Liberal Christian Friend

[insanezenmistress]

I am having a deconversion issue.

 

My best friend, she's like a sister to me. She is neither judgemental, nor religious.

 

But she's something I cant quite put words on. I am hoping to come away from this thread with some new shrink terms, if i can manage to adaquately express myself.

 

 

It is not so much her bible quotes, or when she watches the news and feels confident that the End-times are upon us. It's how she silently makes me feel lost. Subtle things she says like " it's sad", or "how the internet has destroyed my faith" when i mention that i am not a christian anymore.

 

She tries to ask me about why, and i tell her there are a mountian of reasons. History, fruit of the church, the common experience of christians, the patten answers, the contridictions. We never go into the details, i never bothered to keep the details at the forefront of my brain.

 

The funny thing is that We agree on the brainwashing of the church, and the bad history, even the spoiling of the bible by various people. But she comes off like... THEY are missing the truth, but she has it inside. Like she isn't putting god in a box.

 

She tells me of various (and to her verifiable) mirciles of prophecy she had told. Of healings she witnessed in her own family. But I feel uncomfortable searhcing her life history out just to proove wether or not those things happened.

 

For example, She had a child die by an unfortunate accident, and the state got involved. During the experience she claims she felt divinely lead to announce that there would be no rain in that county until her living son was returned to her. And verilly it came to pass.

 

This would be a county near Fort Bragg area between 2001 and 2004 ( i dont recall the exact year but supposidly a Lake dried up).... and she continues the story telling how shortly after she got her child back that there where torrential rains and washed out bridges.

 

 

Perhaps someone from that area could confirm a bad drought followed by lots and lots of rain within that time frame.

 

It is not so much that i want to prove my friend wrong.. lord knows what i would tell her... "i am sorry my sister but your severly deluded" does not help a friendship along. It is just that i am tired of the story. She tells it with such confidence.

 

Here is where my uncomfortable feelings enter in. She understands that if her tale be true it does not proove the bible, but merely her experiences of deity. Her untouchable internalised private deity. It is tales like these that make atheisim such a hard bite to chew.

 

She tells of her child mysteriously having Non Hodgekins Lymphoma just dissapear. She says I can look at his medical records, it's there and it's gone without treatment. I have not asked for these records. I mean what is my point, to prove her deluded? Or what if i see she is right?

 

I say back to her that things go into remission spontaniously sometimes. Her son has since had bone cancer that was removed by doctors. My instinct tells me that something might have been there, gone away and now appears in anther form. And maybe the non hodgekins lymphoma was a misdiagnosis.

 

Well these are her two favorite tales. There are other "i spoke with the lord" tales that i have since learned the term for is hypnogagic state.

 

Now, to her credit, before i read how deluded she may be that is to follow... she has a knack for strange happenings. Fortunate occurences.

 

For example, recently we where talking about perfumes. I mentioned that i loved Emeraude but it was far too expensive for me to just buy it. Within days, she found it mistakenly marked down to three dollars insdie the lock case where they keep the high priced perfumes. I saw the package with the price tag on it when she gave it to me.

 

Is this precognition, law of attraction....? I myself have had strangely fortunate happenings where i "ask the universe" and it provides. Like I might think about a cirten movie and within days find it while flipping through channels. Little things.

 

My original intent for this thread was i am seeking words for these uncomfortable feelings.... she appears to have "the spiritaul it" and i assume it is some kind of delusion merely because the atheists say it is. That feeling associated when someone else seems to have the secret, and i am lost. But more than being lost i cant seem to believe that her "the spiritaul it" isn't simply a personified form of humanism..... but she makes me feel lacking becasue my humanism isnt currently acknowledging an external diety.

 

She tells me that if the bible and god are not true she would feel more dissapointed with life, especialy her crappy life. She needs the hope factor of her faith. I would not take that from her, but sometimes she throws me for a loop.

 

I tried to spell check but i dont have windows office, my appoligies.

 

IZM

[Shyone]

I am having a deconversion issue.

