gubberningbody
JoinedPosts by gubberningbody
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16
Why we cant find lasting happiness
by gubberningbody in"hidden.
why we cant find lasting happiness.
there is money to be made from happiness.
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16
Why we cant find lasting happiness
by gubberningbody in"hidden.
why we cant find lasting happiness.
there is money to be made from happiness.
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gubberningbody
Why we can’t find lasting happiness
There is money to be made from happiness. People spend large amounts in the pursuit of it. Happiness, though, eludes us. It is so difficult to find happiness that anyone who has found it takes on an aura of greatness and wisdom. Gullible hoards flock to hear the words of a thousand gurus, each promising a way to happiness. These gurus, of course, claim to be happy. They would have to, for business reasons. They are not happy, but many of them are rich.
Anyone who tells you that they can get you lasting happiness, is selling something. Do not believe them, and do not part with any money. You will never find lasting happiness. The reason for this, is that you are biologically incapable of sustaining pleasure, and there is a good reason for this.
The nature of pleasure is misunderstood. People often believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. No it isn’t. Humans, and all other life forms, evolved to reproduce. Those creatures that reproduced successfully in the past are still here today, those that didn’t have died out. Were it an aid to reproduction to be miserable, we would all be miserable. Pleasure has a function, and adaptive purpose, and it serves an end. The end it serves is reproduction. We get pleasure from all the things that helped our ancestors to survive and reproduce.
Imagine three groups of hunter-gatherers. Through some bizarre circumstance, one group has mutated into one that finds no pleasure in anything, one has mutated into one which finds pleasure in everything, and one has evolved by careful selected increments, into one which feels pleasure in the way we do today.
The first group dies out. It does this, because it gets no guidance for how to behave. It tries hunting, but doesn’t like all that running about and throwing things. It finds some food, eats it, but doesn’t like the taste. It doesn’t try hunting or eating again. It never occurs to any of them to have a go at procreation, because that is a bizarre activity, and totally without pleasurable reward. They find no excitement in courtship, nor conversation, so they don’t chat, and never form friendships or become lovers. It is clear that this lot never stood a hope of becoming our ancestors.
The second group dies out. It does this, because it finds pleasure in everything, and so has no motivation to seek to do the right sensible things, but instead it simply seeks to do and experience as much as possible. All stimuli are great. They bang their heads against trees, and the feeling is ecstatic. They spend hours standing on one leg and shouting, and the euphoria they experience is greater than they can express. So great is their pleasure in all this, that they use up their short lives experimenting with such things as staring at the sky, laughing, and breaking things. They never get round to eating, sleeping, or trying to make little hunter-gatherers. One couple accidentally makes a little hunter-gatherer, but the parents love the sound of its crying so much, that it dies unfed.
The third group survives. It tries banging heads against trees, but finds that this hurts, and so it soon stops. It tries hunting, and finds this challenging and fun. It enjoys the taste of good cooked meat, but it hates the taste of rotting raw meat. The people dislike loneliness, and prefer company and chat. Driven by lusts, they have a go at making little hunter-gatherers, and they like this so much that they try again and again. They avoid cold damp places, and seek out warm dry places. They find all the things that are bad for them to be unpleasurable, and all the things that are good for them to be pleasurable. Guided by these instincts, they prosper.
However, their feelings of pleasure never last. Nature evolves a carrot and stick policy, and they keep getting shown the stick. When one feels thirsty, he drinks, and then he feels the pleasure of a thirst quenched. If he were to feel that pleasure for ever, he would never drink again, and would die of thirst. He must soon feel thirst again. After eating, he feels satisfied, but he must eat every day for life, and so he feels hunger again and again. Hunger is the stick which goads him towards a behaviour which is to the advantage of his survival and reproduction. Feeling satisfied is the carrot which rewards him for his good behaviour. If he were to have one child, and feel happy for ever, then he would not reproduce as much as a man who has ambitions to have many children. The most ambitious people often did better than the most easily satisfied. Today, when a person gets a lot of money, he becomes for a while happier, but soon his happiness levels out at what it was before, and he wants more money. Our genes are ambitious for us. They want us to marry the best mate, make the most money, and give rise to the best children, and give them all the advantages possible in life.
