Having renounced god...

After renouncing god, I still need to have purposes in life. Community must be important as humans are social animals, but even that characteristic varies widely with in human species and cultures. I personally, am of low social need, having grown up in relative isolation until I went to school, then due to speech, social, and personality issues was harassed at school; self isolation was better than exposing myself to harassment. I have always worked in low social jobs and careers choices. It was just easier that way. Writing is not my strong suit, analysis or doing the work is.

Coming from a cultural separated, religious family, and being anti-religions for many years, I was no longer part of much of the extended family functions. I have tried to become involved but that did not work out, so I let that all go. So be it. It is time to extend myself toward the social part of this mixed culture that I find myself living among, but I will not endure catering to there delusions of god. Some thing are up to me and some are not, so we will see what happens. I have chosen to follow essentially logic thoughts, many exposed by the early Greek Stoics.

Virtues are important to live up to for a number of reasons. It is likely right to do right, and by living up to virtues, it is possible to have a number of different attitudes. If wrongs were done, they were not done by me. I only did right, therefore the faults lie elsewhere. Arrogant? Perhaps, but with that much effort, if you can show me a better way, I will be open to hear about it and test or explore it. If it is actually better, truer, more just, than I will adopt it and live up to it. Living virtuously should produce positive emotion, meaning, engagement, and if fate permits, achievement, satisfaction and joy, according to PP (Positive psychology).

What are these virtues or precepts? First should come compassion, compassion for self and others. I am in the process of major change in my life. I am in the process of feeling my way through life for the first time. I will make mistakes.

Examination of the evidence of how one should live must be high up on the virtues, aka analysis of the life objectives and methods.  There has been much through out as how to live rightly, yet as I look around, I see much that is just obviously not right. This shows that something besides the cheese stinks in our society. Either people do not know how to live or they are not doing it, what else is there? They could know what was not right and choose to do wrong because it is easier or there is easy money in doing wrong. Money, fame and sex are easy but wrong goals, but often practiced.

Logic suggests that there are three levels of life, the upper most is logical, and the lower is animal existence. There is likely an intermediate level that is a developmental stage for logic, and that is a religious stage or level. In logic stage, there is no reason to kill, rob, defraud, or do any monetary or physical harm to others. There is only one logical philosophy, and differences of opinions occasionally as to better or best logic, but opinions are held loosely, easy to change. We need to live in a try this or that existence until we find that which is right for us as individuals. Some may wish to stay in the older and lower level of religious existence for the remainder of their lives, and that is their right. It is indoctrination of children into historical ways of fixed thinking that is just not right. We live in an age of communications, of knowledge, of information, and we need to learn to use these great tools for good, not destruction. To do this, we need to understand what is the ultimate good is, and what we must do to achieve this state of mind and behavior in the next generations. Long human existence on this planet will require that all the population move to the logic level. 

It is the next generations that we need to be concerned with. Over population and shortages of food, water, energy, will be common. A world wide one child policy would create less discord and stress on this planet. Economic collapse may push the minimalist lifestyle mainstream. These may be frugal or moderate, or down to the Cynic level, of living off the land, but only taking that which is freely given for the intended use to quote the Buddhist concept. This would be the no theft policy, but it need to separate theft, scavenging, and reuse. Anything no longer under the direct control of owner for more than a week will need to be removed. 

That is a no theft policy, but would need to allow permit picking and using of litter or "on the road droppings." In cleaning of road ditches, I have noticed some "useable stuff". Anything of value should be offered up as lost, but the cop told me to hold it and he would make note so if anyone called looking for it...

We will come to understand time in new ways....

Enough for today, and a picture because

 

Coming to Know

Beware: politically incorrect and stream of consciousness.
More on what do I believe?

What is your definition of god?   

No religious person has yet given me a suitable definition. It is the unclear definition that starts this process. I have come to accept and know, with as much certainty as I can know anything, that there is no supernatural god. With as much certainty as I can know anything, is just there for the skeptics and all those other philosophers who wonder how we can know anything. I am human, mortal, and all is relative to human existence. I think there I am, and I need to trust my thoughts with as much certainty as I can know anything.  No supernatural god, neither is their an intelligence hiding somewhere that created all this. We are the result of many processes and forces, hydrogen fusion, nuclear fusion, the big bang, star dust, black hole explosion, collection of a solar system, evolution. Much is unknown. The processes carry on at the same speed today as they always have and will, when compared to man's time scale.     

