On 10/24/2014 7:40 PM, steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote:
>
Richard, you want something silly? I give you something silly.
Barry is having a near panic attack, pleading, insisting that someone
explain to him the importance of the experience of unbounded
awareness. I guess he's got a turd he wants to drop on that or something.
But, here. Get this. Ask Barry to explain, how as a declared atheist,
he explains karma, and rebirth, (which he is on record of buying
into), and he mumbles, "It's not important. It doesn't matter. No,
not important at all"
Richard, explain that to me, please,................it you can.
Go figure? No. I haven't figured that out.
>
/The condition is called cognitive dissonance - that's when a person
holds two or more conflicting beliefs at the same time. Barry used to be
a professed Buddhist who believed in karma and a Self or Spirit that
reincarnates after biological death.
//Logically in order for //metempsychosis to work there must be a
reincarnating soul-monad - a self that reincarnates - a "person" that
reaps the karma of past or present actions. But the historical Buddha
denied the existence of the Atman. Go figure.//
//
//Barry posted this information to <alt.religion.gnostic> several years
ago and he also mentioned on FFL his belief in the Tibetan Bardo state.
Barry apparently studied American Buddhism under the Zen Master Rama and
converted in 1977.
/
//This sets up the dissonance conflict because some people get confused
by not understanding why some people who go around doing good and have
good intentions, are yet forced to suffer and vice-versa - many times
people that go around doing bad things, get rewarded. The theory of
karma or causation is almost inconceivable.
So, w///hat happened to Barry is simple: after living in NE for so many
years, he obviously has succumbed to peer pressure and has been turned
into a materialist or a naive realist. ///You can understand how easy it
is to get mentally brain-washed by reading about young people that go
radical after watching just a single video. Some people are very
susceptible to suggestion. Go figure.
/It is sometimes very difficult to stay on a spiritual path when your
own family and friends don't believe in anything and you feel like a
stranger in a strange land. Sometimes people tend to conform to the
level of consciousness that surrounds them and they begin to reflect
that on social media. It's not complicated..
/
>
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <punditster@...> wrote :
On 10/24/2014 8:44 AM, steve.sundur@... <mailto:steve.sundur@...>
[FairfieldLife] wrote:
This sounds like a pretzeling "moment"
>
/It seems dirt simple to me. We are all bound by karma, which
means actions, past and present. If a person does good deeds, he
or she will be reborn in a better life. ///On the other hand, if a
person does bad things, in the past or present, he or she will get
reborn in hell, or a less than satisfactory situation. /////It's
not complicated.//
In some rare cases, if a person follows a spiritual path, does the
work and realizes enlightenment, that person, if he or she has
really good karma, may not have to be reborn again, unless they
choose to do so, to help the rest of the world get free. //But,
you are only going to get as much enlightenment as you are going
to get.//
//
//So, based on my experience, what I've been told and what I have
figured out - *I believe in Life; what it does to you and what you
do back. */
>
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>, <punditster@...>
<mailto:punditster@...> wrote :
/Xeno didn't even recognize the dissonance in Barry's
preference for Bruce Cockburn songs. Everyone knows Cockburn
is a born-again Christian. What about Barry's claim that a
"belief in God is a form of mental illness." /
/>/
On 10/24/2014 12:03 AM, blue_bungalow_2@...
<mailto:blue_bungalow_2@...> [FairfieldLife] wrote:
>
This could explain how Winthrop and Albert worked on the
non-weapon part, of an exclusively weapons project, in which
one of them was denied security clearance.
>
/This is an example of cognitive dissonance - the mental
stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds
two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the
same time.//
//
//What I'm trying to do is alert Barry that he is exhibiting
some roughness by posting contradictory messages to the
group. Everyone already knows that Barry believes in Buddhas,
karma, and reincarnation and that he bought and read Sam
Harris' new book. ///Everyone already knows that (except
apparently Xeno).
/The thing that doesn't make any sense is, why Barry didn't
understand what Harris wrote. It seems pretty simple to me.
Harris makes a clear case for the value of spirituality,
which he bases on his experiences in Buddhist meditation.
Go figure./