zzripz said:

WHY are people so gullible they can get hooked into these toxic myths?

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A lot of people also like the idea of an exclusive club where they think they know more than others.

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"Masonry, like all the Religions, all the Mysteries, Hermeticism and Alchemy, conceals its secrets from all except the Adepts and Sages, or the Elect, and uses false explanations and misinterpretations of its symbols to mislead those who deserve only to be misled; to conceal the Truth, which it calls Light, [AND WHO IS THE PURVEYER OF THIS “TRUTH”? [Morals and Dogma, Albert Pike PAGE 321!] from them, and to draw them away from it. Truth is not for those who are unworthy or unable to receive it, or would pervert it. So God Himself incapacitates many men, by colorblindness, to distinguish colors, and leads the masses away from the highest Truth, giving them the power to attain only so much of it as it is profitable to them to know. Every age has had a religion suited to its capacity. [READ PAGE 819.ibid]

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I once picked up some equipment for work from a Scientology Church and the people i came across seemed lost. I even saw the most beautiful girl i've ever seen in my life, it was love at first sight. I wondered what led them there, what keeps them there, and the only thing i can come up with is they want to understand. They're lost and suffering like every soul on this planet and want to find answers that will bring them peace.

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zzripz said:

I am calling toxic myths belief systems that are determined to enslave those who get hooked into believing them. I think a GREAT example of this phenomenon is the failry young toxic myth of the Church of Scientology which all came about from the insane ideas of Ron L Hubbard, a science fiction and fantasy writer (errrm hint hint??) , he came up with the absurd system of belief which is now one of the richest most powerful cults, Scientology.

WHY are people so gullible they can get hooked into these toxic myths? What can we learn from this? This post has been inspired after me finding this video which I am currently watching. All about the father of the leader of scientology, and his book which exposes his som and the cult, and the harassment he is receiving because of this. So it is worthwhile watching

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Rahz said:

zzripz said:

I am calling toxic myths belief systems that are determined to enslave those who get hooked into believing them. I think a GREAT example of this phenomenon is the failry young toxic myth of the Church of Scientology which all came about from the insane ideas of Ron L Hubbard, a science fiction and fantasy writer (errrm hint hint??) , he came up with the absurd system of belief which is now one of the richest most powerful cults, Scientology.

WHY are people so gullible they can get hooked into these toxic myths? What can we learn from this? This post has been inspired after me finding this video which I am currently watching. All about the father of the leader of scientology, and his book which exposes his som and the cult, and the harassment he is receiving because of this. So it is worthwhile watching

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I find it ironic that people reject traditional religions on the basis that they are irrational (I agree) only to swallow a new religion with an equally crazy basis. People tend towards superstition. My father is an intelligent man, prone to examine things logically until religion comes up and then logic goes out the door. Most religious people strike me this way. In the absence of supernatural baloney people may still foster irrational beliefs about the world, some pathway to perfection and/or a narrative that avoids mortality such as the transference of our consciousness to a computer so we can live forever. Scientology is a certain special kind of stupid since it's founder is only recently dead and is known to be a fictional writer who made up the religion and is considered a charlatan by his own son.

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But with your first sentence would you also include, notwithstanding falling into a new religion that is just as crazy as the old one they left, but say a materialist myth?

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In the absence of supernatural baloney people may still foster irrational beliefs about the world, some pathway to perfection and/or a narrative that avoids mortality such as the transference of our consciousness to a computer so we can live forever.

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yeah, that is what Terrence McKenna suggested we would be able to do. So he was also promoting insane beliefs too, right?

And like you see, it is KNOWN that the very founder of Scientology was a science fiction writer, and writer of fantasy, and yet STILL believers flock to it, and sign billion year contracts ffks sake!!! And very rich people like Tom Cruise, and other celebs also fall into this cult

this is all so utterly insane isn't it?? it just beggers belief!

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But with your first sentence would you also include, notwithstanding falling into a new religion that is just as crazy as the old one they left, but say a materialist myth?

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So he was also promoting insane beliefs too, right?

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And like you see, it is KNOWN that the very founder of Scientology was a science fiction writer, and writer of fantasy, and yet STILL believers flock to it, and sign billion year contracts ffks sake!!! And very rich people like Tom Cruise, and other celebs also fall into this cult

this is all so utterly insane isn't it?? it just beggers belief!

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As a practical matter materialism is about the taste of steak, the smell of money, the worth of a living enclosure enclosure, the value of individual genetic material which is just some common chemicals, none of which are strictly material things.

