The Skeptic

The Skeptic spends a great deal of time tearing down Belief and Faith. The purpose in Skepticism is very valid, we should question everything, and accept nothing on authority. We should discover for ourselves what the truth is, if there is even a universal truth. The Scientific Method is pure and true when moderated by a certain amount of Skepticism.

But here is where Skepticism becomes a belief in itself: The Skeptic is never satisfied. In the opinion of the Skeptic the only sure thing is that everything is in a constant state of change and death is inevitable. So, the Skeptic sets out to find people that have faith in something, or believe something that is not totally substantiated.

What do they find? What are the results of the Skeptic endeavor?

Well, on the one hand they take great pleasure in finding the fault in another persons logic. The skeptic has a psychological good feeling, the skeptic gloats over the person who has had their belief shattered. This makes the Skeptic feel good and thus, justified in their behavior. Even if on the surface the skeptic is sympathetic to the 'crushed believer' and offers consolation... in their true being they gloat, feeling justified in their correctness, and perhaps even glad to have brought another Skeptic into the ranks of Skepticism.

But what of the opposite side? What if the Skeptic, in trying to shatter a belief is not successful? What if the the logic of the Believer or Faith holder does not waiver, what if all arguments are met satisfactorily? Does the Skeptic acknowledge this? Does the Skeptic then say -- "Yes, what you believe may very well be true and worth entertaining as a notion" ? I would say no. After 'losing the battle' the Skeptic moves on, and finds another project to be Skeptical about.

The Skeptic himself rarely finds or discovers anything, they simply tear down what another has perceived as an achievement. Pure Skepticism is a Psychological Aberration -- it is not a healthy human outlook on life and living. It simply exists to bring the 'one sure thing' - Death - to an Idea.

The Skeptic takes great pleasure in promoting Death to Ideas -- and that is his Belief; through Skepticism and his putting to death the ideas of other men, he is doing a service to mankind. That is his faith, that is his belief.

My Atheist Brethren

One will find the Psychological Phenomena behind joining an Atheist Community very interesting. I will identify three main courses of entry. 

One, the individual is raised without any religious background.  Entering schooling, or even through familial upbringing, they gravitate towards the scientific method.  Through the application of science and reason, the individual can not support the hypothesis of a God, and thus becomes Atheist.

The second category I identify as people whom have one had religion, but have decided that their religion was false. The Atheist community has many people whom once had faith.  The person disbanding their former religion feels both a great deal of satisfaction and freedom in the Atheist Philosophy, and is met with a great deal of love and approval from existing members.

The third category I identify as people whom may have had some amount religious indoctrination, and may have had some education in science, but neither is significant in the development of their character.  This individual may have started searching for some kind of community.  They came across other people like them, the disenfranchised.  Termed the black coats, the goth, the satanists, the heavy metal fans, punk rock and skaters, anybody that would associate in a circle of outcast.  Because of the various positions, and dispositions encountered this individual gravitates towards Atheism as either a statement of defiance, or a default position stemming from reason.


The only security in Atheism is in numbers. Atheism is comprised of people and only people. Some very intelligent people indeed, who have been seduced by Material Science, and reject anything that can not be "proven with the five senses".  Atheists, or a large percentage of them that I have encountered, enjoy mocking anybody who would look beyond the five senses and the physical world. It is only through having a large community of like minded people that the Atheist feels secure in his belief; Or at least a small community of people considered to be genius. Point being, they really require the support of continued Atheist Dogma, where ever the source comes from.

To a large degree, Atheists do not explore their subconscious mind... they are active in their conscious mind, and with this mind, repeat Atheist Mantra. Similar to how some overly religious people must repeat a religious Mantra.

Atheism is no more valid than Mormonism.  It is like moving from one pole to the opposite pole in a system of belief.

Atheism is a belief system founded on faith.  It has faith that the only real and proven truth is the physical universe.  From that faith, it develops the belief that there is nothing beyond.

This is my opinion. Why? I was an atheist. I was raised to be an atheist, and at age 14 declared that 'God' was a myth people created. Then I went into Psychology...

Am I Free?

The concept of Freedom.  Without reading or preparing from any work previously written - I examine, from my point of view, if I am free.

At this moment, I can say or do anything that the laws of nature will allow me to.  The Laws of Nature are basic limitations imposed on all men equally - I can not at this time transport my physical body to a remote location instantaneously, I can not forgo water, food, and sleep.  I can not defy the laws of gravity, I must also breath the air.  So, I am free, insomuch as having to obey the Laws of Nature.

Understanding and accepting these basic laws of nature, I move forward with the assumption that I can be free within the frame work provided.