A natural god cannot do anything that is not natural result of nature, chemistry, physics, biology, evolution, and its forces. I do not have a problem of using god as a synonym for nature, or those process, but for clarity why not just use nature rather than some euphemism. It is the difference between fate and providence. The difference between these two words is the positive tone and the god planning concept that is included in the word providence, not the physical outcome. Everything is an just an impression or our thoughts make it so. One outcome adjective we are pleased with, the other we will just need to live with.

Coming to know what I believe is not a simple matter. It takes time and study, and some thing must be put into stasis for now. They just do not fit, or fit yet. Then there is the question of how these should be ordered to express them in a order that does not require something that has not been discussed. I guess that may be why Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius makes more sense in rereading, cycling through, until ever line has a clear and present meaning. 

I needed to unlearn also before I could learn. This has been, and likely continue to be a piecemeal process, for each proposition must be identified, studied for relevance and either be accepted, rejected or held for later examination. This is what make this process so involved, for there is only logic. I am holding that reason and logic are the foundation of all this re-evaluation. Now that reason and logic is the foundation, anything that is not logical, real, or without reason must be cleaned out of my belief system.

I can see now why religion concepts; do as your are told, do not question, do not think too much, are so popular as religion doctrine. You do not need to understand the logic or purpose to impose that belief on young minds to create a meme system to propagate a religion. This was likely more important when life expectancy was not so long. Mohammad and the Christian Knight needed young soldiers to follow orders and die for the cause.  It is the propagation of the belief system and of the organization that runs the system that has become the objective. Yes, I have just said that the people are their to support the church, not the church to support the people. Religion is backwards in the application. It is first the questioning and the inability of the religious to provide reasoned answers that has destroyed the hold of religion. Is that not the definition of a meme system where the original purpose has been replaced keeping it going? 

I am a non-believer in a supernatural god, and you are free to believe what foolishness you wish to believe. I am not against any thesis, so I am not an atheist but rather a non-theist. I recognize that conscious mind is the only part of our mind that uses logic and reason, while the unconscious automatic portion uses our beliefs as the basis of most actions. This is the triune brain at its finest.

How do I end this post? it is part of a big unwieldy developing and changing concept, with future chapters.

Enough and a picture just because.

It's eatable, the whole plant. 

The root has a bit of a parsnip flavor, leaves kale like, and the flower is sweet. 

            

The God Delusion

A nice read, thought stimulating, logical and rational argument for something that science hardly argues with. Like food science, the argument is all about getting the public concepts of old changed to more correct concepts. Science has made peace with reality. Oh well, I know what is right; the fault lies with the views of others; mistake were made, but not by me; sort of  level of arrogance or reality, you be the judge. 

Just part way through so far. The best line yet has been something like.... "When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion, it is called a religion."

Richard Dawkins is forcing me to think but not too much. I have long know that religion was bogus or bog gas, methane, with a bit of parenteral induces capsein and bait. I always considered god a concept, a meme, a idea that has been pushed down through the generations. It never occurred to me that it was just man made hogwash before. Man made god, although he has not yet said that. OK. Moving on, off on a tangent.

Religion has uses, and the modern religions needs a overhaul or a rebuild.  Reason, logic needs to be raise up the priorities of life, as does a life purpose that stays in front of the changes and vicissitudes that life throws us. We need to know where we are going and why, to maintain a urgent motivation to action.

I am aware that I now need to revise my purpose in life, so recapture the sense of a driving force that gave reason to get out of bed in the morning, and kept me awake at night, thinking, planning, devising, scheming. A vital consuming creative force, a ultimate personal goal, like to rid the local population of the evils of ignorance, but they do not care. Oh Well.

We are on this world to cooperate, according to Marcus Aurelius, but then there are the sociopaths and psychopaths, and like companies...some banks, financial, insurance gougers, airlines,  that just sit back and take from others through fraud, scams, and hide on the internet. Without mass communications, they were known, and could be dealt with by the local governments, when we had local communities. Now they hide behind lawyers, distance jurisdictions, foreign governments, religion freedoms, from stone age to iron age religions.  We need an electronic age religion, or no religion.

Herding cats is a phrase I have heard before, and that is what Dawkins likens us free thinkers to. He may be right, but some of us would follow if someone would take up the lead in the direction I am heading now. I agree that we need a social - community organization that we can get behind.

Religions provided potential educations and direction before, to the lost and straying. That was a big portion of it's work when the life expectancy was not so high. So far, Dawkins has not toughed on that, not the big structures, support for the arts, and high end architecture craftsmen, painters, and to some extent science within the limits of what the church thought was proper. Of course, Ireland has implied the RC church is behind the times, relative to what the people want. They have choices now, so the RCC can play catch up or become even more irrelevant.

