What's important

@Bish said
Illusion is not the right word - however free will probably does not work quite as we think it does.

I do not chose to love champagne or choose to hate pickled beets. It just is.

This is the place for this discussion - this is exactly what I was thinking about yesterday morning when I started the thread. How do we decide what's important to us?

I am not sure we do. An ...[text shortened]... fortune in life has been due to good luck, and her poor fortune in life is due to bad luck. I agree.

Do you not think every person is in charge of their own destiny? I mean, barring unforseen complications?

@Suzianne said
This is what makes your Christianity false. Instead of actually following Jesus' words, you hide behind your interpretation of what he said. And you, for sure, have no tolerance. You would have thrown the first stone at that woman accused of adultery, not because you have no sin, but because you think you're better than her.

🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂

@Suzianne said
Do you not think every person is in charge of their own destiny? I mean, barring unforseen complications?

I don't Misfit Queen. 😔

The idea that we are in charge of our own destiny appeals to me more than you know. I have a daughter and now a new granddaughter and yeah - I hope I am wrong.

But the science doesn't lend itself to this theory. There have been studies and experiments that show that the part of our brain that makes decisions might not be the part we think. The decision is made - then we are told.

Connect the wires, and the researcher knows the subject is going to hit the red button instead of the green one before the subject does.

It's a bit depressing in our western culture of "I", but if we take out the I for a moment and there is just "us" - maybe it is tolerable. The world is moving forward and somehow someway we get to be a part of it. Somehow someway we get to live and witness it all. Its a blessing just to be here and talk to you. Is it enough? Today, yes. Let's see what happens when I get sick or Mrs. Bish does.

The way I move forward is the idea that maybe I can train the part of my brain that makes decisions. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about my values. Hour after hour day after day. I love my wife - nothing is more important than her. Honesty, compassion, curiosity, open to new ideas, love your neighbor as yourself. Hour after hour day after day.

And yes, if I don't have "free will", how am I deciding to spent time thinking about my values? Its a conundrum, a work in progress.

It does remove the word regret from the vocabulary though. Pointless to criticize my past "decisions". I am accountable for my mistakes and the pain I cause - its still my brain. However there is no point in kicking myself in the ass or patting myself on the back. Both are a waste of whatever valuable time I have left.

@Bish said
I don't Misfit Queen. 😔

The idea that we are in charge of our own destiny appeals to me more than you know. I have a daughter and now a new granddaughter and yeah - I hope I am wrong.

But the science doesn't lend itself to this theory. There have been studies and experiments that show that the part of our brain that makes decisions might not be the part we think. The deci ...[text shortened]... lf in the ass or patting myself on the back. Both are a waste of whatever valuable time I have left.

We tell our kids they can be anything they want. For some people, this is all they need to go on and accomplish great things. Others get bogged down, I think, by what happens to them that may temporarily get in their way. An important word in my vocabulary is 'overcome'. To overcome what Billy Shakespeare called "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune". I say 'tis NOT nobler simply to suffer them, but indeed, "to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them." And yes, potentially to die, but there is no question in my mind that opposing, even unto death, is better than simply suffering through what fortune offers up to us. Fortune indeed favors the bold and not the pusillanimous.

@Bish said
I don't Misfit Queen. 😔

The idea that we are in charge of our own destiny appeals to me more than you know. I have a daughter and now a new granddaughter and yeah - I hope I am wrong.

But the science doesn't lend itself to this theory. There have been studies and experiments that show that the part of our brain that makes decisions might not be the part we think. The deci ...[text shortened]... lf in the ass or patting myself on the back. Both are a waste of whatever valuable time I have left.

Does it mean that I never regret? No. But I was taught that it's better to pick up that lesson and remember it so maybe I don't make that mistake a second time, and then just drive on, knowing that the road ahead will have one less problem. Too many people do not have the humility to learn from mistakes, so they just bumble along making the same mistake over and over. Take what you need and jettison the rest, I learned this from my father.

@Suzianne said
We tell our kids they can be anything they want. For some people, this is all they need to go on and accomplish great things. Others get bogged down, I think, by what happens to them that may temporarily get in their way. An important word in my vocabulary is 'overcome'. To overcome what Billy Shakespeare called "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune". I say 'tis ...[text shortened]... ing through what fortune offers up to us. Fortune indeed favors the bold and not the pusillanimous.

