What Sean says boils down to the following: BE critical and do not make yourself responsible if you cannot find the truth in a more or less widely acknowledged hypothesis or theory, as that’s not your fault, but the theories. (Ok, it’s not that good formulated)

To come back to the “truth”

For example: Climate change - its now acknowledged that’s fundamentally men-made. But there are still scientists who preach to contrary. (~ http://meteo.lcd.lu)
Our responsibility is not to find the truth, but to be looking for it. We have not the means to find the truth.(as Antisankari points out above)

What we need to do is to try to find sth. which might possibly be true, we need to revise our opinions constantly, and we have to life according to them.
Human existence makes sense only if there is progress, social progress, technological progress etc. (Read: Goethe’s Faust)

As I’m taking philosophy, let’s talk about it.
The theory of cognition.
Well, there exist many, I’ll talk about one.
*Rationalism:
There are several systems, Descartes’ being the best known:
first principal: Cogito ergo sum. I think, so necessarily I exist (as a thinking being)
second principal: God exists.
conclusion: God acts as a guarantor for all evident convictions, evident being sth. which is clear (antonym: obscure) and distinct.

Now, when I write this in such a compressed way, this is obviously doubtful. Descartes has proven his point of view and if you don’t act as Sean asks you to in his initial post, you might be tempted to believe this. However, we have fundamentally become sceptical, which is a good thing. So we realise, that there are mistakes in Descartes system. And we realise that it does not lead to the ultimate truth we have been looking for.

When we start to develop “psychic” abilities, we had, however, to cease our scepticism to allow their development, because we thought they were not possible. And it this situation we are tempted to believe many sorts of things and we easily become an victim of mundane theories, which truth cannot be found by us, because we do not believe in it strong enough. Such reasoning must be avoided. That’s what Seans.

WOW - what a long post. I hope it’s readable. I’d really need an edit button, so I could correct it later, because the structure of the post really does not help the understanding of my message. I hope you get through and note that I’m not a native English speaker.

We are forced to accept our current paradigm anyway.

In school, if your answers did not conform with your teacher, you didn’t pass the exam. Ultimately you couldn’t pass your grade, and so on.
So we are forced to accept math as truth anyway. Talk about power?

Lets make a nice example.

Lets assume that you are almost all powerful. You can do whatever you want and there is no way anyone can do shit about it.

You start walking down the road. Every time you meed someone, you will ask them if they agree with your opinions. If they say they do, you will go on. If they don’t, you kill them right there.

I assume now for the sake of this example that the dead have no opinions (or if they do, they are considered irreleveant).

You keep doing this infinitely. From your point of view, everybody you know and meet agrees with you. If they dont agree with you, they are dead. If they do, they live.

Now the people you dont know, dont really matter, since its all about your point of view. From your point of view, everybody in the world agrees with you. There are only 2 kinds of people now. Dead and likeminded.

What you are preaching might not be “the truth” for the dead, but the living are accepting it, as there is no other way. Its either/or. believe and live or defy and die.

Your word is now the truth for all living people of the world. Is it really the truth?

Whos to say?

Nezz - No. Belief is not a requirement for psionics or OBEs. In fact, many people have psychic experiences that don’t believe in them, including OBEs. They usually rationalize it differently - but they still have the experience. Belief is not a prerequisite for experience.

war1205 - Quantum physics has taught us that the world is NOT deterministic. What you’re talking about is the pre-quantum-physics mindset - aka, Newtonian.

NeoPsychic - lol.

ancheron - Rejecting Christianity does not imply rejection of the idea of God. Nowhere in my post do I attack the idea of God - I simply attack the part of Christianity that is unhealthy thinking. Nowhere did I state that ALL of Christianity is bad, or incorrect. I simply stated that some reasoning present in the Christian mindset is unhealthy.

I defer to Thomas Jefferson:

“Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.”

In any case, Sean, I’m sorry to see you in this rut that is so -easy- to fall into. You taught me telepathy, and for that I’m grateful. You started me down the path, but now we have diverged into completely different directions.

I don’t claim that anything you believe or do is wrong or what I do is right, but please meditate a little and think about it. I do not see belief in God as a reflective loop, or religious beliefs, rather I see God at the very core and foundation of the universe, and Christ as another facet of that foundation.

In this regard, a reading that should be interesting: “The Nature of Order: The Luminous Ground” by Christopher Alexander.

Learn a little about Kabbalah, which is the foundation and living spirit of Judaism and Christianity, and so horribly misinterpreted.

Learn a little about Hermeticism and it’s study of the Great Mystery.

This universe is a very -vast- place. There are layers to manifestation that can be peeled back to reveal the intricacy and wonder of creation. Proof of the divine. From Tzimtzum to now, Providence has been at work.

It helps to believe in psi and the stuff you are about to learn about when most people around you say it false. But, if through your own observation and experimentation proves that you are right, then having belief in what your are doing is pretty much irrelevant.

Sean:
I used telepathy on my tree and it says your tree is a self-absorbed pig XD

I think that last bit depends alot on what bit of Christianity you choose to believe. I mean, I know it is different for everyone. But, I think I still more or less believe it on most of its more fundamental levels. Even if it is just some sort of comfort object. I mean… without God, all there is is Chemistry and Physics… they are more or less predetermined. Therefore, there is no free will, no choice. Everything is planned out already. With God you get some sort of… sentient knowledge… in the universe. Something has free will, and by extension, we may also have free will. Belief just gives you something to hold onto. Maybe it is misguided and wrong, but its something to cling to. And sometimes you need that.

But fuck if I know…

I got a Q for you though on your Thought Thoery.
Did the thoery of Psionics and OBE’s not lead you to first Believe they existed before you can open the path to be able to do it?

Because of this, one with most power should and will define the truth.

Examples: Crusades, Bloshevik revolution, Holocaust and excommunications during middle ages.

Power of course is relative variable.