I actually believe in Karma. Not in a spiritual way, but more like something called the butterfly effect. Everything that happens, happens because something else happened before that. It is a nice physical law called cause and effect. Also, if one study something called Chaos theory, one gets a little insight on how events occur and how our lives are effected each day by even the smallest things. But at the same time I believe in taking responsibility for your actions, and finding out why certain things happen. I have had a lot of bad things happen to me in my life, but I never thought of it as punishment. I also have done things I am not proud of and sometimes they have come back to haunt me, lol. But I never saw it as punishment. I came to understand by reading psychology, that the things we experience help shape our personalities and how we feel about ourselves and the world.
These experiences shape our world and they influences us in our decisions for the future.
What we see, hear, taste, smell and feel are all manifestations of chemical stimuli, and how we view things are only subjective interpretation of stimuli. This explains why some people have different views of same things. Like some people feel having lots of money is a good thing while others feel it only makes life worse.
It boils down to how our senses and our emotions are interconnected. Unfortunately evolution has not yet granted us the ability to completely separate emotions from thought.
Only a few people are able to handle this, and they go through extensive training to be able to. Like doctors, or soldiers. In the proffesional world people have to learn how to make decisions without letting it be guided by emotions.
Science is not a thing or a concept, it is a tool of thought. Animals are not the way they are because of science. They are the way they are because of nature. Science is the tool that helps us figure out why things are the way they are, why things happen and what effects such things can have on the world and people.
It gives us the power to probe nature and test out if what we think is happening is what is actually happening, or why it happens. It gives us the power to better our lives.
The fact that our emotions are interconnected with our thoughts is why we make mistakes.
The scientific method gives us the power to correct mistakes and learn from them.
This method is used everywhere in everything. Every laywer, every doctor, every scientists must learn this method of thought in school before they can work in their field.
People who do not have such occupations also sometime learn this method.
It is the single most powerful method to gain understanding.
This is why kids are introduced to science early on in school. By teaching kids how to think critically and analyze information, we not only prepare them for life, but we help them develop their intellect.
The most prudent course of action in any situation in life, is to critically analyze events, information, thoughts and emotions. This is why being a skeptic is always the wise course of action.
Belief can be a nice comforting thing, but it can also be your worst enemy. The comfort is only a short term solution and it will never give you the insight into life that will guide your desicions in the future. Knowledge and understanding IS power
Always knowing why you believe a thing, and always critically analyzing the belief when exposed to new information and willingly be able to change your opinion if the evidence tells you that you are incorrect, will give you the power not only to learn from your experiences, but to be able to better the world. Believing something because it feels good or because you want it to be true will only in the end make you weaker and less prepared for the future. Learn from history, because humanity has learned this throughout all of history, and we should learn from ourselves.
The scientific method is responsible for EVERYTHING in your life.
Your computer, your food, your medicine, your house, your car, your job, every little thing you own, everything you can do. Without this method of thought, we would still be living in caves. Michael Jackson would never have been The King Of Pop if he did not have the technology at his hands and by himself learn how to think like a scientist. Michael was a scientist when it comes to music.
The scientific method also took us from the dark ages to the age of enlightenment.
This is why I fight religion. Religion does not want you to learn or understand or question your belief. Religion fights science everyday. People of faith spread false information about science and scientific facts to people who are not educated. Religion is responsible for the Dark Ages and it is responsible for why we still have poverty, war and conflict in the world.
Some would now tell me "no no, people are responsible" Wrong. Without this ideology that advocates ignorance, all these bad things would not exist. People are selfish and faith fuels the self involved.
ALWAYS question your beliefs. ALWAYS question other people's beliefs. Don't worry, you are not taking away their right to believe because that right only means they can not be arrested or shot down for having it. But to allow belief without evidence to be a virtue, you allow for ignorance to be the influence of our future.
It is ok to have questions. It is even more Ok to say "I do not know" It is OK to have a belief, as long as you are honest and admit this is only a belief not fact.
But when you go from "I do not know" to "I believe what I believe because it feels right, and it is the truth for me" You automatically fool yourself. And if you pass that way of thinking onto your kids, you rob them of the opportunity to experience life as it is, and learn from it.
There are things I hate hearing from people, and there are things I wish people would never say even if they have the right. Because a lot of people abuse their right to free speech. I usually let such people ramble on as long as it doesn't affect me or anyone else in a negative way.
But when a person tells me they know because they believe, my brain explodes. Not because I can not stand the fact that they have the right to believe, but because their belief has a negative effect on the world and they are not honest enough to admit "I do not know why this is"
That is why I hate psychics. Psychics are full of it. I know because everytime someone critically analyze what they say, their explanations always end up in BS.
Not one single psychic has ever been able to prove they are a psychic. Same with healers.
The explanation is always the same. "A lot of people say they were healed"
A lot of people say they saw Elvis also.
