ISIS or ISIL

How do we defeat the radical group? That is the ultimate question. I think one of the answers in the deprogramming of religion, and removal of the effect of religion. We cannot do this to just one religion, we need to do it to all religions. Morals are a separate problem, along with public behavior and driving curacy. 

Deprogramming is a fancy concept for learning to understand that which is, and is real, and that which is not so physically real. It is separating real from concepts, provable concepts from those which are less provable. It is illogical to try to prove something does not exist. It is logical to assume the non existence of the un-provable and if evidence or demonstration can be made then maybe.

What do we know exists? Man and nature for sure. Physical mater, the laws of nature, and all such things can be felt, seen, or can be demonstrate to exist as forces, and the like, but because we can feel things, in a non physical sense, does not mean they exist. Consider a god, any god. There is no evidence that they exist, or ever existed. We apply purpose on everything nature does, but purpose only exists in the minds of men. When something comes into being, man will find a purpose for it or not. It does not matter. Nothing in nature has any planning, planning is another man made concept. It causes expectations and delusion of how life should be. 

Ideas, concepts may exist or subsist, but are they true? Well each needs to be tested in current time. How do we test moral laws. First, what if it was done to us? Imposing an ideology on someone is not right. Trying to prove a point by logic is less offense, but it is difficult to change the mind of who will not listen. Showing them the logic is the only logical way, but there are the emotional among us who's eyes glaze over at a<b therefore b>a.

Openly secular.org  http://openlysecular.org/  

Man exist. Nature exists. Gods are bullshit, as are religions.  But what do I know?

Stoic Philosophy and Locus of Control

First a touch of humor: DoFo for PM

http://www.threeminutetherapy.com/index.html 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXXJVj-GmzE&feature=youtu.be 
The above video got me thinking, we can shift our locus of control internal or to the external if it does not work where it is. 

Epictetus said "some things are within our control, some are not". Those things within our control are our judgements, opinions, motivation to act, desires, and by extensions our beliefs, values, and all those mental actions. This is of course limited by reality of nature, our ability and the like. This is totally rational. Those things outside of our control, our bodies, the economy, even the consequences of our actions are just out of our control. Other may wish to make us responsible, but responsibility is not the same as control.

Locus of control is only looking at whether the function in question is internal or external. If in fact we have no control, then it must be external. Others may wish to make it our responsibility, and even try to say that we are in control, but I call bullshit on that. If our physical body has a craving, and we are unable to resist, it may be that the body has too much influence. Perhaps we need to understand that we need a bit of unprocessed carbohydrates on a regular basis to relieve the physical need. Perhaps we allow over indulgence, and that is within our control.

How does one differentiate between a craving and a physical need? Well, needs do not go away, while cravings do. Cravings are both physical and mental, while needs are physical, as viewed through the primitive part of the brain. But then so are cravings. When I try very low carb, I crave carbs, or do I need carbs? When I meter a few carbs in, that need/craving is manageable, so is it a need or a craving?    

Clearly, only that which is within our control can be under internal locus of control. It is those things like our beliefs and values that could be externally controlled, or were externally controlled in our youth. The real question is have we taken control of our beliefs or do we allow our subconscious to govern, that is to say what we learned from external sources, what we continued to echo, and may be still echoing? That is not to say those beliefs and values are wrong, but until we question them, we do not know if they are appropriate for the present time.

Trust is a value that can serve as a big example. In the time when we knew everyone we dealt with, where travel was difficult, we knew the neighbors, and were in a stable environment, perhaps the default was appropriately to trust until the trust is broken. Once trust is broken, our interactions become conditional. Now the default, at least on the internet is to trust no one. That takes care of the scams. It is all a scam until demonstrated that it is not. Look at it and examine it, test it, and if it holds water, perhaps use it. Be prepared to let it all go for it may be bullshit. Consider religion. All man made, some truth, but mostly story of no intrinsic value. Some values are good, but no caution nor evidence of the fundamental underlying assumptions.

In the Ashley Madison data, it has been suggest that over 80% are just profiles, and less than 20% are real, or have "real" people behind the profile. In the females, this number may be 95/05.  So what is real anyway, when it comes to the internet?

Now back to the locus, if it is ours to control, we had best make it internal if we are rationals, and if we are just drifting through life as we always have done, either will work to a point. Now if we have a problem we can either address the problem or plaster over it as with a 12 step program and ignore the problem and perhaps it will just go away or not.

Event, beliefs, reaction. The event does not cause the reaction alone. It is the beliefs that cause us to react. Change our beliefs and we can change our reactions.  

But then what do I know?



    

What exists?

We know man exists, and that nature exists. The physical and chemical world exists. What events are not explained by the actions of either of these two? Nothing; therefore, there is no need of a god.

Man created god to explain that which we did not understand. Oh well. Sometimes time, the bugs, germs, fungus, cancers, deterioration or other thing overcome human life. Other times it is vermin that gets us or vermin of another sort if you dabble in the drug industry. Oh well, the planet will survive. Even if man does not, the earth will survive or not. It will not matter to a living person at that time.

Religions frequently allude the world being here for our benefit. That is bullshit way of expressing how important we thing we human are. The world developed out of physical and chemical environment, and life evolved. All life is opportunistic, even plants, and will grow, spread, and reproduce where it can. Some will adapt to grow in what was marginal conditions. Evolution, as it continues today, is the best explanation, and seems to be a natural law, part of the logos, if you prefer. Words are such poor pointers to the concept that it is not fully described in the public lexicon; it maybe in some academic circles, but has not reached the public memes.

