I see this dynamic, calling something not generally a seen as a religion, a religion, often in dialog on religious topics.

The individual calls almost anything a religion even it it has one, single shared attribute.

I'd say that view indicates the EGO is leading it's subject around by a ring in it's nose :-(

I actually have cow nose ring puller arounder byer, it's spring loaded big dull rusty pinchers basically.

I belong to a secret facebook page that is trying to define religion before it gets to whatever it is it is getting to but refuses to include science as one. shhh

MBT is a model.
Love
Bette

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All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

I guess you could turn the MBT model into a religion, but that would go against what the intentions were of it (as I am aware). If done, that would just be incorporating the MBT model into said religion, rather than the model being a religion.



Ah, that makes more sense. Thanks for clearing that up.



That would be pretty well done, wouldn't it? Creating a religion for not so religious people, or maybe people against religion without them knowing. It would be kind of like how mainstream politics is played out these days (Other side is bad, you are good, do not like the other side, Arg!)

All joking aside, I still don't see how MBT is a religion unless you branch off and create one off of the model. Doing that could very well be productive for many people though, given how accurate the MBT model is compared to many other mainstream views that are held onto...religiously, by many.

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I eat ego's for breakfast!
Sincerely, Ego.

This MBTOE meme will explore all voids, and the profitable voids will persist...no one, not even Tom gets to decide, that's not how this works

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Does this PMR make my butt look big?

From where I sit, the ego is in thinking MBTOE is the one true path... much superior than all those other belief guys

Rather than seeing it as a paradigm shift along the brotherhood and continuum of discovery, which I believe is a more balanced and accurate view

Obviously, if you are starting from this point, which is a good starting point, and have no direct experiential involvement with religious community, none of this will compute, and that's ok. There is no basis for discussion, and I probably should not have tried.

Although some of Toms words are hard on organized religion, I don't believe I am offside to Tom when you consider all of his words holistically.

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Does this PMR make my butt look big?

we each have different data experience which informs our personal hypotheses on everything, assigning a probability to everything, with everything being belief, and nothing being a certainty

Tom acknowledges that none of us can be certain about anything, so in this way everything is belief, probabilities

However, with intentional skeptical openness, our hypotheticals would evolve toward data based belief, and away from superstitious based belief, which is what I believe is the point

Based on my data from a wide array of religious curiosity and experience, I see MBTOE somewhat differently than most, primarily as a golden rule love teaching, immediately recognizable, familiar, part of the continuum of religious evolution, but with all the historical artifacts stripped away, updated with the latest technology.

The absolute disconnect from any religious tradition is indeed key to its efficiency.

If we do not come up with a shorthand moniker for this movement, someone else will.

Do you really think this is just a book club?

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Does this PMR make my butt look big?

No I don't think this is just a book club. I think it's pretty hard to pigeon hole what this is. I think that's a good sign. :)

I have a completely different understanding of the word "belief" than you do. To me, belief is the enemy. Probable truths are something else entirely.

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Mike

Let's look at the definition of belief from the dictionary (Merriam-Webster On Line) and see where that takes us.Definitions 1 and 2 are definitely what Tom warns us about that we should be skeptical of. That we should never take his word about nor anyone elses word.

Version 3 becomes acceptable if we remove the word 'especially' and substitute 'only' instead. That something is known to be true might then be stated that we believe it to be true. It is the knowing by direct experience that Tom advocates. The "taste the pudding" part. Belief, even in this form that approaches being an acceptable usage, is semantically a weaker version of 'know'. This also matches the metaphor of science that one experiments and tests as truth any postulate. Including that one uses careful protocols and repeated experiments to avoid experimental error and thus taking something as a known in error.

Taking someone who has really done their homework and know, which really in this case comes to know at the being level, that what Tom says in My Big TOE is real and true and call it a belief is simply an error. Someone who only believes has simply not done their homework. There are many ways to do that homework. Traveling OOB and experiencing NPMR by direct consciousness are one thing. There are many other equivalent experiences however which prove the reality of what Tom says and permits the unequivocal use of the word know instead of believe.

Ted

thank you. There will always be these tensions between secular usage and local usage in context, to be unraveled, like with "intent".

I wonder if "bad belief" overlaps with the scarier term "faith", and ok belief then overlaps with "observation assigned a probability based on data and or triangulation, subjected to open skepticism"? Tom would assert that small science is a faith based system that has blinders on and is ignoring some data.

for example, for those with non-decisive data in this regard, regarding NPMR, one has to consider the entire array of big science data, mostly second or third hand, remote viewing, past life remembrance, mediumship, esp, NDE, OBE, healing, and ponder, what is the probability that all of this is imagined, and that the wish has fathered the thought?

It seems improbable to me that all of this is simply made up. Exposure to quantum physics stimulates openness to the bizarre.

There is an ironic philosophical challenge however...if most of this is true, what is the harm of adopting a simple faith in it, especially for persons without the time, motivation or energy to do primary research?

What I mean is, have a simple faith that meditation and reaching for better intent will be profitable for you, and then do it, converting faith to a known. Much of life is like this, throwing spaghetting against the wall and seeing what sticks.

There is a key difference between faith systems that point to faith, and faith systems that point to practise.

This is my key beef with Christian Protestant Fundamentalism, which is really Apostle Paulism...it redirects the original Christian teaching away from getting your hands dirty "love your neighbour", to the dead end of salvation through faith, and it terminates there, and it is this that I think most people have an authentic primordial gag reflex on.

These same egoic forces will play on the MBTOE Book Club, and ego will be constantly at work trying to distract from the core and simple concept of meditate (ET call home) and reaching for better intent.

