BELIEF SYSTEMS AND ETC.

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BELIEF SYSTEMS AND ETC.

Post by LostNFound »

Hello to everyone,

I would like to start this thread and hopefully have some lively conversations regarding this topic. I am not sure if this topic has seen the light of day fully in other threads. I have seen this particular phrase used and perhaps discussed with regards to a particular thread elsewhere. I am calling this “BELIEF SYSTEMS” although I am sure there are many other systems of human kind that can be discussed. Just to name a few, POLITICAL SYSTEMS, KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS. SCIENCE SYSTEMS AND ETC. These all can be discussed as they surely do fit into human kind as we know it today. I would say that these systems have been around for along time.

In all my readings, research and searching I have seen these thoughts of one system or another in all peoples. Religious and Political systems appear to be the most widely known beliefs along with faith based feelings and thoughts. Certainly I would say that all of these have contentions simply because of individual thought and each human thinks differently. Now when one man or such manages to convince others to join his one thought then we see the group mentality form and with that, start’s the worship of the one and control over others or other things. The religious belief systems have widely varying degrees and certainly there are many, many different beliefs all started by a single human or perhaps a few. So to get this started I will post at least the definitions of a Belief system as I have found. There may be other definitions but I think that they all may a common read.


WHAT ARE BELIEF SYSTEMS?
J.L. Usó-Doménech and J. Nescolarde-Selva
Department of Applied Mathematics. University of Alicante. Alicante. Spain.

In beliefs we live, we move and we are […] the beliefs constitute the base of our life, the land on which
we live […] All our conduct, including the intellectual life, depends on the system of our authentic beliefs.
In them […] lies latent, as implications of whatever specifically we do or we think […] the man, at heart,
is believing or, which is equal, the deepest stratum of our life, the spirit that maintains and carries all the
others, is formed by beliefs…(Ortega y Gasset)

We know that the human being is a social animal. This is a common fact. Moreover, the
human being is defined as a rational being. It is clear and nobody can deny that human
creations include logic, mathematics, philosophy, science, and jurisprudence. These are
all products of rationality or abstract thought. Nevertheless, human sociability goes
further that the sociability of an animal herd. Societies were founded, cohere, develop,
degenerate and die based on their belief systems. Reason cannot prove the beliefs it is
based upon. Beliefs arise through experience. Experience need previous beliefs and
reason to be assimilated, and reason needs experience to be formed, as beliefs need
reason as well. Beliefs, reason and experience, are based upon each other. Context is
dynamic, and formed upon beliefs, reason and experience. This where relative
understanding lies. As relative understanding is independent of our context, it is also
dependent on our beliefs, reasoning, and experiences. Contexts are dynamic because
they are changing constantly as we have new experiences and change our beliefs and
our ways of reasoning.

The use of the term "belief system" can be highly confusing. Psychologists, political
scientists and anthropologists tend to use the term in rather different senses. There is
some network of interrelated concepts and propositions at varying levels of generality,
and there are some processes by which a human or a computer accesses and manipulates
that knowledge under current activating circumstances and/or in the service of particular
current purposes. Belief systems are structures of norms that are interrelated and that
vary mainly in the degree in which they are systemic. What is systemic in the Belief
system is the interrelation between several beliefs. What features warrant calling this
stored body of concepts a belief system? Belief systems are the stories we tell ourselves
to define our personal sense of Reality. Every human being has a belief system that
they utilize, and it is through this mechanism that we individually, "make sense" of the
world around us. Perceived Reality is constructed by means of systems of signs, being
affected and being changed by means of Belief systems. A subject cannot understand a
sign without talking about to a system that is learned socially and that allows him to
make sense of perception. In the same way, the classification of signs in closed
typologies can be deceptive, since the status of the sign depends strongly on the form in
which the sign is used within the Belief system. A significant can nevertheless be iconic
in a belief context and, to be symbolic in another context. From these we can see that
people are capable of constructing all manner of individual beliefs by which they tell
stories about how the world works. As humans, we tend to use all these belief systems
to varying degrees to cope with events in our lives. Ultimately we need the world to
make sense at some level. Therefore, those areas where that "sense of reality" is most
challenged will tend to be the areas in which the most controversies exist.