But what do I know.

dyslexic god

     

How important is it really?

Beware; stream of consciousness. Politically incorrect.

The stoic call it view from above. Just imagine our self flying upwards, and what do we see? A rapid decrease in the size of everything. We just become ants, each doing our own thing. Confusion, yet order. We leave the house, go to work, do wage slavery all day, and return. Buffoonery and arduous labor, drudgery and boredom, how little interest. We run around, and what do we achieve?

Is there anything more useless than cutting grass? So it "looks better". Does anyone care? The City, the neighbors, the mob. As a stoic, you know how much I care about what the mob thinks. I am not interested in what the mob thinks, and few of the mob are interested in what I think. Work so that we may pay more taxes? The uselessness of so much. And over - abundance, fat, lose weight, get exercise.

Too much bad information. Insulin is the fat storage hormone, eat no carbohydrates, and it is difficult to get fat. Yet we humans like carbohydrates, it is natural to like them and want them and to eat them given the chance.

Nature is in control of so much, and provides such drives. Human nature is to eat, and we individuals must resist the urge to eat, but we do not have control, only influence. We must go against Nature.

Many say we are in control, and yet the evidence says we are not. We do not want to be fat, yet we are. We are not in control, and those who say we are are not looking at the evidence, but rather what they think is true. Their belief system says we should be able to control our eating (ELMM). Prove it, or it is just your opinion, asshole.

OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, is a real problem for many, yet the doctor says it does not contribute to obesity, yet if I am obsessing about other things, I have no desire to eat. If I am obsessing about food, I will empty the pantry. My OCD cause obesity, along with the FU situation I grew up into. It is the fault of where I was dropped at birth. Oh well, I survived. It was my obsessions that allowed me to survive.  

Separating the material and the concepts that drive, the causes may give relief. Yes, Nature has dealt me OCD, greed, analytical mind, reason, and a disinterest in others or low social need. It deal me an interest in the material processes. Nature allowed me to learn the causes of slope failures, foundation failures, bank movements, and the knowledge of how to build to avoid those problems. Nature allowed me to learn pavement design, geotechnical materials engineering, and the like, but not how to write in a socially appealing way. Oh well, shit happens. Yet I spent most of my working life grinding out engineering reports after collecting the required information.

trib to Bow at Blackfalls

When I sit back and evaluate it all, how important is this life's accomplishment to anyone but me? Few will even notice when I return to from where I came. "If you want lasting immortality, chisel your name into a big rock. It may last a few years beyond you." Paraphrased quote from one of those old Greeks. Is that where the idea of a head stone came from?

Enough. Picture because I can. The water is really brown, and the falls are just a riffle now. 

Best line of the day

“Recovery is about purpose and meaning in life, not “sobriety” and meetings.” ~ Stanton Peele


It is my opinion that having a strong purpose in life has been one of the driving forces of flourishing people. But when our purpose is removed, achieved, or frustrated beyond our control, how does one reestablish a new one?

Positive psychology says positive emotions produce meaning, and engagement (flow), but really these three must occur together. If we have those three and fate permits we may have achievement, satisfaction and joy. Purpose in life is the starting place that we must have for achievement, but purpose may not receive flow for any of those nasty reasons, removal of purpose, or frustration. And then life goes on. We may not enjoy our achievements, the work required to maintenance may be too great, or all we have is the memory of those events. Our achievement may be fleeting. Nature's only permanency is duplication or recreation. It is all changing, impermanent. We just need to keep peddling, with the faith that everything will be right in the end, and keep on peddling. It is all futile, we will die in the end anyway.

It is all about looking forward, with expectation, wonder, joy; the journey not the destination. There are some youtube videos that show how little conventional wisdom knows about diaobesity, Fung  , that show the connection between cortisol, adrenaline, glucose, insulin, insulin resistance, and obesity, and the process of physical recovery. What drove us to overeat originally is not discussed, but the list hormones all have psychological impacts.

It would be less hassle to simply buy a few veg than to grow them, but then what would I do?

Barge fairy on the  Saskatchewan

A bit about the Saskatchewan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHAl1tWvvPA

Steps Cleaned of god and extended

It is my opinion that the 12 step need modification to deal with the food problem. The first version stolen from http://www.aaagnostics.org/agnostic12steps.html

There are holes between the steps and these need to be plugged. First, we need to make a major commitment to change and correction of the issues in our lives in a positive way. I think the objective of each step must be stated somewhere also. Here is a draft of the steps of the process as I have taken. Please feel free to comment, and/or advise expansion of these to include all that is required for all to recover.

