Tag: religion
Senator Hawley makes an important statement of religious freedom
Referencing the Supreme Court’s Bostock decision, Hawley describes how American legislative bodies have effectively abrogated their power to legislate and allowed that vacuum to be filled by unelected bureaucrats and the judiciary.
This talk is well-worth listening to.
On Social Media Bias, Trump’s Executive Order & the China Data Threat—FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr
Carr discusses how the FCC will deal with an absence of “good faith” in social media’s handling of the free speech rights of its members. He also talks about how the Communist Party of China has been using media to conceal it’s real role in the spread of the coronavirus. Carr is a clear speaker and provides many useful insights into how the FCC will deal with these and other matters.
Is universal digitization of genetic identity inevitable? Answer: yes
The video below is interesting and well-worth viewing. It is about universal digitization and collection of all individual human biological and genetic identities.
(The vid is also about population/birth control, which is much less interesting.)
Universal digitization of everything human is inevitable. I see no argument that can credibly deny that, save human extinction. Technological advances are all but impossible to stop.
Digitization of communication led almost immediately to the collection of all digitized communication in the NSA database. The USA cannot abandon that database because if we do, other nation’s will continue with theirs and quickly outpace us.
In this way, many/most technologies can be used for aggression and there is no way to stop that or protect against it except to research and develop those technologies ourselves. This basic idea is true for digitized technologies as well as medical and genetic ones. And it is true for all nations capable of doing the work.
Bioweapons research cannot be reliably banned globally, nor can genetic research which will eventually lead to designer babies. If we don’t do it, someone else will. And whoever does it best will gain a great advantage over rivals who have eschewed that field.
EDIT: There are three other parts in this series on Bill Gates. They can be found here: The Corbett Report.
“Houses of worship” declared “essential services” and allowed to open now: President Trump
In deeply fundamental ways, freedom of religion is our most basic right and our most important. Freedom of religion must also mean freedom of philosophy, thought, belief, cognition, psychology, mentality, sensibility, being. Freedom of religion is the lifeblood of the individual as responsibly defined and acted on by that individual.
Our beautiful system honors the individual by protecting the rights of every individual to freedom of religion, speech, assembly and, I wish, association. This system depends on our exercising our rights fully and responsibly. Individual responsibility is implicit in our system and crucial to its smooth operation.
Start time prompted to 48:10.
Psychedelics and religious experience
It is well-known that psychedelic drugs can induce religious experiences, as well as cure depression and other psychological problems.
Many people today and in the past have had these experiences and praised them effusively. In recent decades, scientific studies have corroborated this side of the history of most of the world’s religions.
A new study published last month adds even more weight to the religious value of psychedelic drugs.
..Respondents reported the primary senses involved in the encounter were visual and extrasensory (e.g. telepathic). The most common descriptive labels for the entity were being, guide, spirit, alien, and helper. Although 41% of respondents reported fear during the encounter, the most prominent emotions both in the respondent and attributed to the entity were love, kindness, and joy. Most respondents endorsed that the entity had the attributes of being conscious, intelligent, and benevolent, existed in some real but different dimension of reality, and continued to exist after the encounter. Respondents endorsed receiving a message (69%) or a prediction about the future (19%) from the experience. More than half of those who identified as atheist before the experience no longer identified as atheist afterwards. The experiences were rated as among the most meaningful, spiritual, and psychologically insightful lifetime experiences, with persisting positive changes in life satisfaction, purpose, and meaning attributed to the experiences. (Survey of entity encounter experiences occasioned by inhaled N,N-dimethyltryptamine: Phenomenology, interpretation, and enduring effects)
Nick Bryant on the Franklin Scandal, child trafficking, and more
This interview happened in 2017 but is well-worth listening to today. As bad as the Franklin Scandal was, it was “just” one tentacle on a much larger beast. And as bad as child abuse for sexual purposes is, that too is just one (even larger) tentacle on a much larger beast. That beast itself also murders, maims, and tortures children, both physically and psychologically.
It does this for various reasons: to cover up crimes and discredit witnesses, but also to destroy the communities the children belong to. I have personal knowledge of one, now deceased, actor in the Franklin Scandal. His name is Peter Citron. I know enough about Citron to be certain that he belonged to a large group of prominent child traffickers. And I also know that he was connected, directly or indirectly, to another group that maims and kills children and young people.
It is very difficult to prove child trafficking for reasons Bryant goes into. Children who are abused develop psychological problems and become marginalized. They also feel fear, shame, and profound doubt that anyone will believe them or ever do anything about any of it. Children who have been maimed are even less able to come forward. Those who have been murder obviously can do nothing at all.
Part One
Part Two
From last month: Nick Bryant | From Franklin to Epstein: The Cover-Up Continues
Culture is the context of the languages we speak
Stated more clearly: Culture is nothing more than the context of the languages we speak.
In this sense culture defines our words and phrases; and in this sense, our psychologies.
This means that if you think or feel something, you probably can find a way to speak about it unless you are trapped within the context of your language.
For example, just think of anything you are afraid or embarrassed to talk about.
