--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Judy: Fine. But my point was that Curtis didn't > address the plausibility of the scenario. > Instead, he bashed the guy for purportedly > attacking Rick on the basis of no evidence, > after having decided--on the basis of no > evidence--that the guy wasn't telling the > truth when he said he was just speculating. > > Me: You missed my point completely. I wasn't commenting on > his truth telling, I was disagreeing with him and his < personal attack on Rick instead of dealing with issues > Rick has raised.
That's the issue. He has been taught for so many decades to react to any former TMer who has come to believe different things than he believes as "angry," and as "attacking" him by believing them, that he cannot think any other way. I find that pathetic, not admirable. Obviously, mileage varies in this regard. > You didn't understand any of my previous response did you? > Your point does not matter. The speculation point is your > own weird fixation that completely missed the point of the > conversation. Exactly. The point Curtis was making was that attacking the person who has the ideas while never dealing with the ideas is a copout, a pathetic exercise in ego and self-defense that is *irrelevant* to the ideas, because it has to do only with the self (*very* small s), which has never been "attacked," and which doesn't deserve to be defended. The *only* thing that has happened is that Rick has come to believe different things than this fellow has come to believe. The fellow believes that this constitutes some kind of "attack." That behavior should only inspire pity in the observer, not any kind of speculative defense of his actions. > Judy: I was making a "meta" observation about > *Curtis's* post, not addressing the validity > or lack thereof of the guy's analysis. > > ME: Yes you were trying hard to find something wrong with what > I said so you had to focus on an irrelevant point. I have a > pretty good idea why you are so invested in defending a person > who makes personal psychobabble comments about a person personally > instead of talking about the intellectual points raised...ad > hominem arguments are not valid. Is that clear enough? I think we can speculate, on the basis of exper- ience, that it won't be clear enough. :-) > Judy: In my experience, Curtis tends to get all > hoity-toity about folks not sticking to the > evidence while he often does exactly the > same thing he's criticizing. > > ME: Yes Judy I am both hoity and toity. Your point about > evidence is, as I already pointed out, irrelevant since > I was using his own words as the basis for my opinions. > He was the one who suggested that even though Rick didn't > seem to express his list of negative emotions he still > had them. And that he has been TAUGHT -- systematically, for decades -- to think this way. That is part and parcel of Maharishi's teaching about "doubts" about him and about TM. It's a form of mind control in which the student is TAUGHT to regard any deviation from the dogma as "bad" and as some kind of "attack" against those who "know the truth." The guy is just DOING WHAT HE HAS BEEN TOLD TO DO. So, in my opinion, is Judy. That they don't *understand* this makes the behavior they are exhibiting even more pathetic, and even more deserving of pity. > You are the one who is making a big deal about evidence, my > point was about personal attacks instead of discussing ideas. > You missed my points completely in your weird focus on an > irrelevant point. But that is how they (anyone who regularly indulges in ad hominem when confronted with ideas they don't like) have been TAUGHT to act. They're *literally* doing what they have been taught to do by their spiritual teacher. They have seen *him* do it so many times over the years that they have come to believe that it is not only acceptable, but admir- able. They're mimicking *Maharishi's* behavior. > The most interesting thing for me from this exchange with you > is what you have chosen to focus on in an otherwise interesting > discussion. Bingo. What you focus on, you become. > Once again you have missed the main points of the discussion > while you pursue your own inexplicable agenda. The only point I'm trying to interject into the discussion is that the agenda here is NOT inexplicable. It's very clear. It has to do with a technique of mind control that can be described as, "Teach your students to regard and react to any ideas that are counter to the ones they've been taught to believe as if those ideas themselves are an 'attack,' as if the person who has those ideas is an 'attacker,' and as if the person has somehow declared 'war' on those who 'think rightly.' In war anything is permissible, so it's is not only 'Ok' to trash the person who has expressed these unacceptable ideas using ad hominem attacks, it is one's 'duty' as a spiritual being to do so." These people have been TRAINED to use ad hominem, and to view the use of it as a spiritual exercise. I'm sorry, but that's pathetic, as are they.
