Spiritually speaking, how do you know when something is "hopeless"?
I think we believe life situations are hopeless, but I strongly believe there is always hope, not to control all situations, but to maintain peace and integrity. If we act with integrity, there is always hope. Sometimes when we feel hopeless, and all is lost; it is because we are not God and don't have all the answers. I love this quote"Be Still My Soul". So spiritually speaking we can know hope, and feel hopeless, but with spiritual strength, things in life do not need to be "hopeless"
Spiritually speaking, why is the spread of misinformation so popular?
I believe the spreading of disinformation(or as I like to call it...LYING) is successful because critical thinking isn't very popular with the masses. Skepticism is not taught in standardized education, so the masses are uncritical when it comes to this kind of garbage. Politicians know this and use dumb-downed tactics such as family values to get cheap votes. The religious clergy are experts at it too. It's almost as if skepticism and critical thinking are purposefully avoided in general education to maintain a low tolerance for substantive debate and a low ability to question our leaders, our government or even ourselves.
Never be the one to break their bubble until they realise they were wrong.So simple answer would be - Just let them be!The truth is that people understand what they want to understand, so you better keep yourself on focus and not worry much about what someone else's conclusion is.And with that, congratulations on saving yourself from wasting some precious years of life.Kudos!
Hype in advertising that social media is the wave of the future somehow making information more accessible to the masses promoting a greater sense of telling more truth on demand. What is neglected is that it is short form journalism and it cant possibly show a complete picture but is rather just a piece of it.Social media is like regular media in that it plays of peoples emotions. Social media however is more for the young crowd who dont have time or skills to do indepth analysis. For the cynical and jaded social media is just lazy, longform media are corporate shills. This lives indepth interviews with key people in politics, business, entertainment, and everything else. At this point you can now face them and see what their real views are and question them in open debate without them being able to hide behind short form and tabloid tricks.Young people do not understand the foundations of logic and lack an education in the classical greek arts of philosophy. They do not understand axioms or postulates. They blindly trust and are niave and gullible making them susceptible to the dirty tricks media plays because they do not know the game. How are they supposed to know? Education and media are not going to snitch in themselves so all that leaves is the parents and they seem not to worry about educating their kids in this area too much. Maybe the parents themselves are swayed by the wand of media too and think that they are being told the truth.
Spiritually speaking, what's one of the dumbest things you've ever done?
the dumbest thing? i gave someone advice. (that's always dumb...i should never do it) recently, saw the "best of answers" about how to get a cat to stop misbehaving...it said to **hiss** at the cat, like the Mom cat would do. so i told someone to do this, because a cat kept clawing them ("kneading" the claws back and forth, kinda playfully, on the arm) when the cat would crawl into his bed. the person took my advice, unfortunately. well, several things happened: 1. the cat stopped immediately and just stared at the guy. 2. the 2 dogs at the foot of the bed jumped up to see WTF was in the bed, and why it was hissing. 3. the 2 cats (he has another one) got seriously startled at the dogs jumping up. 4. the 2 dogs got really excited about the 2 cats getting jumpy, and still were on the alert for the source of the "hissing monster" in the bed - and decided in was time to investigate...by jumping into the bed. about 30 minutes and a broken lamp later, he came to the conclusion that... 1.hissing at a cat will work you don't mind attracting other predators and breaking furniture. 2. he was never going to take my advice again.
Spiritually speaking, why would an atheist lie about Jesus?
There is evidence of the existence of Jesus, but there is no actual proof. Actually there is less evidence even then people think. In fact, although most historians do believe that Jesus probably existed, there is absolutely no evidence outside the Bible itself, early Christian writing, and Christian historians. So NO. Its not like a historian was conveniently on sight to record Christ being reborn. And there are certainly many scholars that don't think he did. Just like we don't actually have proof that Socartes existed. Some people think its just someone Plato invented. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. When you deal with time periods so long ago its nearly impossible to have much solid evidence. There is no such thing as proof before photography, so thats not even worth discussing. Besides, Christians have a bad tendency to discount evidence they don't like, and embrace that which they do. Like the Shroud of Turin, which was tested by three independent groups, and found to have dated no further back then the Middle Ages.... then there was an uproar, and they decided that the area that the Vatican allowed to be tested wasn't a part of the rest of it......and although chances are good its NOT the actual shroud of Christ there are many who swear that its so. Who knows. Look at the way Y E Creationists decide on how to strain facts. According to them, if you can't positively prove every aspect of Evolution, then its all a hoax. By that standard its hard to prove that my lunch exists. This is why they call it Faith. I am not even close to an Atheist. I do believe that He existed, and was resurrected by the Lord. But I don't need miracles to believe. And remember that what ancient historians mean by probably or likely is NOT what a scientist means by the word. Most historians find that the Bible is sufficient evidence on which to base the assumption that Jesus existed. But if you don't think it is, then you are pretty much out of a historical Christ.
