--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > "My perceptions are accurate because of my state > of consciousness." "My thoughts are really God's > thoughts." "My teacher (or lineage, or scripture, > or other 'authority') knows 'the Truth' and yours > does not." > > We hear this kind of stuff on FFL often. And people > obviously have *no problem* saying this stuff, and > believing it. Their perceptions are 'true' and they > know that they are 'true'...end of story. Their > thoughts are God's and that's that...end of story. > Their authority is 'right' and that's that...end > of story. > > Personally, I just think that all these claims are > Just Another Story. > > And I'm going to rap about it a bit, taking the Yahoo > Search Engine as *my* authority. Yahoo (God) tells me > that I have only posted 34 times to FFL this week, > and that thus I have one more post left. Others this > week have made the same claim, and thus felt "entitled" > to One More Post. If they had bothered to check out > the *accuracy* of their "authority," they would have > realized that the Yahoo Search Engine is *not* infal- > lible, and that in fact was at least one post too low > in its totals this week for most people here, myself > included.
Since Barry is referring to me here, I'll just point out that he is, um, mistaken. I've been explicit that I have not only checked out the accuracy of Yahoo Search, I've explicitly called attention to the fact that it isn't infallible in my posts. The exercise for Barry now is to figure out why I would use it as an authority when I know it's prone to error. Barry's mistake doesn't invalidate the point he's attempting to make; it's just that the example he's using to make it isn't valid (although it did conveniently give him the excuse to go over his limit to make the point in the first place). On the other hand, the exercise I suggested above may actually have some relevance to his point. But I'll let him mull that possibility over himself (or not). <snip> > Take the "authority" of believing that one is in a > higher state of consciousness, and thus that one's > thoughts and perceptions are always accurate. Yeah, > right...that's where declarations like, "Buddha (who > didn't even believe there *was* a God) said, 'God is > love'" come from. Actually, even though Barry has quoted this purported assertion in at least a dozen posts, the person to whom he attributes it never claimed that Buddha had said "God is love." > Take the "authority" of believing that "my thoughts > are really God's thoughts." Yeah, right. If that is > true, then God has a reading disorder and is unable > to tell when He has gone off the deep end when he > claims that my story about having a pleasant conver- > sation with two girls from Canada (and clearly identi- > fied in the story as being from Canada) is "really" > about trying to fuck two Spanish women whose protec- > tive Spanish parents are at home worried about them. > If these are "God's thoughts," then God is a moron. Actually, the implication of "my thoughts are really God's thoughts" is *not* "my thoughts are infallibly correct." > Take the claims that "my teacher's view is 'right' > and your teacher's view isn't. Yeah, right. That > sure works when the teacher being claimed as always > right is fond of saying things like "Being dead is > better than being gay" and "Damn democracy." If one says "My teacher's view is *always* right," yes, that could be problematic. But one might well assert that one's teacher is right about some types of views but not others (e.g., about the nature and mechanics of consciousness versus about sexuality and politics). So Barry is basing his point on a bunch of straw men. That still doesn't invalidate the point, as far as it goes. It just isn't quite as easy to make as he thinks. I would just suggest that his absolutist stance is unnecessarily limiting, just as much as are the opposite absolutist stances he's mocking. It's *easier* to take an absolutist stance, which is what makes such stances so appealing.
