidal thoughts when blame myself. Blaming myself also leads to an underlying pleasure. I don't know what to do with this part of me. I wasn't sure if I should put this in serious emotional problems or spirituality. This should probably be moved.

@BipolarGrowth that is pretty accurate and helpful. You are bringing up the lie that I should not lie. The goal of this lie is to convince me that I am not lying. If I am not lying, then I am not self deceived, therefore I can trust myself. Less self deception is useful for understanding what reality is actually like, as a lie would be an inaccurate representation of reality. I don't know any human being who was ever free from self deception entirely. I would probably have to die. I don't want to beat myself up for being alive.

@Leo Gura I mentioned that most of them were actually overwhelmed by the attackers and that the double standard is with some police. I'm aware of the poor framing in BLM saying "all cops are racist" which is a racist way of thinking. What I am trying to say is that in the BLM protests the police arrested and killed for less. One counter argument is that these protesters were not actually treated worse because there were many protests across the nation, so it is likely that there would be more violence. It is possible that my community is framing the issue in completely the wrong way again. Do you think it is fair to say that BLM would have been treated worse for doing the same thing as the maga rioters? At the very least, maybe fewer officers would have been sympathetic.

Wow. Those police officers did nothing. It is completely fair to say BLM would have been treated worse. There is an obvious double standard with some police even though most of them were actually overwhelmed by the attackers.