1. We admitted we were powerless over foods—that our lives had become unmanageable. Indeed, our unmanageable life, may be the root cause of anxiety that we use high blood glucose and high insulin to sedate ourselves with.
2. Recognized that food knowledge, food addiction, environment, maladaptive behaviors, and our physical make up all combine to both the development and recovery from this issue.
3. Recognize that we require a major psychic (spiritual, emotional, behavioral) change to recover long term. Some would term this a life style change.
4. Become willing to examine and understand and evaluate philosophical concepts to aid in understanding ourselves and others, adopting the useful where appropriate.
5. Became willing to change in positive ways, learn some philosophy, and methods of fostering self change.
6. Came to believe and to accept that we needed strengths beyond our awareness and resources to restore us to sanity or to develop sanity, character, and understanding.
7. Made a decision to entrust our will and our lives to the care of the collective wisdom and resources of those who have searched before us. We have the choice, one concept at a time, to assent, reject or withhold our personal judgements. We have the same choices in adoption of those individual concepts. 
8. Developed a positive concept of what we would like to become, and a positive philosophy, and employ a positive psychology process. (conscious super ego)
9. Some things are up to us, our responsibility's, some are not, none of our concern. Some things need to be done just for today.
10. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
11. Admitted to ourselves without reservation, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. We also acknowledge our strengths, skills, assets.  
12. Were ready to accept help in letting go of our defects and to let go of all our defects of character or our inappropriate use of our characteristics.
13. With humility and openness sought to eliminate our shortcomings. We bring out will into line with that which is about to happen, and that which is. We live in the present.
14. Started to adopt and develop our new positive psychology personality while remaining without ego, arrogance yet confident. We are all equal.
15. Reviewed our relationships and made a decision as to which ones we wished to salvage. 
16. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
17. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
18. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
19. Sought through study, repetition and meditation to improve our spiritual awareness and our understanding of the way of life and to discover the power to carry out that way of life.
20. Having had a personality change or spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs. 

What do you think? What should be added? There is a lot of room for change here.

Enough at this time.
Fred T

And a picture just because I can:

Just taking in a bit of sun

video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=da1vvigy5tQ

Pick Your Delusion

I just came back from a morning at an OA retreat. It was one more day of the typical, god, god, god, pick your delusion. That does not match with stoic up to us/not, and responsibility for just those things within my control. The two are incompatible. I must drop one.

Character defects are nasty things, let go of them. Before I can do that, I must learn what a good character should look like in the modern sense, and develop that so that I have no need of those troublesome parts. I must learn to deal with idiots, aggressive, the bossy, the blind, control freaks, the religious, the irrational, emotion and irrational, and all those others. I must learn to let go of anger, resentments, fears, caring for those who do not care about themselves, and those who are stuck in delusions of their own choosing.

A good character goes through a morning reset. This might include gratitude, voiced or felt, followed by a list of virtues to practice that day.

Perhaps serenity or tranquility, without concern for time is the most pressing characteristic to develop.

Live by natural things in natural ways. Unnatural is not the right way.

Fortitude, courage or perseverance, temperance, wisdom, justice, compassion...

Keep on doing that which is good and right to do.

Justice in judgements, understanding that I control my beliefs, my core beliefs and those can change.
understanding that today I will be faced with the irrationals.

Things cannot do much, and cannot reason. It is not there fault, it is the way they are.

Compassion for the deserving, and ignoring the unknown and careless,
observing the prime directive, allowing alien cultures to go there own way.

Following the Logos, where ever it leads.

Rational thought and behavior is the way to achieve a flourishing life.
Meaning, engagement, and if fate permits, achievement, satisfaction and joy.

It is not the event that upsets us, but our thoughts about it.
Some thing are up to us, some are not. We can change anything that is up to us, influence a few other things, acceptance of the remainder is required.

Aline our will with what is about to happen, desire that which happens.
Live in the present, without the need for hope for the future outcomes nor regret about the past which is.
A virtue has two opposites. we need to be in the middle, moderation, for most virtues, except for the absolutes.
Prune our personality until we are left with just the desirable characteristics.
Just watch the drama unfold.

This is the delusion I choose.

A good character goes through an evening review, what defects did I not practice, what sound characteristics did I practice? What problem did I solve today? What did I achieve? Do I need to make amends to anyone? What is your core belief; what is your new core belief?

Enough, and a picture because I can