On 10/27/2014 6:10 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]
wrote:
Because it's FAITH, dummies. They believe the things they believe
without evidence, and without any proof that they're true.
>
Cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by
an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or
values at the same time.
/"I've seen someone levitate. Many times. In many settings, from the Los
Angeles //
//Convention Center to the Anza-Borrego Desert to a Denny's restaurant
in the wee //
//hours of the night."/ - TurquoiseB
Subject: TM is a Cult?
Author: TurquoiseB
Group: Yahoo Fairfieldife
Date: Friday, 23 May 2014
http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg317597.html
>
This is an OK state to live in as long as they are surrounded by
people who all believe the same things, with the same absence of
evidence. Being surrounded by other believers provides a kind of
"insulation" against the cognitive dissonance that might arise if they
were forced to address the fact that they believe in things that they
can't make a rational case for believing. One of the biggest "draws"
of living in a cult community IS this environment of being surrounded
by fellow believers, so that this cognitive dissonance never comes up.
But it's the age of the Internet, and unless the believers have their
head so far in the sand that they don't ever access it, sooner or
later they're going to run into someone who is going to hear what they
believe and point out that from a rational point of view they believe
in silly things that they originally accepted without proof, and that
they continue to accept without proof.
Stuff like "the meditation technique I was taught is the best and most
effective in the entire world." This is a completely delusional and
insupportable belief unless the person stating it has actually
*learned and practiced* ALL other techniques of meditation in the
world. And yet millions of TMers have repeated it for years, and
continue to do so, all without evidence.
Stuff like, "the practice of the TMSP makes my mind 10,000 times more
powerful than the 'lesser' minds of those who don't practice it."
Again, this belief is downright delusional, because there is and has
never been any evidence to support it. Yet again TMers will repeat it
because they've heard the leaders of the organization that taught it
to them repeat it so often.
But sooner or later these True Believers run into someone who points
out that all of this stuff sounds downright crazy to them, and asks
the TBs to provide some rational argument or evidence for the things
they believe.
And they CAN'T.
Because there is none. They chose to believe this stuff on pure faith,
and now that the beliefs been challenged, they realize that faith is
all they have.
Not being willing to admit this, the TBs get ANGRY. They lash out at
the people asking for evidence of what they believe, call them names,
and do anything they can to make them shut up and stop saying the
things they're saying.
But IMO this is *misplaced anger*. The True Believers aren't *really*
angry at the people who have pointed out that they believe things for
which there is no evidence and no rational explanation. They're angry
at THEMSELVES, for having been so gullible as to have believed these
things for so many years without ever even *noticing* that they're
believing things for which there is no evidence and no rational
explanation. They're angry at THEMSELVES for having backed themselves
into a corner in which their own gullibility and lack of intelligence
is being pointed out for all to see.
But really, wouldn't it be more sane to take some of this cognitive
dissonance they feel and *examine* it to see whether the things
they've believed for so long really *deserve* their belief, rather
than get their panties in a twist and turn into cultists trying to
silence the critics?
We TM critics *understand* your anger and your embarrassment about the
things you've believed for so many years or decades. Because to some
extent we believed them, too.
What we don't understand is your willingness to *continue* believing
in these thing once the lack of proof for them has been pointed out.
What we don't understand is how you can justify lashing out at people
whose only real crime is pointing out the lack of evidence for the
things you believe in, instead of doing a little "inner work" and
trying to figure out whether these beliefs might be better thrown away
than held onto. We don't understand how you can take the embarrassment
of having believed unbelievable things for decades and then add MORE
embarrassment on top of it by acting like cultists.