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I don't know in what way he was promoting them, but it's pointless to hold out hope for immortality. I suspect that given enough time the universe itself will dissolve into nothingness. It's not crazy to suggest that one day we might be able to produce or even transfer consciousness, but emotional investment in such ideas could be considered crazy.

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given enough time the universe itself will dissolve into nothingness

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viktor said:

Hey at least zzripz is gay and therefore not a breeder.

The oceans would be fine if there were 500,000,000 of us, as there soon may once again be.

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Rahz said:

By nothingness I mean everything being reduced to a non-physical state, and by that I mean the loss of energetic entanglement resulting in space and time. If space and time are properties of energetic entanglement the universe will eventually be dissolved/radiate into nothing which would technically be correct because there would be no things or space for things.

Consciousness seems an impersonal process, so consciousness itself can't be transferred, but perhaps an identity can be. What it would mean in practice I'm not sure, but one might assume there's nothing inherently impossible about the idea... but it wouldn't represent immortality.

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viktor said:

Hey at least zzripz is gay and therefore not a breeder.

The oceans would be fine if there were 500,000,000 of us, as there soon may once again be.

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But I respond to the idea in your first paragraph as being a myth. it is of same ilk as eg 'the last days'. Ie the idea that there is an 'end'. But in reality 'nothing' is just one side of a dynamic which always has something. In reality we have no experience of nothing without something or something without nothing. What reality is is somethingnothing or nothingsomething
When you observe anything, a tree etc you NEED 'nothing' to see the form. So I don't agree with the science of that prophecy

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as for your second paragraph, it begs the question 'what is identity'? is it really substantial or process? I think the latter. It is not a thing, but an everflowing infusion of experiences

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That is a principal I generally agree with, but it's dependent on the universe existing for such polarities to exist. In absence of a material universe it's unclear what would happen to the energy that formed it, but it wouldn't exist in a way that would allow for the classification of things, although in the absence of intern time one could suggest that the moment the universe evaporates it is also born again.

There is of course a lot of theory in such concepts, but another way to look at it even in the context of a material universe is that the universe is not a thing so much as a context in which things form. It takes space and time for trees to exist and to observe them. Without space time the universe could be considered formless (thingless).

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Imagine a dark Universe with no stars, no planets, and no galaxies. In 100 billion years astronomers could be out of work because there are no celestial objects to observe.

They Universe will fade away and if humans still exist, they will feel lonelier than ever.

This gloomy picture of the future was presented Professor Brian P Schmidt, renowned astronomer and 2011 Nobel Prize winner in Physics.

“Human beings will look to an empty universe in 100 billion years, as all the galaxies will fade away except the Milky Way we live in,” said Schmidt, who is attending the 28th General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Beijing.

Professor Schmidt shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics with Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess for providing evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.

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Schmidt is married to Jennifer Gordon, PhD. They met while they were both studying for their PhDs at Harvard - he in Astrophysics and she in Economics. They decided to settle in Australia, which he had already visited on several occasions to visit family. He now holds dual citizenship of Australia and the United States.[10]

He is not religious, being described as a "militant agnostic" with his tagline, "I don't know, and neither do you!"[43]

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YET he seems to know what is going to happen in a 100 billion years...? Does this ring true to you? It sure don't to me.

Is this not just another toxic myth with added pseudoscience?

See the thing is this. LOOKIN at the bigger story of myths in history, we find that one of the ways they could hold their power over many others was that a relatively small elite had the only technological means to be in-the-know. IE they would use lingo the majority didn't know like Latin, and literary tricks, and symbolism that was out of the understanding of the gullible who believed literally the sur-face stories.

Now there is the elite groups of scientists who have their own technology and language, and not many people have access to their tools nor understand their language, which includes maths, so with that power and authority it would be/is very easy to push myths onto 'the masses'. People will think 'what do I know? I am not a trained scientist. Reality must be how these people say it is!'

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Understood, but that would be the goal to transfer a persons personality, memories, etc. If you can't tell the difference, is there one? If we are not our personalities then there's no need to "transfer consciousness" since we are all the same. I am you and you are me and we are all together.

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Is this not just another toxic myth with added pseudoscience?

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Our eyes perceive photons, demonstrating the volatility of stars. Logically the universe is dissolving.

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"we don't even know how our own brains work...we don't even know how our brain conjures up an image  of what is objectively outside our heads...we don't know how our brain creates a 3D colour image inside the brain that looks like it's outside. We don't know how we see objective reality. That's the mystery of consciousness. We don't know how the film that we see springs out of the three pounds of jelly inside our skull...we don't even know where the screen is..."

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It's something they seek proof for via math and experiments like those taking place at particle colliders.

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