2 Moreover, these signs are not rational. The species Homo sapiens developed so-called
belief systems. These are sets of beliefs reinforced by culture, theology, and experience
and training as to how the world works cultural values, stereotypes, political viewpoints,
etc. Beliefs are often considered as convictions or as religious beliefs, but as scientists,
there are also philosophical beliefs relating to the sphere of daily life. If a stimulus is
received, it may be interpreted through the belief system to be whatever the belief
system might lead the recipient to rationalize. A belief system need have no basis in
reality so long as it consistently provides adequate explanations. It takes us to define a
human being like Homo religious.

1. CHARACTERISTICS OF BELIEF SYSTEMS
Belief system has the appropriate properties, and through them social significance.
Some characteristics of belief systems are:

1) Personal commitment is one of most observable and interesting features of an
ideology. If it were not for the fact of personal commitment, belief systems
could not have strong social consequences, and it has not interesting the study
of social systems.

2) Belief systems have an existence that is independent of the believers who
experienced the commitment. The believers do not contain the belief system; in
fact, he is unlikely to be aware of more than a small part of it and, knowingly or
unknowingly, he must take the rest of the belief system on faith.

3) Psychological mechanisms such as cognitive congruence may help explain
individual commitment, but they do not necessarily explain the connectedness
of a belief system in human society.

4) The life span of a belief system is potentially longer than the life span of
believers.

5) Belief systems vary almost infinitely in substantive content.

6) The boundaries of a belief system are generally, although not always,
undefined. Collections of beliefs do not generally have neat boundaries unless.

7) The elements (concepts, propositions, rules, etc.) of a belief system are not
consensual. That is, the elements of one system might be quite different from
those of a second in the same content domain. And a third system different from
both. Individual differences of this kind do not generally characterize ordinary
knowledge systems, except insofar as one might want to represent differences in
capability or complexity. Belief systems may also vary in complexity, but the
most distinctive variation is conceptual variation at a roughly comparable level
of complexity. An interesting sidelight on the consensuality question is whether
a belief system is "aware," in some sense, that alternative constructions are
possible. For cognitive science, the point of this little discussion is that
nonconsensuality should somehow be exploited if belief systems are to be
interesting in their own right as opposed to knowledge systems. Belief systems
often appear to have clear boundaries when the separation is really between
social groups.

8) Belief systems are in part concerned with the existence or nonexistence of
certain conceptual entities. God, motherland, witches, and assassination
conspiracies are examples of such entities. This feature of belief systems is
essentially a special case of the nonconsensuality feature. To insist that some
entity exists implies an awareness of others who believe it does not exist.
Moreover, these entities are usually central organizing categories in the belief
system, and as such, they may play an unusual role which is not typically to be
found in the concepts of straight knowledge systems.

9) Belief systems often include representations of alternative worlds, typically the
world as it is and the world as it should be. Revolutionary or Utopian belief
systems especially have this character. The world must be changed in order to
achieve an idealized state, and discussions of such change must elaborate how
present reality operates deficiently, and what political, economic, social (etc.)
factors must be manipulated in order to eliminate the deficiencies.

10) Belief systems rely heavily on evaluative and affective components. There are
two aspects-to this, one 'cognitive; "the other "motivational." Belief system
typically has large categories of concepts defined in one way or another as
themselves "good" or "bad," or as leading to good or bad. These polarities,
which exert a strong organizing influence on other concepts within the system,
may have a very dense network of connections rare in ordinary knowledge
systems. From a formal point of view, however, the concepts of "good" and
"bad" might for all intents and purposes be treated as cold cognitive categories
just like any other categories of a knowledge system.

11) Belief systems are likely to include a substantial amount of episodic material
from either personal experience or (for cultural belief systems) from folklore or
(for political doctrines) from propaganda.

12) The content set to be included in a belief system is usually highly "open." That
is, it is unclear where to draw a boundary around the belief system, excluding as
irrelevant concepts lying outside. This is especially true if personal episodic
material is important in the system. Consider, for example, a parental belief
system about the irresponsibility and ingratitude of the modem generation of
youth. Suppose, as might very well be the case, that central to this system is a
series of hurtful episodes involving the believer's own children. For these
episodes to be intelligible, it would be necessary for the system to contain
information about these particular children, about their habits, their
development, their friends, where the family lived at the time, and so on. And
one would have to have similar conceptual amplification about the "self" of the
believer.

