--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "jim_flanegin" <jflanegi@> wrote: > > > > The only thing that can be said with any certainty is that the ME > > produces profoundly positive results. How? When? Where? Can't say. > > It's, er, paradoxical... > > The only thing that can be said with any "certainty" > about the ME is that a number of people paid a lot > of money to learn the TM sidhis technique that > supposedly causes the ME to happen. That's it, the > *only* "certainty." ALL else is a matter of hope or > belief or speculation. And all these things -- hope, > belief, and speculation -- are fine, but don't try > to pass them off as "certainty." When you do, the > thing that the readers tend to realize with some > certainty is that they're dealing with a religious > fanatic. :-)
Jim, all I'm trying to point out is a disturbing trend in your posts lately. Vaj says something that pushes one of your hope/belief/speculation buttons and you react by using remarkably imprecise language, the language *of* hope, belief and speculation, and trying to use that language to claim that something is "true," "fact," a "certainty," a fait accompli. Belief, hope and speculation are *not* facts. What has been told to us by spiritual teachers we believe completely is not fact. The reported subjective experiences of a majority of practitioners of a specific spiritual technique are not fact. Even our own subjective experiences are not fact. They're all just things that help us bolster our beliefs, hopes and speculation. Some on this forum seem comfortable with that. They are completely happy with the *relative* truth of their own subjective experiences, and with the *relative* certainty that gives them that what they are doing with their spiritual path is beneficial. Others seem to have to push the idea that *their* relative truth and relative certainty imply some kind of grand, cosmic "truth" and "certainty." For a long time you seemed to be one of the voices of balance and reason on this forum. So it's disturb- ing to see you become one of the latter claimants. You really *aren't* CERTAIN that the effects of the supposed ME are "profoundly positive." You have at best your own subjective experience, the reported subjective experience of others, and a bunch of laughably biased pseudoscience to support the notion of that "certainty." So why not say something like, "It is LIKELY that the ME produces some positive effects for the practitioner and the world. My own experiences with the technique it is based on and those of many other practitioners suggest this." I don't think anyone would have any problem with statements like that, no matter how skeptical they might be. But when someone comes along and says that the supposed positive results are a CERTAINTY, well, those skeptics pretty much know that they're deal- ing not with a rational being, but with a fanatic. Just a hint...