Telling a child that isn’t what gives them the ability to accomplish great things or not, it’s how you raise them and teach them to grow and develop throughout childhood. Things like being responsible for their actions, falling rules, handling different situations and on and on. It also depends on the parents themselves, weak parents will create weak children, morals, taking responsibility for your own actions, did you baby them or not, if everyone gets a trophy or not, work ethic ~~~…… this is on you’re whole post, you also have to know your children and when you need to step in and help along when needed or not.

@mike69 said
Telling a child that isn’t what gives them the ability to accomplish great things or not, it’s how you raise them and teach them to grow and develop throughout childhood. Things like being responsible for their actions, falling rules, handling different situations and on and on. It also depends on the parents themselves, weak parents will create weak children, morals, taking ...[text shortened]... you also have to know your children and when you need to step in and help along when needed or not.

🙄

This must be why MAGAS beget MAGAS.

@mike69 said
I’m my eyes reality has to be able to be proven, not just feelings or believing in something, and not taking in other considerations of a cause, even if it isn’t comfortable.

Prove you have a soul. Prove it was created ex nihilo the instant your father‘s sperm penetrated your mother‘s ovum. Prove that only humans have souls and other animals don’t. Prove that souls survive the death of the body. Prove that only souls which believe a certain doctrine go to heaven, and that all others go to hell.


Believe me, I get it that those beliefs are important to many people. But don’t bother quoting the Bible at me, that’s not proof of anything except of what people believe and hope, not of what it is.

Uncomfortable thought though it is, its being important to many people doesn’t make it true.

@moonbus said
Prove you have a soul. Prove it was created ex nihilo the instant your father‘s sperm penetrated your mother‘s ovum. Prove that only humans have souls and other animals don’t. Prove that souls survive the death of the body. Prove that only souls which believe a certain doctrine go to heaven, and that all others go to hell.


Believe me, I get it that those beliefs are imp ...[text shortened]... is.

Uncomfortable thought though it is, its being important to many people doesn’t make it true.

Some people believe in God Some don’t or believe in other Gods or other spiritual things since the beginning of time about what happens after the reality of death but we change into nothing different physically or alter any reality of what we are while we’re here alive.

We are born here physically with a truth of what and how we are built and function and for certain reasons like reproduction as an example. Explain how our physical body and all that comes with it changes into another type of body and is able to function properly to the standards of what your attempting to create?by just cutting things off and putting other not real or properly functioning ones on medically. All you have done is change your appearance from medical advancements. Now that this has been done or even not you’re trying to tell me you have actually transformed into the other thing in reality because in your mind you think or feel you are now that thing and had some medical surgeries and are dressing as the thing that you’re attempting to look like. I can understand wanting to make these changes for self help reasons, to get closer to what you feel, but it doesn’t change what you were born as. And now because you feel and think you are something different than what you are and changed your appearance but not actual becoming that thing in reality we also have to believe it and accept you into areas and things that were created for what you think and feel you are and they were separated for certain reasons and you haven’t actually transformed physically except in your mind and appearance is this correct and fair?

@mike69 said
Some people believe in God Some don’t or believe in other Gods or other spiritual things since the beginning of time about what happens after the reality of death but we change into nothing different physically or alter any reality of what we are while we’re here alive.

We are born here physically with a truth of what and how we are built and function and for certain reas ...[text shortened]... haven’t actually transformed physically except in your mind and appearance is this correct and fair?

For those people who feel they were born into the wrong body, the physical transformation is a relief. Because with the physical transformation, they are now allowed to act like who they really are. As a cis-male, you have no idea how transformative this is. I've heard it described as a kind of "coming home" to who they really are. You cannot understand the kind of freedom this represents unless you have been through it. As a cis-female, I cannot really appreciate it, as I have not been there myself, but I've talked to many trans-females. The only thing I can approximate this to is those of the Indian religions speaking of Nirvana, that is, a "final removal of the disturbing mental elements which obstruct a peaceful and clear state of mind, together with a state of awakening from the mental sleep which they induce."