13) Beliefs can be held with varying degrees of certitude. The believer can be
passionately committed to a point of view, or at the other extreme could regard
a state of affairs as more probable than not. This dimension of variation is
absent from knowledge systems. One would not say that one knew a fact
strongly. There exist some examples of attempts to model variable credences or
"'confidence weights" of beliefs and how these change as a function of new
information. A distinction should be made between the certitude attaching to a
single belief and the strength of attachment to a large system of beliefs.


2. ELEMENTS OF BELIEF SYSTEMS
The following elements are listed in the order that would be logically required for the
understanding a first approach of a belief system. This does not imply priority in value
or in causal or historical sense.
1) Values. Implicitly or explicitly, belief systems define what is good or valuable.
Ideal values tend to be abstract summaries of the behavioral attributes which
social system rewards, formulated after the fact. Social groups think of
themselves, however, as setting out to various things in order to implement their
values. Values are perceived as a priori, when they are in fact a posteriori to
action. Having abstracted an ideal value from social experience, a social group
may then reverse the process by deriving a new course of action from the
principle. At the collective level of social structure, this is analogous to the
capacity for abstract thought in individual subjects and allows great (or not)
flexibility in adapting to events. Concrete belief systems often substitute
observable social events for the immeasurable abstract ideal values to give the
values in fact immediate social utility.

2) Substantive beliefs (Sb). They are the more important and basic beliefs of a
belief system. Statements such as: all the power for the people, God exists,
Black is Beautiful, and so on, comprise the actual content of the belief systems
and may take almost any form. For the believers, substantive beliefs are the
focus of interest.

3) Orientation. The believer may assume the existence of a framework of
assumptions around his thought, it may not actually exist. The orientation he
shares with other believers may be illusory. For example, consider almost any
politic and sociologic belief system. Such system evolves highly detailed and
highly systematic doctrines long after they come into existence and that they
came into existence of rather specific substantive beliefs. Believers interact,
share specific consensuses, and give themselves a specific name: Marxism,
socialism, Nazism, etc. Then, professionals of this belief system work out an
orientation, logic, sets of criteria of validity, and so forth.

4) Language. It is the logic of a belief system. Language L of a belief system is the
logical rules which relate one substantive1 belief to another within the belief
system. Language must be inferred from regularities in the way of a set of
substantives beliefs in the way a set of beliefs is used. The language will be
implicit, and it may not be consistently applied. Let Sb be a substantive belief.
We propose the following rules of generation of belief systems:

formula given to follow in edit

Argument is formed by the sum of two characteristics: hypothesis, that is to say,
so that this physical and social reality? And goal: as we want is this society to
reach its "perfection" (utopia).
1 Substantive beliefs constitute the axioms of the system, while many of derived beliefs will constitute
their theorems.

5) Perspective. Perspective of a belief system or their cognitive map is the set of
conceptual tools. Central in most perspectives is some statement of where the
belief system and/or social group that carries it stands in relation to other things,
specially nature, social events or other social groups. Are we equals? Enemies?
Rulers? Friends? Perspective as description of the social environment is a
description of the social group itself, and the place of each individual in it. The
perspective may be stated as a myth. It explains not only who subjects are and
how subjects came to be in cognitive terms, but also why subject exist in terms
of ideal values. Meaning and identification are provided along with cognitive
orientation.

6) Prescriptions and proscriptions. This includes action alternatives or policy
recommendations as well as deontical norms for behavior. Historical examples
of prescriptions are the Marx’s Communist Manifesto, the Lenin’s What is To Be
Done or the Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Deontical norms represent the cleanest
connection between the abstract idea and the concrete applied belief because
they refer to behavior that is observable. They are the most responsive
conditions in being directly carried by the social group through the mechanisms
of social reward and punishment.

