Offensive Maneuvers

Offensive Maneuvers, aka going on the offensive are not intended to be offensive to others, but often are when we consider philosophy and/or theology, it is taken as offensive. Religious people are just thin skinned; that is what religion does to people; they are not used to dealing with reality.  We personally relate to and are attached to our beliefs, and then some fool comes along and tell us we are just wrong and ignorant of the truth. How can that not be offensive? We anti-religious have been taking that abuse since we realized the religious premises are false.

Through history, people get some thing right and others wrong. Original sin, aka we are born ignorant, and must learn everything from those who went before or from first principals, or experiment. Some thing our ancestors, teachers, parents, coaches, professors, etc taught us were just wrong, that is how society and knowledge progresses. It it were all correct, there would be no progress. The assumption that any holy book could be totally right and not improved on, looking from this side is just ludicrous. Oh well, reality continues. As we ratchet through life, correcting one thing at a time, the best we do is to survive in a pleasant life, good life, meaningful life, a life with purpose... with ever increasing knowledge and truth. That does not mean that errors will not creep in, and fixes will be made. But admitting imperfection goes a long way to relieving stress. A worth while purpose is to correct errors in our thinking.

We are limited by our character, skills, strength, desires, energies, interests and the like. Some of us are unable to stop eating, and there is no help in many areas; further, it is not apparent that any human knows how to help some of us. We could be locked up and not feed, but short of that.... we will overeat. There is no one pitching a philosophical or psychological correction that has interest appeal, or universal acceptance, and understanding of the problem, other than eat less. That is not where the problem is. The problem is in overcoming desire to eat, overeat, and develop satiation. Telling our self falsehoods does not make this better.  

Some things I teach will also be wrong, but for different reasons than never questioning the belief. Better plans will come along, without a doubt. Our purpose can simply be to understand.  

Scams - misdirection

Chain of consciousness... 

Scams - misdirection are the most common problem of the diet industry. The real problem is how do we, on a long term basis, overcome our natural and epigenetic overeating selves? It is all fine to say only eat a little bit, but when we are unable to overcome our desires, it is all our fault, or so society says, yet they are unable to teach what we lack... will power... or so they say. Well just look around at the 2/3 of the population with this problem. How can you say it is all just a lack of will power? Has the human race in developed countries degenerated that fast? It is a lack of something in our culture, and that is time to communicate at a level to transmit some vital information at the appropriate age. I am suggesting that it is TV with entertainment and advertising that has created this problem.

But how does one abandon a lifestyle which has become so natural? And more importantly, what do we replace it with? Once we learn to sort real from false belief, and sticking with those people who do likewise, we are left with huge voids, people who do not want to understand, and little else. We cannot discuss this with people who do not care, and once we sort the garbage out, there is little need or purpose in rehashing those garbage concepts. These false premises must be just abandoned on the wayside, along with all that comes from these same false premises.

We will not win when we fight against our nature. It is our nature that must be changed. Can we reset epigenetic switches twice in our lives? Can we shut off the overeating switch with diet? Not likely, else we would not have the weight loss failure to maintain relapse rate. Where is this going?  Where am I going?

Lack of will power is not lack of power but rather lack of interest and successes in an undertaking, and lack of direction. How long should one keep pushing in a direction when we see so little success in that direction? Are we just pushing a big rock up hill, and when we stop, it roles back? If one could find something more interesting than eating, something we enjoyed more....

This reminds me of the decline of the churches. There theology has three major errors in the founding premises; there are no souls, when we are dead, we are dead; there is no afterlife, no reward, no punishment; there is no supernatural, no god, just luck of the times and our personal effort. So willpower is an effort at something that there is at least some potential of success at. When we are fighting epigenetics, all we have is struggle, and for each day of struggle, minimal success. One day of failure requires about seven days of struggle to overcome the effects of that one day of failure. 