For some of those topics, you may have a friend (or stranger) with whom you are able to speak. Very traumatic experiences can be exceptionally difficult to speak about because they tend to be unique or uniquely horrific; so normal language in almost all contexts won’t get you there. You will feel inhibited, tongue-tied, embarrassed, afraid, timid, mute, isolated.
Traumatic experiences are an extreme example of how culture/context is not able to overlay all of our experiences. This is a core reason we turn to professional listeners—therapists, clergy, etc—to deal with trauma, though often we are even afraid of them.
Artists also provide us with unique experiences set in unique contexts. If well-done, or more importantly well-publicized, art may change the culture/context for many speakers. In this area, goodness lives alongside propaganda and hype. Many speakers feed the frenzy and feed on it.
In Buddhism, speech is a vessel of delusion as well as enlightenment. Buddhism provides an excellent context for speech because it fully recognizes the meta-contexts of impermanence, emptiness, ignorance, delusion, and suffering.
If you have experienced trauma, as we all have (it’s relative), you are in a good place to understand that traumas can be very small yet agonizing. And they can repeat often, causing constant suffering, sleeplessness, helplessness.
If we can see that traumas, both small and large, are outliers from whatever culture we are in, then we can also see that the way forward is to make our culture into something that can speak about them.
When culture is as small as one person—you alone—you can be free in many ways but also will get stuck on your traumas. With no way to speak about them with others, they will distort your thinking, carry weight they should not have. Disturb everything you do.
When culture is as large as two people, great freedom is possible. Two people just need to realize this. If they do, it’s a small step to realize that profound cooperation solves their cultural “prisoners’ dilemma” better any other solution.
I cannot escape my trauma if I lie to you because my context will instantly become inauthentic, stultified fully as badly as my trauma always has been. So, I won’t do that. And you, my partner, are as smart as me so you won’t either.
Cultures are contexts for languages because cultures have rules. A two-person culture also needs rules. Best to figure most of them out for yourselves but also best to start with some very important basics. And these are: meta-cognitive rules that allow for accurate meta-communication.
Here is a set of rules that can start you off on a new way to communicate: How to do FIML.
Intrinsic motivation is important for sustained creative activity
A recent study shows that An insight-related neural reward signal exists and is more active in some people than in others.
This study also confirms the idea that “intrinsic motivation is important for sustained creative activity.”
Some other findings that may be of interest:
…our findings suggest that individuals who are high in reward sensitivity experience the sudden emergence of a solution into awareness as strongly rewarding whereas individuals who are low in reward sensitivity may still experience insight as sudden and attentionally salient but lacking in hedonic content.
As lifelong autodidact, I wonder if others with this marvelous “addiction” can relate to feeling almost not alive unless there is something to wonder about or figure out. I recently read a biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein. One standout was his strong tendency to seek out simple or humble environments that stimulated his mind.
…Individuals high in reward sensitivity are more likely to take drugs, develop substance-abuse disorders or eating disorders, and engage in risky behaviors such as gambling. The fact that some people find insight experiences to be highly pleasurable reinforces the notion that insight can be an intrinsic reward for problem solving and comprehension that makes use of the same reward circuitry in the brain that processes rewards from addictive drugs, sugary foods, or love.
Getting lost in the woods or on a motorcycle ride, for me, is a highly enjoyable feeling. There have to be slight tremors of fear and agitation followed by finding my way again. I suppose others may experience similar feelings in social settings or as live performers.
…These findings shed light on people’s motivations for engaging in challenging, often time-consuming, activities that potentially yield insights, such as solving puzzles or mysteries, creating inventions, or doing research. It also reinforces the notion that intrinsic motivation is important for sustained creative activity. The expectation of intrinsic rewards from comprehending and creating, rather than from an extrinsic source such as payment, is thought to be the most effective type of workplace motivation…
A society with universal basic income in which no one has to work unless they want to might bring about the greatest flourishing of human talent ever. Then again, maybe not. Inspiration does need a stick on the back sometimes and “joy has no children,” meaning happiness produces few inventions.
Here’s an article about the study: Aha! + Aaaah: Creative Insight Triggers a Neural Reward Signal.
Religious freedom, the federal govt, China and Chinese propaganda
The interviews below are better than most, providing in-depth insight into how and why the US government is acting as it is.
This interview with AG Bill Barr covers many fundamental legal and practical matters at home and also vis-a-vis China. Well-worth viewing.
EDIT: Part 2 added. In this section Barr makes it clear that U.S. Attorney John Durham is pursuing criminal charges against DOJ and FBI officials who abused the FISA process and whose actions “at least had the effect of sabotaging the presidency.” Barr calls those abuses “the greatest travesty in American history.”
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro discusses China, COVID-19, and the US response to both.