7) Ideological Technology. Every belief system contains associated beliefs
concerning means to attain ideal values. Some such associated beliefs concern
the subjective legitimacy or appropriateness of d-significances, while others
concern only the effectiveness of various d-significances. For example, political
activists and organizational strategy and tactics are properly called technology of
the belief system. Ideological Technology is the associated beliefs and material
tools providing means for the immediate or far (Utopia) goals of a belief system.
Ideological Technology is not used to justify or validated other elements of a
belief system, although the existence of ideological technologies may limit
alternative among substantive beliefs. Ideological Technology commands less
commitment from believers than do the other elements. A change in Ideological
Technology (strategy) may be responsible for changes in logical prior elements
of a belief system. Ideological Technology, like belonging to Structural Base
and having a series of prescriptions concerning doing can influence the life
conditions of believers, thus forcing an adaptation in the belief system itself.
Eurocomunism in Western Europe gives to a good historical example.
Ideological Technology may become symbolic and it can cause of more
fundamental differences between belief systems and, therefore, a source of
conflict. Conflicts between anarchists and Communists in the Spanish Civil War
or the ideas of Trotsky and those of Stalin in the USSR are examples of it. Much
blood has been shed between Muslims and Hindus over the fact that their
religions have different dietary restrictions (deontical prohibitions).


3. CONCLUSIONS
Conflict between two groups, including war, may be defined as a battle between beliefs
Systems. Symbols emerge strongly in such conflicts: they may be revered objects as
stones, writings, buildings, flags or badges; whatever they may be, they may symbolize
the central core of belief system. When people become symbols, the real person may
become obscured behind the projected symbolic image or person. Organizations
develop their own in-house culture and belief system, too, which leads them to act and
behave in ways that might not seem entirely rational to an outsider.

Then: a) Conflicts are not over Ideological Technology but over what symbolizes technological difference.

b) Substantive beliefs are understood only in terms of ideal values, criteria of validity,
language and perspective.

c) Believer is usually better able to verbalize substantive
beliefs than he is values, criteria, logical principles or orientation, which is apt to be the
unquestioned bases from which he proceeds.

d) Ideal values, criteria of validity, language and perspective may have been built up around a substantive belief to give it
significance and justification.
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Re: BELIEF SYSTEMS AND ETC.

Post by Sandy Clark »

What is it you wish to discuss about belief systems??

Many are highly unaware of what they truly believe, due to not understanding, knowing and priortizing their values.

Once one investigates their personal values and can identify and priorize a list of the top 5 or so values they can then begin to define the value of many a belief system they were indoctrinated into, act out; but truly do not value.
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Re: BELIEF SYSTEMS AND ETC.

Post by LostNFound »

Well just to begin, discussing the different belief systems and what they may entail is good. I have looked at the Religious belief systems and find that there are at least 80 or more different religions in this world and I come to understand that new ones are created almost daily or so it would seem. There are different sects within each main system. in other words offshoots. I think this happens with the other belief systems such as the Political and the science and so much more. It would be quit interesting to explore just one of the offshoots and move on to others and give explanations of how, what, why and where these systems are created. Just some of the places to explore and give a thought to.

I see where you are coming from with the fact or finding that many are highly unaware of what they truly believe, because they or we may not understand our lives and possibly have not found or care to know who we really are. Prioritizing our values should come at some time in each of our lives but here again what those values may be can be something totally different for each and every one of us.

So to say that to investigate our personal values and take store of who we are, what we really believe and where we may be going is then the hard come to see, to understand. And again to set values of ones life and walk a road that keeps one moving with conviction to those values may be the personal belief system that the individual chooses. There are always those changes to everything or just some of what one may believe that cause a different road or path to follow. I can post a bunch of religious beliefs and each one can be explored to find common threads or not. So just to bring up other belief systems that exist to we as humans and follow the beginning and movement of their life as it affects the people can give a healthy understanding within itself.

Steven
Last edited by LostNFound on Mon Jul 10, 2017 4:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: BELIEF SYSTEMS AND ETC.

Post by Christine »

I have this quote framed sitting on our kitchen shelf, it is a constant reminder of all that is needed is to let go of barriers and thought constructs (belief systems) that keep us from our true self. Undoubtedly this paring away of the multiple layers of deception can be a painful process, as they say the only way out is through.

These past few days have been a trial in many ways, as I wrote about the gap we are transiting from the known to the unknown seemed to peak with the latest full moon. Our cages are being rattled by the seismic universal tide.