We are the descendants of people who were ambitious, and who got their pleasure from the things which helped them live in their world. Unfortunately for us, today, life involves all sorts of activities which are necessary, but give us no pleasure. We hate filling in forms. Our ancestors never had to fill in forms. If form-filling had for millions of years been an essential part of life, just as eating and drinking was, then the people who loved doing it would have done better than those who didn’t, and we today would jump at the chance to fill in a good form or two. People’s abilities match their likes very accurately. Boys are better at certain topics like physics, while girls are better at languages. It seems that the main reason for this, is that boys are interested in, and get pleasure from the study of objects and their workings, whereas girls are naturally more interested in, and get more pleasure from people and communication. In all the studies of happiness, the planet’s happiest people always turn out to be the people living in the way closest to that of wild ancestral humans - modern day hunter-gatherers, living contented lives on islands, fishing and lounging about. The most miserable people on Earth appear to be the Japanese, and it is surely no coincidence that their way of life is the furthest removed from nature.
One thing people get pleasure from is respect, and it is possible to get respect from the foolish by telling them that there is a path to happiness, and that you are a guide to this path (cheques payable to A. Guru), consequently, there are people who are led by their instincts to become sellers of the false notion that lasting happiness is possible. Shun these people.
By this stage in this essay, you may find yourself feeling disappointed. You may have read the title and thought to yourself, “Aha! At last a scientific fact-based essay which will allow me to find lasting happiness. I must read this!” You may have thought this, despite the wording of the title, which clearly implies that we cannot find lasting happiness. So great is your desire for happiness, that your hope may have warped the meaning of the title in your mind. You may by now be thinking that this essay is a tease, and that it offers none of the solutions to the problem of finding lasting happiness which it promised. It made no such promise. From the start, this essay has been saying that we are biologically incapable of sustaining pleasure, and so any search for lasting happiness will end in failure. I might add now that this is probably a good thing, because non-adaptive pleasure leads to all manner of problems, as experienced by drug addicts, whose lives fall apart when they get distracted by drug-induced pleasures.
So does this essay have anything useful to say? Well, I think it does. For one thing, we now know that gurus are a waste of time and money. We also know that no matter how happy we think we will be in the future when something good happens, that that pleasure will not last. We may feel now that we would be happy if only we could get some thing we lack - job, girlfriend, own home, more holiday, more pay, Scalextric set. If you accept what I have written above as true, then you will be able to plan your future happiness much better. You will not feel the disappointment when, after you get your Scalextric set, you find that life is not now perfect, and that you still feel that there is something missing. There will always be something missing. Know now that your pleasures will not last, and avoid that disappointment, and plan for a continuing series of pleasurable projects, rather than the one big final one.
Note that this essay was about happiness rather than contentment. Contentment is a state of long-term ability to cope with, put up with, be satisfied with, life. It is not nirvana, enlightenment, euphoria, or any such positive and lasting feeling of positive pleasure. Content people are not euphoric, they are simply not miserable. Contentment is, very broadly speaking, attainable. A content person still gets annoyed when he stubs his toe, and he still likes Casablanca, but overall his life is okay."
This from...
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How to deal with Shadow Boxers!
by AK - Jeff inhe/she shows up, makes a post on a thread directed to me.
then back in the shadows.. a couple years back i had one too.
this shadow boxing match moved to an off-forum ring.
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76
Of all known religious beliefs which one seems most reasonable?
by The Berean inbuddhism would be my choice ....
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gubberningbody
Perry, those are not the only two options. There are quite a number of others.
Narkissos, After pointing out the unreasonableness of some belief systems, one can go on to examine those who lay claim to reason in one form or anthor with regard to internal and external consistency. Again, it's not an either/or situation. It would be convenient if it were.