When someone is drowning in the pool, you throw them a life jacket...you don't need to explain the physics of buoyancy, and beyond a certain point, physics may be unprofitable or inefficient for the business of consciousness evolution, which is a separate vector to physics science.

just playing around with thoughts here and trying things on

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Randy,

There is in a sense, no problem from simply believing something to be true on the strength of believing per the authority and perceived integrity of someone like Tom. But the systems of true believers becomes inevitably distorted, just as you describe for Christianity. Those who were there have a direct knowledge and do not have to believe or have faith. Those who only proceed based upon the statements of those who know begin to deviate as faith and understanding become more amenable to distortion based upon desires and ego. Differences creep in and disputes between one leader and another leader and their respective followers. That is why Tom advocates open minded skepticism and the personal 'tasting of the pudding'. That is why Tom wishes to avoid the trap of creating a religion but rather something which can be maintained without the distortion of belief or faith into the future. Do not follow a leader but be your own leader by becoming one who knows rather than one who merely believes or has faith.

There are many ways to know. As the statement goes, one only has to observe one white squirrel to know that not all squirrels are black/brown. One does not have to wander the NPMR maze and go out of body in order to know. You can have an NDE. But you do not have to go to the edge of death to know. Anomalies abound. You can experience ADC but again you do not have to experience this kind of loss to know. You can experience precognition and that can get pretty significant in leading to knowing. Most people as their life becomes longer and if they are observant will see many small to large anomalies and cumulatively if not by any one thing reach the point of knowing. That is what I have described about my own life here on the board. I have experienced most of these abnormal phenomena. Some with predictive elements to them which proved out or corresponding with the reported history of metaphysics as in experiencing the Void and Indra's Net. Very difficult to feel that I do not know as opposed to believe or have faith. Also difficult to think that it is all just hallucination. There is simply too much cumulative confirmation and too much functionality in terms of ordinary PMR performance as an engineer producing results that others had failed to produce to willingly accept that in this aspect of my life I simply hallucinate and imagine. Even within engineering I have a history of quickly reaching an understanding of a problem and solving a technical difficulty with intuition rather than digging out and testing every aspect that might be pertinent. This is very helpful as typically a customer/client will not be willing to pay for all of that time and effort so being able to quickly spot the pertinent test or measurement and make it is very advantageous.

Ted

I don't know how this relates to the current state of this thread but it somewhat relates to the original topic ...

It's another thing that doesn't seem to compute. Here is a quote from somewhere else:

This basic experience - changing your state and intent and seeing how the world changes - is probably shared by many here. It's distantly related to the parking space experience, but is not exactly the same.

It creates strange implications about free will. I can type pages of comments explaining what I mean, so just get it now: if this is true (which I'm not fanatical about) - it means that, from my perspective, I am the only one who really has free will in my world. It means that the world around me, including the people, are generated as pedagogical puppets for me to learn from.

Or maybe we are equal puppets, but that means that I don't really have free will. Sometimes I might get "remote controlled" into creating an experience for someone else or collectively for myself.

No, explaining this with "the system is nudging" doesn't really explain anything. Other than pointing out if Tom has never mentioned this - any ideas?

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Johan

Well, it depends what you mean by free will, doesn't it?

Besides, at the end of the day, since we are all One, and essentially AUM, as long as we assume AUM has free will then it implies we do as well - just to a more limited extent. Decision space.

Or am I misunderstanding you?

See if this helps. http://wiki.my-big-toe.com/index.php/Free_Will
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

No, the system did not make that person do what ever he was doing that Randy found to be advantageous. No, Randy did not cause this to be done. Every one has free will. Whatever was being done was either a long process of deciding to do it by consultation among those involved, making the various arrangements, completing the necessary transactions, etc. or it could have been something that the person who called Randy had full authority over and a decision could be made immediately. If it was already in process and had reached the point of something that was definitely going to happen, what had not happened was for the other party to think, I ought to call old Randy and let him know what is going on. Randy's Intent did this much. It put a 'bug' in the other guys ear to remind him that there was another aspect to the transaction. That was to call old Randy and let him know what was up. There is no telling when or if he would have thought to do this if Randy had not given him a 'poke' through NPMR. But Randy did not cause him to do the deal by his Intent controlling this person's free will. Randy's poke just induced him to call Randy.

If on the other hand, this was something that the party who called Randy had full authority over but had not decided about, Randy's Intent gave him a 'poke' that made him start thinking about this matter. In that case, he made his decision in Randy's favor and while he was thinking about it, called old Randy to let him know what was planned. Again, Randy did not cause him to do the deal by his Intent controlling this person's free will. Randy's poke just induced him to call Randy.

Tom has discussed before how there is no backwards causality. Randy's Intent could not reach back in time and cause this favorable decision to have been made. Nor is Randy, or Tom either for that matter, of such a powerful Intent that his desire can cause someone to violate their own free will choice. I have had direct contact with Tom's desiring that something should be done that he wanted me to finish years ago. I did receive a nudge, a feeling that Tom would like the project completed. But it was not something that in any way violated my free will as the project was something I was already working on, just having more trouble than anticipated.

Ted

Whatever was unfolding that eventually led up to the phone call, Randy didn't know about it. So from his perspective, it was unknown - uncollapsed probabilities. This is like, if you have the right intent and a good heart, the cat is more likely to be alive when you open Schrödinger's box.

It's not a matter of reverse causality because from Randy's perspective it was undecided before the call. When he "intended" that the probabilities would be collapsed, they followed a path that was more in line with his consciousness.

The confusing thing is that, these probabilities seemingly also involve other people's decisions.

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Johan