Image
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The journey, the challenge is to step into the
projection room and stop being lost in the script.
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Re: BELIEF SYSTEMS AND ETC.

Post by Anders »

I recently heard someone mention in a video the reason for why people cling to belief systems. Unfortunately I don't remember who said it. He said that the reason people latch onto belief systems is because without them people become confused which is very uncomfortable for them.

I think that's precisely correct. We have been heavily socially conditioned to use belief systems to cover up our confusion. And this has made it easy for authorities to control people. Those who socially engineer the masses know that people have lots of confusion inside and it's an easy task to make people adopt what experts and other authorities tell them to believe.

Of course beneath the belief systems our confusion still remains. But since belief systems often can produce an artificial sense of meaning, which even can act as a practically functioning framework for organizing society, we make them our own to the point of even defending them. One cure is to recognize that: Hey, wait a minute, this belief system that I have adopted, how do I know that it's actually true? To paraphrase Byron Katie: Am I sure this belief system is true? Am I absolutely sure that this belief system is true?
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Re: BELIEF SYSTEMS AND ETC.

Post by LostNFound »

Yes Anders, as a human being we are conditioned from birth in one belief system or another. I suspect that at even at birth this may be in play. I surely do not remember being born so the only knowledge I may have is someone telling me that I was born and having some sort of fraudulent document that says something to that effect. Our bodies do retain all physical and mental experiences but as you have stated we may have to cover or hide those experiences/confusions with a belief system of some sort. However there is this,


In beliefs we live, we move and we are […] the beliefs constitute the base of our life, the land on which
we live […] All our conduct, including the intellectual life, depends on the system of our authentic beliefs.
In them […] lies latent, as implications of whatever specifically we do or we think […] the man, at heart,
is believing or, which is equal, the deepest stratum of our life, the spirit that maintains and carries all the
others, is formed by beliefs…(Ortega y Gasset)

So I wonder, even if we become totally aware of whatever belief system we live in and strive to find other truth from that one, do we not just create another one with different values and ideas that may fit into our thoughts for the new one? Yes there are the power structures that continually force the belief systems on the masses to control starting from the highest order down to the lowest ameba that is given just some power for wealth and other weird pretenses to control. So we strive, we believe in all sorts of things to rise above the cess pool of this manufactured life from the cradle to the grave. Even great men, poets, mystics and the ones that show us the better ways of love and life, seem to carry a strong belief system. We can study, we can research, we can shed our out casings like snakes but in that respect we just grow a new one and what new belief system do we take on then?

I fell to the ground after the war and lay on my back day and night, Just to feel the world move beneath me, just to watch the lights above move as the world spun. I felt my soul, my spirit move deep within my being I shed so many belief systems then and gained new ones but something did open a door or more in my infinite mind. I could continue to tell you of the different systems I have come to know and how within those very systems I have gained a greater knowledge. Always the one value that remains is love, love of self, love of life, love of all those around me. Is that the constant we can see with an open mind, we can feel with a healing heart? All of this is just deeper questions and moving through as Christine gave whisper of above may be the knob to turn to open more doors

I will tell of some of the belief systems I have wandered through in another post.
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Re: BELIEF SYSTEMS AND ETC.

Post by Anders »

LostNFound wrote: So I wonder, even if we become totally aware of whatever belief system we live in and strive to find other truth from that one, do we not just create another one with different values and ideas that may fit into our thoughts for the new one?
That's a good point. Even if we start to recognize that false belief systems have been programmed into us by authorities, we tend to replace them with other belief systems, such as rejecting mainstream ones and adopting alternative beliefs.

So actually it's the mechanism behind that tendency that needs to be revealed. Confusion is really bad, but actually adopting new beliefs only hides the confusion, unless we have dealt with it directly.

When I started to learn about conspiracy theories and stuff I started to change my beliefs several times. I have found a willingness to let go of old beliefs useful, and to only defend them via objective reasoning rather than to refuse to let go out of fear of losing face.

Nowadays I sometimes go to extremes just to shake up my own mind. For example, are vitamins really healthy? Who knows? Maybe we have been lied to, or mainstream science has made a mistake. What if vitamins are a sign of disease in the body?
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Re: BELIEF SYSTEMS AND ETC.