In general, out loud....
I've noticed that most people want to create straw men out of whatever system of belief they're opposed to while submitting at the same time that theirs is uniquely different.
Atheism, is a positive statement, and one which cannot be proven but perhaps induced if one cherry-picks and arranges the evidence.
Theism, is a positive statement, and one which cannot be proven but perhaps induced if one cherry-picks and arranges the evidence.
Agnosticism, is positive statement that the affairs of the above two systems are in fact the case as I've described them.
There are other ways to accept responsibility without relying on a "higher power" and be a theist, atheist or agnostic. Some might wonder how it is that a theist could ever do so, and yet the affairs of Abraham serve as an example of the same at least in suggestion w/regard to the Sodom & Gomorrah incident. There we see Abraham asking Jehovah "Is the God of all the earth NOT going to do what is RIGHT?" In his question, Abraham lays claim to his right to make moral judgments even of the creator. In this he was not condemned in the narrative, and later in the book of James he's referred to as "God's friend". Abraham did not defer his judgment to a "higher power" as many theists do. He took responsibility.
This is where I find myself. I consider that a theistic agnosticism with an emphasis on my personal right to judge what is or is not right as my right to choose and discover for myself.
I do not know that Adam was ever condemned for his actions. He certainly took responsibility to choose and decide and in this instance it seems that the only difference between Adam and Abraham was a conversation.
Was there a conversation with regard to Adam's suspicions that Jehovah was just going to take his wife and kill her because he, Jehovah had not managed his affairs so that this badness was allowed to take place?
Or was there no conversation?
Is or was it necessary that Adam inquire further of Jehovah?
Was Adam making a test of Jehovah's goodness in eating of the tree himself (as he was not deceived)? Was he saying in effect "Is the God of all the earth not going to do what is right? My wife was deceived! How was it that we were not warned that deceivers could come into our world to try to fool us with lies? I would never have done this myself. What? Would you have me stand idly by why my wife be executed before my eyes? No. If it must be, then we will both die. I cannot be a party to this."
I don't know.
I don't know if anything of this sort took place.
I take personal responsibility to judge that Jehovah simply cannot be as he has been depicted by any religions I've come to know, save the bare outline of that found in Universalism. This, of course I speak from an agnostic position.
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some leave & stay quiet...why do some rant/obsess like me/us?
by oompa ini recently posted "why do we do this?
".....good answers btw.......but now.......i so want/need to let go......my wife will not change...and it has been nightmare awful lately.....i will never go back......i have hurt her soooooooo bad for over two years.........why cant i stop?...she is a great woman..........we might could make it if i could just shut up......get bye not just to her but my friends as well....... do i need meds for obsessive thoughts/behavior?..........damm i am obsessed over this cult........why cant i just not be a religious person....just shut up and be non vocal.........i just keep outing myself.......like a deathwish.......i do not really want to lose my family....i have lost most friends already.......but am scared to lose my family too......i know many here have......i just wish i could be a more silent fader....... if we shut up.......we are not really apostate in there eyes......but uh-oh.........if you keep on like me.......you are one.......and since i am even more non-judgemental now........she has a right to her own beliefs...... an old friend of mine just went back to jw.......he is now sober due to this decision...it helps him.....some just need structure.........plus......he has a chick in jw that loves him........and he will get wicked good poontang from her as soon as he marries this goddess.....so that is good too...oompa.
good luck poontang bound jw friend.......
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gubberningbody
Oompa, do you want to have a real and honest relationship with people? I suspect that you do. People who want those things who are embedded within a group of people who do not want those things will always feel this kind of dissonance.
People have limitations. Some of those whom we love are cowards or are mentally deficient when it comes to these things.
