Testing your Faith

[Legend Zero]

Burst into flames?

[GenzoTheHarpist]

I'd rather do it on a cool day.

[Brinolovania]

I'm not sure what I believe...besides the fact that most people are very stupid. That isn't changing anytime soon.

[shadowferret]

I believe... people have freedom (or at least they believe they do). I do not believe in telling somebody what to do, or letting someone else make your decisions for you. I am very much a believer in independence.

However, I've been facing a very hard challenge over this recently: I'm in love, and we've been together for 13 months now. She's my best friend of 6 years.
In a relationship, especially one where you get into deeper and deeper emotions with each other, I find it extremely hard to stay independent. I've grown to depend on her more and more with every day that passes. It's gotten to the point where if I don't hear her voice by the end of the night I start to get extremely panicky, and really moody. I've always had pride in myself for being independent of people, but lately I feel weak.
But is that not the exchange we make? Giving up our personal strength that we draw from loneliness, in exchange for love and affection?
And more, she's definitely the submissive one of the relationship. (I don't mean sexually, but rather in a relationship sort of way) I am the one who makes the decisions, and she chooses to follow me. It's as if I am leading her through our life together. This puts me into a weird situation... I want her to be independent too, but the instincts within my mind, heart and body are telling me to lead her along, to be the leader of her life.
This is something I'm finding is testing my belief pretty strongly, and I'm coming really close to getting rid of it in favour of love...

[DARKPLANT RISING]

[quote name='BehindTheMask' timestamp='1290884080' post='4813737']
in spoiler is a long thing I wrote a few weeks back.

[spoiler=LONG]
Who is BehindTheMask?

I am BehindTheMask?

That is preposterous! How can I be BehindTheMask To say BehindTheMask is exactly identical to the person who wrote this(or in my case, writing it), is quite absurd. Quite simply, "BehindTheMask" cannot exist.

What defines existence?

A theologian will argue it is a "soul" that makes it so. Let us explore this claim. If theologians are correct, then where is a soul located? How do we obtain souls? Are they given to us, and can we lose them?

I do not think one should admit to saying a soul is equivalent to a body part, or connected to a body part. If a soul was located "in the [insert body part](for my argument, the soul will be in the heart)", then if either is replaced, then the body/shell of the soul is no longer more. Let us say I am skiing down a hill, during a snow storm. I trip, and fall down into a crevice, but luckily, my gps broadcasts my signal, and I am rushed to the hospital. I need a new heart, for whatever reason, and one is found. Now, for the sake of argument, the transplant works wonders, and there are no complications.

Would I still be Ben Meeker? Of course not, Ben Meeker would have died, but the soul with whom the heart belong to would live on in my name. This is not an adequate explanation. We have proven* that there is no physical soul, in the human body.

One might be tempted to say that "Oh, the soul is obviously not a material thing, it is a immaterial thing. It cannot be found in the material realm!" This argument is also flawed. How can an immaterial thing exist in a material realm? Even if it can exist, immaterial and material things cannot interact with each other. It would be foolish to say so, because there is no precedence for immaterial interference. Yet again, in all the years humans have been around, we have shown that (through the Laws of Physics and Chemistry) there is no possibility that immaterial objects can interfere with the material realm, or else these laws would not be so trust worthy. (also, as a side note, f*** paranormal activities 1 and 2, and f*** you for liking them)

It seems like there can be no adequate defense for "souls."

Now, one might say "Well, obviously there's a rapist in linkin park there is no such things as souls. Why are you wasting my time with souls!? The thing that defines us is our mind!"

This claim is not right either. To say that our mind defines our self is closer to the truth, but still does not adequacy explain the real truth.

How can the self be in the brain? Earlier stated, I have explained one problem with the "self-in-a-part" theory. However, the argument is slightly different. The mind is in control of all sensory organs. These sensory organs are signals picked up from our surroundings, and "translated" by our mind. In fact, our memories our stored in the mind. A mind houses all data we have received, well, that we can remember. A function of the brain is to forget "useless" information, as it makes biological sense, but I am going off on a tangent.

