A new report by Pew Research Center and the General Social Survey published on Tuesday found that the large numbers of people in the U.S who practice Christianity are declining. The religion’s demographic has been dwindling since the 1990s, the report said, as many adults transition to an identity of atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.”
In the early ’90s, about 90% of people in the U.S. identified as Christians, the report said. In 2020, Christians accounted for about 64% of the U.S. population, including children. Meanwhile, those who are not affiliated with a religion has grown from 16% in 2007 to 30% in 2020, according to the research. All other religions, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, accounted for about 6% in 2020.
To be very brief, Karl Friston’s “free energy principle” says that the brain is an “inference machine” or “prediction machine” that uses Bayesian probability reasoning and is motivated to act by an inference seeming not true or “surprising” to it.
The free energy principle is a straightforward way to explain what FIML(note: this link will lead to recent posts and reposts, including this one, but just scroll down a bit for more) practice does, how it does it, and why it works differently than any other form of psychotherapy and in many significant ways why it works better.
A psychological “complex,” “neurosis,” “personality disorder,” or “persistent thought,” call it what you will, affects human behavior by being or having become a nexus of thoughts, ideas, perceptions, feelings, interconnected neurons and chemistry.
The same is true for any personality trait or skill, including very positive ones.
In Friston’s free energy terms, the psychological elements described above are surrounded by Markov blankets.
That means they are isolated or protected systems with their own variables. These protected systems (protected by Markov blankets) are hard to change because they have their own sets of rules and habitual inputs and outputs.
And that makes them stubborn candidates for most forms of psychotherapy, especially psychotherapy that requires a therapist. One reason for this is time & expense. A second reason is it is difficult for the patient to change without therapeutically experiencing for themself the complex or trait in real-world situations.
The key here is therapeutic experience in the real-world of the unwanted trait or complex that requires change.
The third reason most psychotherapies are ineffective is very subtle incisiveness in real-time is needed to penetrate psychological Markov blankets.
What FIML does is penetrate the Markov blanket enshrouding a complex with a series of small pricks. Each prick in the blanket is small, but each prick also allows some of the valence (gas) inside the blanket to escape.
FIML slowly punctures the Markov blanket with many small pricks, eventually causing it to collapse.
Once it has collapsed, the energies that were trapped inside it can be used for other things. In this way FIML optimizes even non-neurotic psychology by removing pockets of inefficiency held within psychological Markov blankets.
By using only small pricks to penetrate Markov blankets, FIML allows people to gradually and painlessly see what needs to be changed, why, and how to do it. Since FIML works in real-time real-world situations, even very small insights can bring about large changes.
A major cause of anger and all other emotional reactions during interpersonal communications is mistaken interpretations, either wrong or distorted. This can also include positive interpretations.
For Buddhists, the second skandha (sensation) is the proximate cause of how we perceive (third skandha) forms (first skandha). The fourth and fifth skandhas (mental activity and consciousness) are how we consolidate or more often reconsolidate the original mistaken or distorted sensation. For more on this see: The Five Skandhas.
For non-Buddhists, if you watch your mind closely you will notice there is a short delay between receiving an impression and reacting to it, interpreting it.
For everyone, if you can be mindful of the second skandha (sensation) as it occurs and then interrupt the habitual firing of the next three skandhas by doing a FIML query, you will begin to truly observe how your mind (and your partner’s mind) really works. Each interruption of this type improves your mental and emotional functioning because you will observe an objective bit of reality and correct toward it. For more information see: Disruption of neurotic response in FIML practice and How the brain processes new information. ABN
This “apology” feels wrong. We sense the speaker is doing several things so badly he may be insincere. Sutton is the Chief Health Officer of Victoria, Australia. From a Buddhist point of view, which I think can stand for a universal ethical point of view, an apology should: 1) clearly recognize fault and state specifically what it was; 2) explain why the fault occurred without excusing it in any way; 3) apologize for the fault and accept full responsibility for your part; 4) make amends where possible or pay forward; 5) vow to never do it again. ABN
It is perfect (in no special order) morally because it seeks truth and goodness between two people; dramatically because it uses our innate dramatic instinct to question our own deep sense of live drama in the moment; pragmatically because it is eminently practical; linguistically because it is an extremely good use of language, possibly the best use; psychologically because it benefits both the self and other in profound ways while also revealing deep behavioral patterns painlessly; spiritually because it stimulates the spirit and spiritual metacognition, bringing both partners closer to their ideals; and emotionally because it forestalls false negative and destructive emotional responses, replacing them with joyful understanding. FIML is a pursuit of truth shared by two people. It is a technique, a method, that can be used in any religion, philosophy, world-view, or lifestyle. In the beginning, FIML does not even depend on scrupulous truthfulness because the practice itself will reveal the value of truthfulness, which ultimately will require almost no effort. Truthfulness is an instinct or inkling of deepest consciousness. Once seen, it calls forth itself.
You have fully experienced seeing through the illusion of self. You made that decision at such a young age it can hardly be considered your decision, but that’s what happened and you are the one who has to live with it now. Having myself experienced a different but extremely serious trauma at almost exactly your age (I was 13), I can fully relate to your sadness. The success that can be derived from experiences like these is the success of seeing beyond the worldly ego. You can’t possibly go back, so accept it. From now on always do your best. Use your deepest mind to understand your conditions as deeply as you can, and then do your best based on that understanding.