What I began to do for catharsis is carry a notebook with me so that it could become my confessor. I would sit at meetings and assemblys and write furiously w/regard to what I felt and why I felt it. The white paper was always receptive to what I had to say, never once was I rejected. When I would go went back to reread my notes I would look for patterns of annoyance. What exactly were the things that annoyed me the most? Why was this so? I would likely have been these still had my wife not been less than discreet which led them to begin moving against her. I was never going to be party to the nonsense or abuse I'd witnessed as an elder but I began to be outnumbered by the glassy-eyed arrivals of recently outsourced bethelites made "special pioneers" and yes-men who knew neither their bibles nor the literature which the organization had spewed forth over the years. They moved against her and she decided that she'd listened to enough apostasy being spoken from the platform and printed in the magazines that we collectively decided to end it right then.
Try writing your thoughts down and read and rehearse them until they flow calmly and naturally. Then if you need to speak you won't seem anything but calm because you will be calm. A calm man speaking sense calmly makes more impact and is harder to dismiss or ignore. The hive doesn't want you to collect your thoughts in this manner, so you know this is what you should do.
Even now I've prepared myself for unplanned meetings in the world so that I can calmly and evenly deliver reasonable sounding excuses if I need to. Right now the hive is buzzing. I will wait until they settle down again before I make contact again. This may be 6 months or more. I don't know.
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Of all known religious beliefs which one seems most reasonable?
by The Berean inbuddhism would be my choice ....
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gubberningbody
still_in74's clearly shaves w/Occam's razor. Right. That's the only logically defensible position. Atheism is just another form of fundamentalism.
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Why why why do ex witlesses?
by hamsterbait inwhy is it that ex jdubs always export what the witchtower says about the trinity and argue against that.. anybody who has read the trinity brochure must know how it distorts the quotes, often turning them right around.
the wt thinks the trinity means a three headed god, or makes up other such nonsense.. instead of attacking those whose faith leads them to believe in a triune godhead, maybe these people should find out what the real teaching on the trinity is rather than tub thumping against what the wtbts claims these christians believe.. whatever your opinion, all that really matters is that a christian calls on the name of jesus and looks to him for salvation.
it is the wt that claims you have to have every doctrine in line with their views or you will die.
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How Did You Deal With Weirdo JWs?
by minimus inlet's face it, some witnesses are weirder than others.
we had one certain mama's boy who made sure he was dressed up properly, especially in the winter.
she'd make sure he had his "rubbers", scarf, hat and gloves.
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This is what I have been doing
by oldflame inhttp://www.myspace.com/shastaparanormal.
yes i gone and did it i am now a full time ghost hunter.
i started my own service but while looking for haunted places another ghost investigating service wrote me and asked if i would like to join their group.
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gubberningbody
It's ok to be skeptical of anything which defies any objective analysis.
A thousand anecdotal reports or even a million are not equivalent to one tangible, reproducible result.
The idea is based on a number of assumptions:
1. That a person of some sort survives the person at death.
No proof.
2. That phenomenon experienced must necessarily be confirmation of #1.
No proof.
3. That all phenomenon experienced must necessarily exist in the external world of objects, hence must be in confirmation of #1.
Provably false. Hallucinatory experiences can be induced at will and certain activities will yield similar results, this not due to the existence
of external forces, but rather because the pathway taken to such experiences are similar and we have simliar bodies/brains and so are affected
in similar manner.
I'd recommend Charles Tart's book "Altered States" as a rational approach to investigation.
(The latter vid is for balance)
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My latest letter to the org and their reply
by uncle_onion inso we can see that the early jehovah witnesses believed that jesus parousia began in 1874. the truth book states this above and it is in all the old books.
so we can see that the early jehovah witnesses believed that jesus parousia began in 1874. the truth book states this above and it is in all the old books.
this statement is coming from the organization that offered the scholarship and keeps written records of such.
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gubberningbody
Yup, it's this sort of lying and equivocation that makes me want to "keep in close contact" and "to speak with" those mouthing such tricky words with a baseball bat.
Ok, So it's Billy Jack, I was looking for Buford Pusser, but you get the idea