Large meta-study shows alcohol does far more harm than good
Key takeaways:
- Alcohol is worse for you than many previously thought thought
- It is linked to health outcomes such as heart disease, diabetes, tuberculosis, breast cancer (in women), and lip and oral cavity cancer (in men)
- Despite some previous studies suggesting that moderate alcohol consumption has health benefits, the study found that the risks outweighed any benefits
- The optimal amount of alcohol consumption is zero; that is, to minimize your health risk, the optimum amount of drinking is none (Alcohol’s Heavy Toll: The Largest Analysis Ever of How Alcohol Impacts Health)
The study is here: Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016
Making Sense of the Mental Universe
Try reading the following paper while keeping the Mind Only Buddhist interpretation of our world in mind.
In 2005, an essay was published in Nature asserting that the universe is mental and that we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things. Since then, experiments have confi rmed that — as predicted by quantum mechanics — reality is contextual, which contradicts at least intuitive formulations of realism and corroborates the hypothesis of a mental universe. Yet, to give this hypothesis a coherent rendering, one must explain how a mental universe can — at least in principle — accommodate (a) our experience of ourselves as distinct individual minds sharing a world beyond the control of our volition; and (b) the empirical fact that this world is contextual despite being seemingly shared. By combining a modern formulation of the ontology of idealism with the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics, the present paper attempts to provide a viable explanatory framework for both points. In the process of doing so, the paper also addresses key philosophical qualms of the relational interpretation. (Making Sense of the Mental Universe)
Edit: The explanation offered in the linked paper, without saying as much, provides a very reasonable way to see Buddhist rebirth occurring without there being any soul or pudgala being reborn. Nothing need fly out of the body or transmigrate anywhere.
Instead, the classic Buddhist description of karma alone giving rise to a new life works perfectly. Rather than conceive of ourselves as fundamentally material beings, we can conceive of our personal individuality as being (a part of a “mental universe”) enclosed within a Markov blanket.
If there is still karma, a new Markov blanket or bodily form will be “reborn” or rearise after the extinction of its prior existence. In Kastrup’s way of putting it, our physical bodies are themselves Markov blankets causing or allowing us to arise as forms separate from the wholeness of the mental universe.
I suppose we might venture to say that enlightenment occurs when the karma, or reason for our separation in a Markov blanket, is gone and “we” remain the whole (of the mental universe) without being reborn (in a body).
Two interviews on communism important for understanding America’s position and options
Is the thought “I should have seen that” where we draw the line between higher and lower awareness?
As humans, we cannot but think sometimes: “I should have seen that. I had all the information but had not put it together.”
I am pointing this out because this ineluctable thought is an aspect of our consciousness itself and not of our culture or language, whatever those may be.
Do conscious beings who have no language think thoughts like this non-verbally? Do they have a sensation like we do that accompanies a similar realization in them?
Maybe they do and maybe they don’t. Non-verbal beings on earth obviously correct their behaviors, but how far does that travel in their awareness? Do dogs laugh at themselves? Do they have a feeling of self-recrimination as we sometimes do when we realize I should have seen that?
Is at least some of the feeling of shame grounded in this thought? Dogs clearly manifest shame.
Would a computer that can pass many tests of consciousness have the thought I should have seen that?
It seems to me that beings higher than us—angels, Bodhisattvas, Dharma protectors, prophets, and more—would very probably have this thought sometimes.
The full enlightenment of a Buddha as understood in the Mahayana tradition seems to indicate a state of awareness where the thought I should have seen that no longer arises.
In his life as we know of it, the Buddha did make new rules for monastics as conditions dictated. At such times, did he have this thought or not?
In your view, is the highest consciousness possible unbounded? Such that it must also think this thought?
Would you be happier if you never had the thought I should have seen that or not?
Is consciousness inert, like water, yet permeates everything? Inert but does not permeate everything?
I should have seen that is interesting because this thought seems to inhere in consciousness itself and not arise from language, culture, training, or other conditions. It seems to be accompanied by a sensation, at least in us.
Is it subject to Buddhist “dependent origination” and thus a feature of ordinary consciousness but not of ultimate consciousness?
Are the conditions it depends on its own conditions? Or other conditions? This might be a very big question.
A materialist would say consciousness is an epiphenomenon of matter dependent on matter. A true physicalist would not speak so fast because conscious may very well be a primary aspect of all things, even the driver of physical laws.
Is the thought I should have seen that where we draw the line between higher and lower awareness? Do single cells, which can change their minds, have a sensation that expresses this thought? Does God never have this thought? Do Buddhas?
Notice that a great deal of humor depends on bringing to our awareness something maybe not that we should have seen but that we could have seen. Humor like that gives us no new information outside of our ourselves, though it does fit together information we already have in a new way,
So, I should have seen that can be occasion for delight and laughter. Fundamental to feelings of relief or peace of mind; it’s a feature of consciousness that arises in consciousness and that we react to consciously, almost always with some sort of sensation.
“Our Constitution doesn’t exist to protect us from religion; it exists to protect religion from government” Betsy DeVos
Too many misinterpret a separation of church and state as an invitation for government to separate people from their faith.
In reality, our Constitution doesn’t exist to protect us from religion; it exists to protect religion from government. The First Amendment affirms our free exercise of religion, and we don’t forfeit that first freedom to anyone or in any place, especially in public schools.
~Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos
Announcement of the Guidance on Constitutional Prayer in Public Schools