[mercuryrising]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

I'm struggling with this:So that sounds like you aren't such a 'true believer', you don't believe we can just sit around, think about money and it will come to us...but

Why wouldn't that include sitting around thinking about money and making it come to us (assuming you believe it); why would the belief that I can manifest money not summon the evidence to prove it? What you seem to have done is present (in the first quote) a view that manifestation of intention works by affecting behaviour - then (in the second quote) a view of Magical LoA: belief creates reality. Is it one or the other, both, or have I misunderstood?

I think you are turning the statement "what you believe, you summon the evidence" and reversing it to say "all evidence proves any belief true". People believe some pretty whacked out things are true and have created the supporting rationale to believe it. That doesn't mean their belief is true. What interests me is how their belief affects their subjective reality.

Intention affects one's state of mind as well as one's physical being including behavior. This is a holistic interpretation. So in the example of someone who believes they can manifest money just by thinking about it, their thinking about money will orient their being towards money. They will think, act and acquire the means to getting money, whether those means are linear (rational) or not. It's that last point I think you and I differ. The acquisition of money does not have to follow a rational, scientifically proven method.

I take it a step further and say that what you believe affects external phenomena. I can't prove it. I've just had some uncanny experiences that point to that idea. One way to look it is that all of time and space are happening simultaneously in the Now. In other words, it is a matter of where I put my attention as to where in the Now I am. For example, in one instance of time I am a millionaire. By putting my attention on being a millionaire, I align myself with that reality.

That's quite an astute observation, and I think it may be approximately right. But that is taking thinking out of life where it can happily go round in circles without bumping into anything. The point I have been trying to make is that science is the process of testing those assertions - where they bump up against reality and get repeatedly chucked out.

Person A believes that they will be poor their whole life no matter what they do. Person B believes that they will be rich their whole life no matter what they do. Let's say they live in identical conditions with identical backgrounds (which is impossible, a small flaw in this process). Person A will have opportunities to lift themselves out of poverty, but will not see them due to their belief. Person B will have the same opportunities and will see them due to their belief. The reality they are bumping up against is neutral ("empty"). They see what they want to see.

I would add that seeing the world as neutral is a prerequisite choosing what beliefs to believe.

While I take your point that santa claus can be believed in metaphorically, the fact that you (presumably) don't believe in him physically is a good example. Children do science when they stay awake to catch their parents putting presents under the tree, and only foolish, dim or badly misguided ones still believe the big fat man in red and white comes down the chimney at xmas by the time they're at uni.

Many adults spend the holidays stressed out and depressed, while children who believe in the big guy enjoy all aspects of the season with carefree happiness. So what if their belief is irrational? There is a saying, "I'd rather be happy than right."

I think you are being a bit of an intellectual fascist. What if a person is a bit of a dolt, has some irrational superstitions, yet despite all that is content and lives a productive existence according to them?

Most of that is very astute too - few thinkers get as far as recognising that reason and logic may be doubted just as everything else may be. But I think you make a bit of a mistake when that leads you to...I'll have to put this better - I mean, yes, philosophically speaking, maybe all theories about life are equally doubt-able, none absolutely certain, and even reason may be a foul knave, but the question is how are we going to choose our beliefs. You could as easily imply that we should just choose them at random, or choose whatever beliefs make us happy, ignoring all testing and thinking because testing and thinking are not 100% rock solid. Sure, you're aware of the danger of becoming obsessively rationalistic and never settling anywhere (although I personally feel that is quite a good way to be if one can take the strain - didn't someone once say belief is the worst enemy of knowledge?) - but choosing to believe that whatever you believe will be (or tend to create) reality seems a rather unecessary flight in the opposite direction.

There's another skeptic on here that shows up now and then named Stephen who put up a post that life is meaningless. That is, it has no inherent meaning. I agree with him on this idea. Life only has the meaning we give it. I don't see how logic provides me with an answer to the meaning of life, do you?

The meaning or central belief in life is relative to who you are or who you think you are and what you want. It's subjective.

One criteria I use in terms of belief is the removal of absolute statements (must, should, need). That comes from Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy. I think this is the line between believer and true believer; when belief becomes absolute.

That's right, I'm concerned because I see it as very unlikely to be true, being popularized as the truth by certain folk, and I see some people "taking what they are given in terms of belief" - from people like Steve.

There's a forum dedicated to anything Steve has written on his blog and there are many people who question what he writes. Like the polarity issue (lightworker vs. darkworker) or his views on religion. There's also a forum on psychic powers where people regularly question paranormal phenomena. And you would find many people who agree with you about religion and belief over in the spirituality section. I've met many more people on this board who have similar thinking to you (science/rationalism) than I have met otherwise. You might want to investigate a little deeper before coming to the conclusion that this is a cult of Steve or something.

Again, that is only if someone becomes obessed with not sitting with a favorite theory and saying "That'll do for a while" or "That's my best guess at the moment". That isn't necessarily the definition of a sceptic, just an obsessive one. I think you can be sceptic to different degrees, at one end never trusting any assumption, believing nothing, at the other being almost fixed, but just keeping a little bit of an open mind. Another interesting observation from that is that if you do what cylon's linked page said "Don't doubt", you are quite clearly closed minded; that little chink of healthy scepticism has sealed shut (for now, it could open again). That's another insidious thing about the LoA. Like a lot of religions, it tells you it is the truth and the more you stop trying to worry about whether it might or might not be the truth and just accept it as the truth, the more it will become the truth. In that sense, sure, you get what you believe.

It seems to me that you are assuming that anyone who believes in LOA is not a skeptic at all and incapable of critical thought. As you said, people can be skeptics to various degrees. What I think about does lead to certain experiences, doesn't it?

One problem I have with some skeptics is they take a sales pitch as the logical background for what is being asserted. A sales pitch appeals to emotion because people buy on emotion. There is a tendency among skeptics to set up the straw man argument which doesn't prove or disprove anything.

LoAers often seem deeply critical of religion, especially christianity, and I'm afraid I can't help but see enormous similarities. The details are mostly quite different, although even some of them are the same. Become like little children. Blessed is the one who believes and does not know. Just stop thinking critically; read the texts. Having a crisis of faith? - pray harder. We'll all pray for you. Signs and portents. It's magic, but it only seems like magic. Its the secret hidden reality behind normal (illusory) reality; come, join the special ones who seeeee.

IMO, LOA is about how you believe and it's relationship to reality and not what you should or should not believe. I'm going to leave the comment about this being a religion alone. I've been writing this post forever and I have other things to do.