Post by maggie »

Anders wrote:
LostNFound wrote: So I wonder, even if we become totally aware of whatever belief system we live in and strive to find other truth from that one, do we not just create another one with different values and ideas that may fit into our thoughts for the new one?
That's a good point. Even if we start to recognize that false belief systems have been programmed into us by authorities, we tend to replace them with other belief systems, such as rejecting mainstream ones and adopting alternative beliefs.

So actually it's the mechanism behind that tendency that needs to be revealed. Confusion is really bad, but actually adopting new beliefs only hides the confusion, unless we have dealt with it directly.

When I started to learn about conspiracy theories and stuff I started to change my beliefs several times. I have found a willingness to let go of old beliefs useful, and to only defend them via objective reasoning rather than to refuse to let go out of fear of losing face.

Nowadays I sometimes go to extremes just to shake up my own mind. For example, are vitamins really healthy? Who knows? Maybe we have been lied to, or mainstream science has made a mistake. What if vitamins are a sign of disease in the body?
Anders, I can relate to what you are saying about testing oneself at extremes. Vitamins affirm that we acknowledge a lack of nutrition certainly. The one place I really enjoy talking to others is about what they DO believe and seeing what effect it has on the person. I don't have to divulge that my main "belief" is that belief is a mold that takes energy and spits out experience.

I agree with THE MANY MANY MANY different people who like William Buhlman who after 40+ years of researching his experience when consciously separated from the body affirms

“Your thoughts shape and mold the energy around you. You hold the power of creation in every thought.”
― William Buhlman, Adventures in the Afterlife

I am just complete and finished with pondering that this is possibly All (100%) there is (in all finite playground of material reflection from the gross to the fine) resulting in what we experience at any moment any "where". (period placed with emphasis)

The limbs of belief like fractal thought branches are attached to a trunk of the believer (me).
Only I can prune the shape of the "system" of my application.
What I observe is that to have discordant disconnected "beliefs" does not build much.
One day all is well and the next it is hell (my favorite polar distinction at this time as they rhyme hehe)

I am just interested now in application because the time to piffle and waffle is past
"Now what"?
Being that I COULD believe anything, why would I believe anything that I would not choose for me?
THAT IMO is the whole point of experiences which feedback... so we KNOW what we HAVE chosen was just a mistaken idea that can be changed.

beyond vehicles and constructs there is consciousness...this is still one of the best lectures for me to review:

[youtube]https://youtu.be/c2j8Vh3UzJI[/youtube]
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Re: BELIEF SYSTEMS AND ETC.

Post by LostNFound »

maggie wrote:
Anders wrote:
LostNFound wrote: So I wonder, even if we become totally aware of whatever belief system we live in and strive to find other truth from that one, do we not just create another one with different values and ideas that may fit into our thoughts for the new one?
That's a good point. Even if we start to recognize that false belief systems have been programmed into us by authorities, we tend to replace them with other belief systems, such as rejecting mainstream ones and adopting alternative beliefs.

So actually it's the mechanism behind that tendency that needs to be revealed. Confusion is really bad, but actually adopting new beliefs only hides the confusion, unless we have dealt with it directly.

When I started to learn about conspiracy theories and stuff I started to change my beliefs several times. I have found a willingness to let go of old beliefs useful, and to only defend them via objective reasoning rather than to refuse to let go out of fear of losing face.

Nowadays I sometimes go to extremes just to shake up my own mind. For example, are vitamins really healthy? Who knows? Maybe we have been lied to, or mainstream science has made a mistake. What if vitamins are a sign of disease in the body?
Anders, I can relate to what you are saying about testing oneself at extremes. Vitamins affirm that we acknowledge a lack of nutrition certainly. The one place I really enjoy talking to others is about what they DO believe and seeing what effect it has on the person. I don't have to divulge that my main "belief" is that belief is a mold that takes energy and spits out experience.