This is a very powerful argument, however, I have one problem with this. False Memories.

It has been proven by psychologists that false memories are possible. We, as humans, take in a lot of sensory data every day. Every second, the scenery around us is changing, and it would be maladaptive as a species to remember every small detail. So, most brains(excluding the special brains that can remember everything spoken or everything written), have a tendency to delete the unimportant information. We can make our brain remember certain things, by making neural connections(a gross simplification, but I don't know a lot to go into great detail, also, it is not needed to understand my point). However, back to my original point, we can mess around with memories.

[i]Still other false memories are believed to be the result of the prodding, leading, and suggestions of therapists and counselors. Finally, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus has shown not only that it is possible to implant false memories, but that it is relatively easy to do so (Loftus, 1994)."[/i]- Found at http://www.skepdic.com/falsememory.html. Borrowed. I make no claim as this is my own. The rights of this paragraph is to the respected authors.

Since false memories are possible, then how can anything be 100% confirmed reality? What if, and I think it is possible, there is only one consciousness? I do not think we can make the claim that we know other humans to be conscious. Although we can get two different people to make the claim "I am conscious" there is no definitive proof that consciousness exists in truly objective reality.

This is where I want to explain my point.

Nothing can truly exist in objective reality. We only can say for ourselves what exists and what doesn't exist. To make claims either in affirmation or denial of reality is to place the wool of over your own eyes. You decide what is and isn't, not God, not me, not Buddha.

No one, but yourself.

No one.

Enjoy life, as it truly is a psychotic experience. A truly wise person will ignore the mundane reality, and strive to become in tune with the collective conscious. As we begin to realize the false reality of objectiveness, we can finally begin to live! Reaching the awareness that we are quite possible only one conscious it becomes clear that every boundary is a creation of the conscious.

There is no universe.

There are no galaxies.

There are no planets.

There is no Earth.

There are no countries.

There are no states.

There are no towns.

There are no people.

There is no you.

[i]Language is the heart's lament, a weak attempt to circumvent the loneliness inherent in the search for permanence.[/i]

~ Protest The Hero - Spoils [/spoiler]
[/quote]

Best thing I read today.

[Nu.]

[quote name='shadowferret' timestamp='1292091856' post='4844623']
I believe... people have freedom (or at least they believe they do). I do not believe in telling somebody what to do, or letting someone else make your decisions for you. I am very much a believer in independence.

However, I've been facing a very hard challenge over this recently: I'm in love, and we've been together for 13 months now. She's my best friend of 6 years.
In a relationship, especially one where you get into deeper and deeper emotions with each other, I find it extremely hard to stay independent. I've grown to depend on her more and more with every day that passes. It's gotten to the point where if I don't hear her voice by the end of the night I start to get extremely panicky, and really moody. I've always had pride in myself for being independent of people, but lately I feel weak.
But is that not the exchange we make? Giving up our personal strength that we draw from loneliness, in exchange for love and affection?
And more, she's definitely the submissive one of the relationship. (I don't mean sexually, but rather in a relationship sort of way) I am the one who makes the decisions, and she chooses to follow me. It's as if I am leading her through our life together. This puts me into a weird situation... I want her to be independent too, but the instincts within my mind, heart and body are telling me to lead her along, to be the leader of her life.
This is something I'm finding is testing my belief pretty strongly, and I'm coming really close to getting rid of it in favour of love...
[/quote]

Almost literally the same here.
Except, me and my girl have been going out for a month and a half, and atm she just seems too lazy to make her own decisions. >.>

But OT: I've been brought up as a Christian, but after being exposed to lots of different philosophies, I'm tied between the choice of Christianity and existentialism.

[Zimiri of the Muse]

[quote name='Legend Zero' timestamp='1291494011' post='4829143']
Burst into flames?
[/quote]
only a mild side effect