Will power is about desiring the right things. Desire for food is natural and epigenetic, while the desire to be of "normal weight" is intellectual, hence is easily run over by the food desire. That is the core root of the problem. So will power must get aimed at not eating much, and not at weight. but bear with me here for I digress. Oh well, in the end we just die and become worm food- well that is just not permitted. To be green, we should be burred - unpreserved into the ground, but fear of disease and government regulations prevent this. Sky burial would be green also, but once again that is not permitted. There are no green methods permitted so the least damaging way is cremated, turned into Co2, a green house gas. Unless I just wander off and am lost in a bog or bush somewhere.

   

common useage

Denotation, connotation, definition and common usage are all different for lots of words. How can we keep it all straight? Well, we can't. Language is in a start of flux. Written is slower changing than spoken, and words vary over geography as well. For example, an American in America, being call a Yankee suggests that they are from the north. To the rest of the world, a Yankee is any American. Oh well.

Gluttony is the word that got me thinking. In biblical time, when ever that was- somewhere between 5000 and 600 years ago- gluttony was considered personal choice, and most have not examined this in detail since. We now know that it is epigenetic desire; we have little choice; that is why it is so difficult to lose and keep off weight.  In time of plenty, and of high sugar food sources, we overeat. That is true human nature. That does not mean that we can stop struggling against the weight gain, but rather that we will likely gain, long term so we lose long term. Gain is loss at the same time. Weight gain, life quality and quantity loss. Oh well. Myths are not true, however a general concept may be true.  

Biblical time are a wide range of time. On the start is oral tradition, before written works. The end is  because translation can put such a slant on what something actually says that we may not recognize the original after two translations. It is like the telephone game, the message is so garbled... And if the message was wrong to start with... the world was not created for humans - we are rapidly adapting opportunistic species that has flourished too well and overpopulated... The Co2 levels have been on the rise since the 1950`s, we are overpowering the natural correction of the planet. Oh well, we all just die in the end anyway.

Freethinkers bash religion, and there is a lot to bash and correct the understanding of. Oh well. Atheists do not believe in anything supernatural. Some even attended churches. Companionship and being seen to support the churches is/was important. Just look at the US election. Agnostics just do not care. And when we take things apart, there is some truth many things, and some outright false concepts. So when we start correcting what we think, and start to move forward in a positive way, what do we call ourselves? Humanists? Well perhaps, but even that term has drawbacks... It has been hijacked by groups who offer rituals for dollars. Militant atheist try correct everything that is understood wrong. Positive Psychologists accept spiritual existence and transcendence since these concepts can be powerful driving forces, even if in fact these concepts are hogwash. We are not driven by truth, but rather what we believe. Yet we claim to be truthful without studying, testing and cleaning our thoughts. We humans do not like to take responsibility for being wrong, yet we are and it is so natural. This may be what Socrates meant by 'we do not do wrong willingly.' Yet we have 20% sociopaths. 

Some of us are truth seekers, some are not. Some just rail against whatever, on and on, and never offer an alternative. That is probably the best term yet, a truth seeker, yet humanist manifestos are a collection of truths, more or less... presented in a positive way but without any moral reasons or explanation for each statement, nor defense for each clause.

Suppose we took the truths of the Stoics, Buddhist, Confucius, and modern sciences and mashed them together into a true and correct enmeshment. Note that Christianity and Islam are not in this list; it is doubtful that they would have anything to add. Buddhism has such a superior moral code. But that would be considering what people could be, not what they are. That has been the downfall of all the near socialist states.        


           

Or I could just sit and day dream

Mediation:

Jhana, in Buddhist terms, where meditation becomes effortless and enjoyable.

 calm the mind, ridding it of disturbing mental states such as anxiety, craving, and ill-will. the mind becomes more positive.  being at ease with ourselves. the calmness of mind allows us look closely at our experience, it’s possible to look deeply into a still mind.

Flow is where a person performing an activity becomes fully immersed, with a feeling of energized focus, undistracted presence, and enjoyment.  appreciate your experience undistracted This feedback loop keeps you in a stable, calm, alert, pleasurable, joyful, and focused state of mind, a self-sustaining flow of positive states.

Letting this flow state arise, to learn to calm the mind, to drop deeper into your experience of the body, to accept discomfort without reacting to it, to accept pleasure without grasping after it, and to allow joy to arise. Ultimately you have your whole life to work on this.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”