I agree with THE MANY MANY MANY different people who like William Buhlman who after 40+ years of researching his experience when consciously separated from the body affirms

“Your thoughts shape and mold the energy around you. You hold the power of creation in every thought.”
― William Buhlman, Adventures in the Afterlife

I am just complete and finished with pondering that this is possibly All (100%) there is (in all finite playground of material reflection from the gross to the fine) resulting in what we experience at any moment any "where". (period placed with emphasis)

The limbs of belief like fractal thought branches are attached to a trunk of the believer (me).
Only I can prune the shape of the "system" of my application.
What I observe is that to have discordant disconnected "beliefs" does not build much.
One day all is well and the next it is hell (my favorite polar distinction at this time as they rhyme hehe)

I am just interested now in application because the time to piffle and waffle is past
"Now what"?
Being that I COULD believe anything, why would I believe anything that I would not choose for me?
THAT IMO is the whole point of experiences which feedback... so we KNOW what we HAVE chosen was just a mistaken idea that can be changed.

beyond vehicles and constructs there is consciousness...this is still one of the best lectures for me to review:

[youtube]https://youtu.be/c2j8Vh3UzJI[/youtube]

Maggie, very interesting video. I also ponder about this just being all 100% of what there is. I think that the finite is only what we have capped in a current belief system. I certainly have seen through out my short time within this illusion we wander in that busting the falsity of one belief system only to begin another or perhaps add to the first one in more satisfactory ways to continue perhaps to bury the confusion that threatens to surface we may be producing new and better ways of our individual selves to continue in this finite place never knowing that there is really just infinity but hoping and praying within another belief system of religion.

So certainly we as individuals come to learn and understand the false hopes or belief systems and choose something more suitable perhaps that we can maybe see through the looking glass. Pruning the limbs as you say is an ongoing part of our individual existence I think.

Now just to mention this William Buhlman, he did say that his first OBE or astral travel was around 1972. I would have to wonder if he may have been taking LSD at that time and perhaps that could have been the beginning of his journey to get to the point of where he is today. I did read about a near death experience he went through in 2010 and it seemed that after that he shot forward in his writings and upward movement to economical safety. Please do not take this wrong the man speaks with his experiences and it is all part of pieces of all of our journeys. As for the belief systems he has chosen, He definitely seems to have mixed a religion based system with science based systems and possibly brought them together to profess spirituality with paranormal. nothing wrong in the way he has brought this forward but I do have to say that all of this was around and quite prevalent in the late 60's as I was there then. Astral projection was big and everybody was trying to do it with the drugs of the time.

Here is a real out in the open song for this kind of thing.

https://youtu.be/ldSFuEOA9wc

Yes Timothy Leary was pushing LSD and telling people to tune in, turn on and drop out. Words may not be exact but he was promoting the Astral projection to the generation at that time. William does say that this OBE has been around for thousands of years and even quotes the bible. So he appears to be deep into his personal belief system and perhaps he is doing the pruning.

This is what I had began this thread for. To discuss these belief systems and the people involved in them also. Thank you so much for introducing William Buhlman. I found the research on him very interesting. So my comments or short survey does not in any way give a negative but rather just a shot at his belief systems.

Christine, you gave a very good very interesting part for me to explore and that would be the great poet and prose writer of Rumi. I became enthralled with reading about this man and reading his poetry is amazing. Here is another man in history that was fairly convicted in his belief systems. His religion and denomination along with the other great poets he met were major influences on his works. He did manage to see the belief systems and perhaps walk through them to give the world such wonderful knowledge of love. I did read that he was devout in his religion and could be very contentious if anyone spoke against that particular belief system so entrenched within him.

Now as for my present belief system, one could say it might be religious, however I am not a religious man. I have seen what that false belief system is and do not partake in a man made construct. I do not partake in the man made politics which is another belief system, however I do have to live within the illusion of these things but as Maggie said, I do my own pruning. I am rambling at this point and will talk more on my own "consciousness" later. The saying that comes to mind here for so long is "Been there, done that" but that can come from most I think as we walk through this plane. You know some run through, got to wander why they are in such a hurry?
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Re: BELIEF SYSTEMS AND ETC.

Post by maggie »

LostNFound wrote: the man speaks with his experiences and it is all part of pieces of all of our journeys. As for the belief systems he has chosen, He definitely seems to have mixed a religion based system with science based systems and possibly brought them together to profess spirituality with paranormal.
Thanks for your reply. WB addresses a couple of things about his "belief system" and his initial experiences in the video beloe. From what I know, he's more a "spiritual science" proponent rather than religious.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/kJRVeg5LgyE[/youtube]
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