Communicator (communicator) wrote,
Communicator
communicator

Get real

The reason I posted that quiz is that I've been wondering a lot about what I really believe. I think I have a divided personality. There is one part of me that thinks it's the bottom line. This hard ground is strictly atheist, rationalist, and materialist. If I ever listen to a ghost story (for example) this hard line voice inside me is saying 'let's get real, there aren't ghosts are there?'

To which I say 'no there aren't'. But obviously there is no 'I' that is saying 'there are no ghosts': there is no independent 'me' listening to a rationalistic other-me (imagine it sitting on my shoulder like a little Richard Dawkins with a harp). In fact, when I stop to think about it, what is there? A stream of phenomena, that pass through consciousness. That's all there is, there is no me, that's the real 'hard line'.

And I suppose the mutual undermining of those two tendencies - rational judgement and bewildered perception - is what allows me to preserve a third set of beliefs, inconsistent with either of the previous two points of view: for example that we live in an ocean of being, where there might be ghosts or reincarnation (or anything).

I wouldn't like to prioritise any one of these three perspectives, and say that was what I really believed.
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  • 13 comments

  • Phew what a scorcher

    I see Gove has backed down on climate change and it's back in the curriculum again.

  • GCSE Computer Science

    My book is now for sale

  • LJ Settings

    At the moment I have set up this journal so that only friends can comment. I hate doing this, but I was just getting too much Russian spam.