We have those vege philosophers that say we should not eat animals because it is wrong to kill, but try eating a turnip without killing it. Plant life is life also, just not animated. Oh, well, we are a opportunistic species, in fact can anyone name one who is not? That is another part of the logos or natural laws.

So do concepts exist? Stoics said these subsist, as a special case of existence. These concepts can be false, yet cause humans to act. Perhaps existence is the wrong property to apply to concepts, but rather consider them to be something like a computer program running on a machine, an organic carbon based computer with leaky memory, sloppy error trapping, random generation from biased seed, and faulty logic. To save time and energy, a look up table of previous decisions, complete with errors, are used much of the time. It also generates strong and non-rational passions that go around causing problems.

Our rational minds exist, but are seldom in control beyond learned functions. Is there a way to learn rational behaviors that we typically leave up to our unconscious mind? That is to say, a way of maintaining rational control all of the time?

That would mean nothing is done without purpose, and only with purpose does anything happen. If that we the case, with so many humans, the world would be cationic, unpredictable, just as it is.
How could we separate that which happens with an intended purpose and that which happens as a result of the unforeseen?
And once it happens, it is real and history and cannot be changed therefore we must accept it.

It is like the "you can be anything you want to be" psychobabble. Those things are like religions (all man made), just ain't so. These are things which just do not exist in a real sense, but just live on in the minds of men as memes.

But then what do I know?     

To OA

I am taking a brake from F2F meetings. I found the last one I was at to be "disturbing and dangerous". Too much man hatred in the room. I felt in danger, and decided that the program may be attracting the crazy ladies that need substantial help, and I do not need that in my life today. That forced me to re-evaluate what the program offers.

I have struggled long to become a rational person with generally rational behaviors, within that I can physically do, and I think now that becoming even more rational is the key to recovery. "Do nothing, not even eat, without a rational purpose." Continuing to go to meeting habitually, where I am the most recovered person and in need of more recovery, is just not productive, especially where a group developed and some of the people are negative, highly emotional and unhinged.

The meetings provide an "extended social network of like minded people"; however, I am also drifting from that like minded concept to a more detailed concrete concept of reality and have never been better than today.

Also the understanding of this disease or overeating behavior has extended far beyond what it was when the AA program was adapted, and far beyond what is talked about in the program. The program, for me, may have reached the point of being counterproductive for my continued development of overcoming this overeating behavior. So for this while I have been exploring alternate methods of changing overeating behaviors, the causes and corrections. It has been an eye opening process, and I have seen considerable change in myself.

I fear the program is also distracting the primarily highly rational people from finding the cure, but does provide a disease based model for treatment for the primarily emotional, subconscious, and low rational based people. The program does not cure the behavior, rather manages the "disease". It is the cure of the behavior that I now seek to correct, and believe I have found the cause and cure of this overeating behavior.

Again thank you for your concern. If I can offer you any help with your recovery, please advise.

Effects of life in a delusion

What effect did growing up in a delusion have on me, and by extension, what effect does it have on others who have not yet seen that they are living in a delusion?

So there are two related problems, one living under a control freak, and secondly under a deluded religious control freak. 

What delusion? Well I grew up under a religious control freak, and I now realize that that was not healthy and is environment is not healthy to grow up in. Myths like gods, and religion should be eliminated. Youths need sound morals, sound logic, sound directions to plan a life at the same time allow passion for life to develop. Children are mortal, and some will be returned to where they came from, we must accept this, as it is the natural way. We must allow this to occur. We must learn to let go. It is health to do so.

Religions are run by man today. Going backward in time, we can see that in each generation, religions have been run by there generation of church elders, back to when the church or religion split off there ancestral religion. So in the beginning, additional myths or non-understood events were added to the population lour of the time and passed down. In the beginning of religion there was nature and there was man, as we had evolved to that point. Evolution carries on today, at about the same speed as before. That has not changed. We are animals carrying a brain. Nothing more. Our highest good would be to use logic, which is our directing brains main function, to advance society in some way. To do this well, we need to cooperate, and to live peacefully, to develop, expand or abilities, and most importantly, our knowledge.

Some of what we currently "know" is just wrong, and some of what we learn will also be wrong, and will later need to be replaced with "more right" knowledge. We frequently use mathematics and logic to model our knowledge (beliefs) and when these fail, we must be willing to let go of the delusions that were created. We frequently care other delusions, such as how life should be, but these are just delusions as well. Some will partly come true, most will not, so what?

Obesity is caused by overeating, mainly carbohydrates, and overeating causes the desire to overeat through a internal insulin - glucagon - glucose cycle, and there are at least five other groups of causes: physical, environmental, maladaptive behaviors, food knowledge, and food addiction. Until we get rid of all our delusions, we can live a free modern animals that we are and support or big brain. The god delusion is one of the big delusions to kick out.

The second is that our expectations can be forced onto children. Children must learn their own expectations, and develop the passion to go after their own expectations.I have seen time and again children with no expressed desire to do and achieve; I was one for many years. It is not good; children with expectations, and secondly a plan to get there, with the passion to see it through are the goal. The expectation, plan, and passion cannot be forced or directed very much; it must come from the inside, and likely for many may not be discovered in early life.

The best first step is to get rid of all delusions, expectations beyond our own control, and do a evaluation of our strengths and weaknesses as far as native skills. Use our native skills to our advantage. If we are not writers, do not stress over it, only write as necessary and then only when we have something to say. I hated writing reports as an engineer, but that has been my major product for most of my professional career. I enjoyed getting the information together to produce the report more, but without knowing how to right and write the report, there often would not be a solution. The client may not like the cost of some of my solutions, but then that is beyond my control.