The first encounter with a perceived lack of freedom is from my family.  A family raises a member of it's congragration with the expectation of continued family involvement on the part of the individual - the extended family.  The American Nuclear family has done away with the extended family.  Now the nuclear family is dissolving as well.

My grandparents are no longer living, my extended family is no longer in communication... my mother and father, I no longer seek the approval of, they have disapproved of me and my thought process long ago.  I do not look to them for guidance or support.  I do not have a pleasant relationship with either of my siblings.  My family provides me with nothing of substance.  From them I am free for the most part, only a lingering memory or impression made on me interrupts my perceived freedom. 

I have no family I created, I have no wife, no child... so there is no obligation to provide for them.  From the obligation of self created family, I am also free.

I have a pet cat.  I am not free from my obligation of caring for her, unless I don't care for her well being.  But I do care, so my freedom is limited by my care for a cat.  But I can get rid of the cat, I can remove this obstacle in the way of complete freedom, so, to some degree I am free from my responsibility to the cat, because I choose to be her steward.  I am free to choose.

In my community, in my society I am free to act as I choose, as long as I am willing to suffer the consequences.  This is an interesting concept... am I really free?  I would argue both yes, and no. 

On the one hand, as long as I am willing to suffer the consequences, and perhaps lose freedom all together, I can do almost any act I can dream of, and/or find participants to act in.  On the other hand, my society makes laws that forbid certain actions by individuals, be it murder, rape, theft, prostitution, gambling or drug use.  The individual that is caught acting in voilation of the law, loses degrees of freedom, depending on the severity of the act and the punishments prescribed by law.

So while on the one hand, the fear of losing my perceived freedom keeps me from acting towards certian matters.  The actuality of the situation is that I can act how I deem fit until being caught by an authority.  So I am free in action, but not free from fear of reprisal.  And once discovered, I lose freedom of action as well.  So this is the question, am I free in my society?

Societal Laws that the individual does not agree with are more difficult to accept than the Natural Laws.  With Natural Laws, the laws apply to every man, regardless of race, creed or national origin.  Societal Laws are not applied equally to all men, and there in lies a restriction to freedom.  One can't feel free, if there is someone perceived as being more free then you.   

In the world of thoughts, I am able to entertain the most lofty or the most base concepts.  In my thoughts I am free.  But wait?  Where did I get my concepts from?  Where did I get the words I use to describe my world, both internal and external from?  What if I encounter something I do not know how to explain, where do I get the language to explain it?

What is discovered in the world of thoughts is that the individual is indoctrinated into a system of thinking.  First a Language, then a school of thought.  A school of thought provides a thought paradigm - a model and a mode for the individuals thinking behavior.  With some schools of thought, there is reprisal, either from a world authority figure, or a meta-physical authority figure if the individuals thought strays from a prescribed doctrine.  From this I am free, I fear no authority for "incorrect thoughts".

But what of the intellectual programming, what of the bias that my Family, Society, and Country have created for it's members?  Surely I must not overlook my programmed bias towards things that are the same as me, and my bias against things that are different.  With knowledge of this programming bias, I can obtain degrees of freedom.  Because I have freedom from fear of incorrect thoughts, I can entertain any thought and allow the nature of the thought in itself to prove it's validity, without fear of cultural reprisal.


So, in review:

Let me use a sliding scale (1-10) to show my perceived level of freedom - A [Freedom 1] is the least amount of freedom and [Freedom 10] is greatest amount of freedom.

1.) I am pretty much free in my bodily nature, as long as I accept the laws of nature.   I am fortunate enough to have only a limited amount of pain in normal activity.  I am free until pain prevents me.  When normal life activities are interrupted by a lack of heath, freedom is diminished.  [Freedom 8]

2.) I am fairly free from family obligations.  Sadly, I would like a family of my own, but for some reason I am able to say I am free from this obligation.  I am not free from the desire to have a family, but that is an internal desire.  I am almost completely free of having to be somebody I am not to my family.  I am not free from my obligation to help them if they ask for help, I am bound by familial guilt.  I am free in my choice on what other family/pet obligations I choose to keep.  [Freedom 7]

3.) Am I free in action in my society?  No.  Sadly, I am not.  I am forced to work at an occupation to earn money to support my life functions.  I am forced to comply with societal rules that would restrict my freedom if I chose otherwise.  Slowly, even our freedom of action is being curtailed by more security check points, more cameras recording our actions, and more police and citizens on the watch for suspect activity.  While once a great frontier of freedom, America is becoming a police state.  I am still free to act, until I am chastised, and this give me a primary freedom of action.  But reprisal in various forms, physical and economic sanctions cause a great curtailing of perceived and actual freedom.  [Freedom 4]

4.) Am I free in my thoughts?  At this point I would say mostly.  My first limitation is language, I am bound to it for rational thought and then public discourse.  But I am free to the degree that allows myself to engage and entertain different philosophies.  I can chose which philosophy to espouse.  Now, once I chose a philosophy, I could be limited to the precepts of that philosophy, but it is my choice.  I can also be limited in my physical activity, a job for example, if I engage in a certain philosophy, and with the new terrorist provisions in U.S. law, I can even be detained and interrogated for having certain thoughts.  But these are limitations on actions.  Having a thought and writing it down are two different actions.   In thought I am free.  [Freedom 8]            

Conclusion?  We like to claim, in the United States of America, that we are Free.  This is the land of the Free.  We are all about Freedom, Justice and Equality.