If the person who wrote the above sees this, I hope she will understand and feel some comfort even if it seems hard to do. Deep trauma and huge mistakes can and do make us stronger and realer. There is no external consolation prize for trauma and no gain to be had by playing the victim, but there is a profound inner payoff. ABN
The Pope tried to highlight Europe’s “strengths” with his lofty rhetoric, but I think he revealed some of its deepest weaknesses.
Identifying a temptation to “yield to our own selfish interests” by “putting up fences here and there” to stop the flow of migrants into Europe, the pontiff said: “I dream of a Europe where being a migrant is not a crime but a summons to greater commitment on behalf of the dignity of every human being.”
I probably shouldn’t say any of what I have said and what I am going to say next: Each of the major Abrahamic religions suffers from the flaw of holding some word or law or ideal above human wisdom.
(The Center Square) – U.S District Court Judge Steven Merryday issued a blistering rebuke of the Department of Defense and Marine Corps for refusing to grant religious accommodation requests to service members.
Merryday did so when issuing a 48-page ruling Thursday in which he granted class action status for all active and reserve U.S. Marine Corps service men and women in a lawsuit filed against the Secretary of Defense over the department’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
…In his order, Merryday points out that 3,733 Marines had requested religious accommodations and only 11 were granted to those who’d already put in for retirement. He then asked, “Is it more likely than not – in nearly all 3,733 cases – that no reasonable accommodation was available?
From a Buddhist point of view, “identities” (such that there even is such a thing) are to be understood and seen through as being evanescent, “empty,” not deeply real, fundamentally delusional. The Diamond Sutra says:
All conditioned things
are like dreams, like illusions,
like bubbles, like shadows,
like dew, like lightning
and all of them should be contemplated in this way.
For an adult to allow, let alone encourage, a child or adolescent to take “puberty suppressants” or undergo surgery based on an “identity” that is “like a dream” is extremely harmful to both the adult and the child. The “doctors” who provide these services are profoundly mistaken. They are playing with the beautiful minds of vulnerable young people whose brains are nowhere near fully developed. Interfering with the natural course of their development while encouraging the mental illness of their parents are deeply wrong actions based on pride and ignorance. I cannot see any way that a Buddhist can support any medical professional doing this. ABN
DailyMail.com obtained leaked files that expose how rank-and-file pediatricians are slamming their academy for pushing puberty-blocking drugs on teens who identify as transgender
The American Academy of Pediatrics causes ‘great harm’ with drug cocktails to youngsters, member says
Top youth medical body pushes ‘unsafe and unsustainable’ policies based on ‘scant and shoddy’ evidence, says another
New AAP rules blocked a resolution calling for a policy rethink at annual meeting in Chicago
AAP says its policies are evidence-based, widely accepted, subject to review, and best bet for vulnerable teens
Critics say the academy has bowed to pressure from ‘young activist doctors’
Did you suffer from bad transgender care? Email James.Reinl@mailonline.com
Good article, worth reading. Looks like another medical fiasco of control from the top through censorship and intimidation. Top-down control is what corralled one million US doctors into covid obedience. In Buddhism no mundane “identity” is inherently real in itself. All of them are empty, devoid of self or “own being.” Thus medically changing your body to “correct” it to fit an ephemeral notion of “identity” is on its face an egregious mistake, an act of delusion with potentially very serious consequences. To encourage a young person to take harmful medication or to undergo destructive surgery to fulfill a delusive fantasy of this sort is not right. For a doctor to do this, worse for a pediatrician to do this, is a grave act of malpractice especially when the AAP is deliberately avoiding public, transparent, scientific debate on this very serious matter. ABN
I found the narrator’s delivery quite interesting. For the length of the video he maintains a public face with a few conspicuous emotional expressions, also stock public semiotics. He comes across as an intelligent, kindly, nice-guy type. This may well be his persona in real life. What I want to point out is the burden of carrying a persona like this wherever you are, especially into your own home, your own world. In your private spaces, you can greatly improve your communication by doing FIML practice. Clearly, there is a more complex person behind the persona we see in the video. This is the part of us—our authentic being—that FIML works with. There are two difficulties in doing FIML: 1) you must have the ability to be trustworthy and you need to have a trustworthy partner that you care about and that cares about you; 2) you both have to learn how to overcome the universal taboo of stopping real-time speech to query the speaker directly about what they just said; you have to be able to do this and accept this when your partner does it to you. Point #1, sadly, can be the more difficult. Point #2 is difficult because it goes against what seems to be an instinct. It can be overcome fairly easily if we know there is a reason to do that. It is like overcoming a tendency to flinch where it is not needed. ABN
ABN has gained many more readers since coverage of covid and other matters became of more pressing importance. They still are more pressing since our very existence as a free society is at stake.
That said, please do your best to understand and practice FIML with your spouse or best friend. FIML is a life-changing practice that will reveal the building blocks of both of your makeups in a most wonderful way.
Positive change through FIML is easy in the sense that each building block is small. Being small, they are easy to analyze and not difficult to accept if we see we are in the wrong. This promotes rapid incremental transformation for the better.
A little change here, a little change there, patterns are recognized and rather easily transformed into something much more adaptive, real, appropriate for your lives. No theory or concept of personality is necessary. No training in psychotherapy is necessary.
The simple dynamic of FIML done honestly and in friendship will help both of you feel much better and be much more authentic to yourselves. FIML is a process, a dynamic method. It has no other content save what you bring to it. ABN
American Buddhist Net 