First off, hypnosis does not work like that, outside of some truly cheesy B-movies from the 1960s. Hypnosis is not mind-control or psychic powers; it merely puts people in a mental state where some of their normal mental filters and resistances are lowered, making them somewhat more suggestible, and leading them to think and act somewhat more freely than they otherwise might. It’s a useful therapeutic tool, and an occasional stage gimmick for magicians, but not much more than that.Second, what precisely is the difference between “fool[ing] people into believing that they have attained some kind of equilibrium” and “helping people attain some kind of equilibrium”? Person X feels equilibrium… One assumes person X is not lying to us or lying to h’erself, so in what sense is Person X ‘fooled’ into that experience? Is the suggestion that no one could possible ever feel equilibrium, and so anyone who believes they feel it must be lying? Is the suggestion that people feel equilibrium against their will or better judgement? Perhaps the idea is that everyone would always be miserable, and so anyone who claims not to be must have been fooled into thinking so? I can’t decide which of those is a weirder idea…Spiritual leaders (when they are doing their work honestly and well) create a community in which people can relax away from all of the buffeting and craziness of life in the greater world. They lead in the sense that they show people how to orient themselves to a better, calmer, saner way of life. Now, there are reams to be written on the social psychology of community, and on the power of groups to stabilize (or destabilize) the worldviews of individual members. But hypnosis will not be a factor in those discussions.
Spiritually speaking, where is the actual proof that any God exists?
saint thomas aquainas proofs 1 - FIRST MOVER: Everything is moving atoms etc all through heat and all dependant on the movement of another atom or subatomic partcile. Who was the first mover the first heat that started all the movement. 2 - FIRST CAUSE: Some things are caused, anything caused is caused by another, and there can't be an infinite series of causes. So there must be a first cause (a cause that isn't itself caused by another). This is God. 3 - NECESSARY BEING: Every contingent being at some time fails to exist. So if everything were contingent, then at some time there would have been nothing -- and so there would be nothing now -- which is clearly false. So not everything is contingent. So there is a necessary being. This is God. 4 - GREATEST BEING: Some things are greater than others. Whatever is great to any degree gets its greatness from that which is the greatest. So there is a greatest being, which is the source of all greatness. This is God. 5 - INTELLIGENT DESIGNER: Many things in the world that lack intelligence act for an end. Whatever acts for an end must be directed by an intelligent being. So the world must have an intelligent designer. This is God.
Spiritually asking, what is the difference between being "Childlike" or "Childish?"?
Your Question is a treasure in itself. To be childlike is totally different from being childish. To be childish is ugly: to be childlike is to be a sage. To be childlike means to be in the state of agnosia, learning. To be childish means you already know. Only a childish person can think that he/she already knows, that there is nothing left to know. Be childlike but don’t be childish. If you are childlike you will become a saint; if you are childish, you can become a great, knowledgeable person. Being Childlike and Childish are two very different states of mind. A Childish person acts mature and a Childlike person is so mature that he/she is not even aware of it. The innocence that comes from a deep experience of life is childlike, but not childish. The innocence of children is beautiful, but ignorant. It will be replaced by mistrust and doubt as the child grows and learns that the world can be a dangerous and threatening place. But the innocence of a life lived fully has a quality of wisdom and acceptance of the ever-changing wonder of life. Remember, to be childlike and to be childish are poles apart, they are not the same thing. It is beautiful to be childlike. The man of trust is childlike.To be childlike is the ultimate in growth; that is the very culmination - consciousness has come to the ultimate peak. To be childlike means to be a sage, and to be childish means to be just un-grownup. Love is found in childlike innocent eyes which are full of meditativeness. God Bless
Spiritually speaking, Are atheists doubtful of God's existence, or are they certain of God's nonexistence?
It's a wide spectrum. People can be located at any end of it. I've met very few people who went as far as to say "There couldn't possibly be any being such as a God", but we do regularly encounter "lack of clear evidence for a God means we have no real reason to posit such a being". I think modern atheism is evolving (tee-hee) in the direction where God is no longer seen as the relevant question. Also, one must distinguish between dismissing the idea of any supreme being, and dismissing this idea as presented by members of different religions here on earth today. To reject God as presented to us by Christians or Muslims is not the same as to reject the very idea of God. A lot of secular humanists, who are technically atheists, but who usually don't spend much time pondering the idea of God, might find themselves more along those lines than along the rejection of the very idea. For Buddhists like myself, the question is a very distant one. We do, in the end, have faith, in the idea that there is some aspect to existence which is sacred, but we don't necessarily feel the need to describe the nature of the sacred: In fact, Buddha taught that was an awful waste of time. To us, the idea of God as presented in most religions is simply irrelevant. This is not where we look for spiritual inspiration. In that sense, many Buddhists are atheists too. (Not all - Buddhism is very complex). So to conclude... atheism is just as often lack of interest in the idea of God than anything else. But many deists would like to posit this as a plane in one dimension. There is a "degree" to which you accept God. This is fine, until we realize that the world of ideas as numerous more axis on which people may posit themselves. If you figure it as a three dimentional plane. (The question of God, the question of the nature of existence and the nature of evil, for example...), answers on other planes may become coincidental. If you stray far from the norm on two of these axis, and you're close to zero on the God one, we might conclude that the idea of God is simply not that important to you and that there are others which give you more satisfaction to explore.