This is not totally true.  It is just we as a nation, at one time, were the MOST FREE.

I fear this level of freedom that I experience, which is one of the most liberal examples of human freedom ever experienced, is coming to an end.

I am just about as free as one can be.  I am a free man.  At least for now.

Day One

I have no idea why I would start a blog.  I suppose the idea was suggested to me, and then I had discovered a blog by an economist, and several blogs, by economists: Peter Schiff,  Max Keiser, etc...

So, here I begin my blogging journey.  Perhaps in the same way many bloggers have begun.  Talking about blogging.

I am not going to fuck around, I may as well get right to the heart of the matter.  See, I have never felt 'right' in this world.  Oh, I have always been healthy, I have not had any diagnosed mental health issues, I have followed most the rules, I do not try and create a stir of any kind at all...  unless, it is artistically.  :-)

But my whole existence I have felt an overwhelming compulsion to disagree with things I did not think were true.  School authority figures would insist on the correctness of their doctrine, I would ask them for answers as to where their knowledge was derived, and in many cases the root of their belief was taken on the faith of an authority.  

Because of the compulsion to conform in our institutions, I got along slowly, day dreaming my way through the public education system.  Learning enough to be a good trained monkey.

Some key points as to my childhood character:

• I can't remember being too happy in my childhood.
• My mother can be summarized as someone who would comfort her child materially.  She bottle formula fed, never the breast.  When I was sick I would get a wash cloth to the head and a 'there there'.
• My father was unapproachable emotionally.  He was either filling you up with praise from the good genetic stock he and his wife provided you; or he was challenging you where you would never beat him nor be good enough.  He was a Vietnam veteran and a functioning alcoholic.
• When my brother was born into the world, four years my junior, I loved him dearly, but also regressed to his level of development for a number of years.  His intellectual development was raised.
• When my sister was born, I was jealous of my brother's love for her, and I would try to hoard his affection.  I did not reconcile with my sister until she was in her early teenage years.  I have apologized many times since.
• I have no religious upbringing, I was a self proclaimed atheist by age 14.  Religion and it's ceremonies could be explained with psychology.  I have then came to find Buddhism at age 18.
• I fell in love at age 15, and have wanted to feel 'In Love' ever since.
• I became the lead singer of a Rock and Roll band at age 15 and I credit this with breaking me out of my Fantasy World Daydream, and Into Reality.
  

At age 17 I had an LSD Trip with a Communist Foreign Exchange Student from Italy who told me that I was nothing more than a "stupid American Consumer, I was an Idiot, I was a Womanizer, and I had several Moral Faults" -- 

From that moment forward I began a deep inspection into what it is that has made me what I am becoming.

I was armed at an early age with that 'bullshit' detector.  It has taken much more development, but I believe myself to have found a way to distinguish the truth.  A very simple description of this technique would be relating to the feeling of veneration that you get for someone whom has earned great respect.  I was lucky enough, for some reason, to gravitate towards great intellectual and spiritual figures in history, Socrates, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., are examples; and this sort of person is one that produces great feelings of that veneration around them.

Armed with the development of this feeling, I began to examine the many different philosophies available.

I studied a bit of Nihilism and then Existentialism and came back to Buddhism.

I listened to a lot of Frank Zappa!

I studied Psychology at Michigan State University, but because of my desire to earn money, I tailored my Psychology towards Statistics and then lost interest and became too labored with statistical equations and failed out.

At about what must of been the age of 20-21 my roommate introduced me the works of Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy.  He had just begun his study of the philosophies.

In the 20 years that I have been studying Anthroposophy - I am yet to ever disprove Dr. Steiner.   Oh there is much you can not directly prove, but there is much that you can not disprove.  And there is much that the proof bears out.

For example, in a lecture I read this evening, given almost 100 years ago, Steiner pointed out that Economists were taking over as the "Rulers" -- in ancient times, it was people that actually had the spiritual vision of their community.  Now?  We are ruled by people that see Money as Solution.  When in fact, money is part of the problem.

I will continue my next blog with whatever subject comes to mind.  These are blogs from a modern day anthroposophist.  It is 2012 and people need to wake up.