If you would stop speaking of things you have no idea of, and instead, try to have just a bit of tolerance for these things outside your experience, you might start to be seen here as more than just a mentally constipated baboon.

@mike69 said
Some people believe in God Some don’t or believe in other Gods or other spiritual things since the beginning of time about what happens after the reality of death but we change into nothing different physically or alter any reality of what we are while we’re here alive.

We are born here physically with a truth of what and how we are built and function and for certain reas ...[text shortened]... haven’t actually transformed physically except in your mind and appearance is this correct and fair?

My point is, you believe a whole load of things you can't prove and which have no basis in reality. So why is it so hard for you to get your mind round the idea that gender is a lot more complex than the visual appearance of sex organs and that some people feel they were mis-labeled at birth based on visual inspection of sex organs? The people who undergo so-called sex change operations typically don't say they have changed their sex; they typically say they have finally gotten the body which fits gender they always had, and this makes it easier for both them and the rest of society to apply the correct label to them.

Reality forces no labels on us. None whatsoever. We are entirely free to define "Black" people as having skin of a certain shade and measure this with a spectrometer; and now, who decides whether a certain grade is to be called "Black" or "White", eh? Totally arbitrary, social conventions, that's all. We can choose to ignore that people we attach the label "Black" to also typically have flaring nostrils and kinky hair and flat feet, though not all of them do. In SA, "Black" was defined by a ludicrous set of 'tests' which included, among others, sticking a pencil into a person's hair; if it stuck, "Black", if it fell out, "White." But what if he's bald? You see how silly it is, trying to base such definitions of race on what you imagine to be 'objective facts'?

Or we can define Black people as having a certain ancestry (some Jews define being Jewish in terms of ancestry), irrespective of what they look like. It's entirely a matter of taxonomy, what criteria are 'important' to this or that definition of race or ethnicity.

Same goes for gender identity.

The 'proof' that gender identity is something other than sex organs is this: a cadaver has sex organs, but no gender identity. Only a living person has a gender identity. For the same reason, there is no such thing as a Christian cadaver or an atheist cadaver.

@Suzianne said
Does it mean that I never regret? No. But I was taught that it's better to pick up that lesson and remember it so maybe I don't make that mistake a second time, and then just drive on, knowing that the road ahead will have one less problem. Too many people do not have the humility to learn from mistakes, so they just bumble along making the same mistake over and over. Take what you need and jettison the rest, I learned this from my father.

I think this is exactly right.

@Suzianne said
We tell our kids they can be anything they want. For some people, this is all they need to go on and accomplish great things. Others get bogged down, I think, by what happens to them that may temporarily get in their way. An important word in my vocabulary is 'overcome'. To overcome what Billy Shakespeare called "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune". I say 'tis ...[text shortened]... ing through what fortune offers up to us. Fortune indeed favors the bold and not the pusillanimous.

This post has free will written all over it. Maybe.

I do know that this is exactly what I look for in friends and relationships. I'll bet you a ridiculous amount of friends - too many to keep up with.

@Suzianne said
For those people who feel they were born into the wrong body, the physical transformation is a relief. Because with the physical transformation, they are now allowed to act like who they really are. As a cis-male, you have no idea how transformative this is. I've heard it described as a kind of "coming home" to who they really are. You cannot understand the kind of freed ...[text shortened]... de your experience, you might start to be seen here as more than just a mentally constipated baboon.

Try reading again to understand and see what I wrote and then try answering to my points.

@mike69 said
Try reading again to understand and see what I wrote and then try answering to my points.

This point is factually incorrect.

"weak parents will create weak children"

It's not a matter of opinion - the science is there. There have been any number of twin studies starting in the 1800's (when the term nature vs nurture was coined).

Except in cases of abuse or extreme poverty - extreme anything - children grow up as they will. Adopted twins - split up at birth - raised by different families in different religious, social, economical environments, turn out remarkably the same.

Children raised in the same families turn out remarkably different.

Some of your opinions I agree with and some I do not. That makes sense. I am sure you feel the same for many of the posters here. We get in trouble when we pass off our opinions as facts.

"weak parents will create weak children" - not true

"free will is an illusion" - completely my opinion