 

My best friend, she's like a sister to me. She is neither judgemental, nor religious.

 

But she's something I cant quite put words on. I am hoping to come away from this thread with some new shrink terms, if i can manage to adaquately express myself.

 

IZM

I'm not going to try and dissect this post, but I probably should. The lady is dangerously deluded.

 

I am most worried about her child with a history of Hodgkins lymphoma. First, you really don't know the treatment history. It was diagnosed, and also probably treated, by physicians. Treatments work pretty well, and there are probably histories of spontaneous remissions, but there isn't any way to know unless you contact child protective services to see if they can verify the history. Since he was later treated for "bone cancer" it sounds like he was probably treated, and has been reevaluated, so there seems to be less of a problem than would first appear.

 

Things like not being any rain until she got her child back are less interesting for the rain stoppage than the reasons she lost her child to begin with. Abuse, neglect, failure to provide adequate medical care? Why did her other child die?

 

Let's hope she doesn't really believe that God will cure her child without medical care.

 

She's got the Christian kind of crazy right now, but I can't tell if she was crazy first, or if Christianity (which supports such beliefs) drove her crazy.

 

Watch your back if you're with her in the kitchen.

[florduh]

The funny thing is that We agree on the brainwashing of the church, and the bad history, even the spoiling of the bible by various people. But she comes off like... THEY are missing the truth, but she has it inside. Like she isn't putting god in a box.

That position is the refuge of many Christians who can no longer deny factual history. Again, it's True Christian Syndrome, where only SHE has the correct understanding of the Christian god. That releases her from the behavior of the churches and the inconsistencies and errors of the Bible.

 

She tells me that if the bible and god are not true she would feel more dissapointed with life, especialy her crappy life.

Many people who must endure hard times turn to superstition and magic as a crutch or coping mechanism. The above statement indicates that she MUST believe despite evidence she recognizes to be valid.

 

I agree with Shyone - she could be dangerous, as she sounds certifiable in my opinion.

[Hungrydingo]

What time of year was the drought and can you confirm that there was absolutely no rainfall? What time of year was this? It's not uncommon to go extended periods of time with no rain in the summer, and sometimes it does rain and people don't realize if because it can happen overnight and be a very minor amount of rain that's quickly soaked up by the very dry ground and plant life. Also, how soon did it start raining again? Was it days after the living son was found (I don't understand this story very well, she had a child die and at the same time one was missing and was eventually returned to her?) or hours perhaps? Maybe a couple weeks, a month? How long are we talking here because such a coincidence would not surprise me in the very least to be a huge coincidence unless god was actually punishing the entire country for her son being missing. I'm also kind of wondering what kind of mother she is if she had a kid die and go missing in separate incidents, I'm not saying it's her fault but that's some rotten luck and I'd like to know the circumstances behind those incidents for curiosity sake.

[Phanta]

For example, She had a child die by an unfortunate accident, and the state got involved. During the experience she claims she felt divinely lead to announce that there would be no rain in that county until her living son was returned to her. And verilly it came to pass.

 

This would be a county near Fort Bragg area between 2001 and 2004 ( i dont recall the exact year but supposidly a Lake dried up).... and she continues the story telling how shortly after she got her child back that there where torrential rains and washed out bridges.

 

You can find historic weather data for the region at wunderground.com. Plot the monthly totals in excel for a 10-year period and see what you see. (1999-2009)

 

Did the rain stop right when he was killed? Did it start right after he was found? Or was there drought, and then her trauma, and then her deciding her trauma was somehow linked to the drought? How long after he was returned did the rain return?

 

What lake? Ask for a name. Call the town hall and the state Environmental Protection Agency. If a lake dried up a few years ago, and it was an unusual happening, someone will remember.

 

Here is where my uncomfortable feelings enter in. She understands that if her tale be true it does not proove the bible, but merely her experiences of deity. Her untouchable internalised private deity. It is tales like these that make atheisim such a hard bite to chew.

 

It's a nice story she has going. It's making her happy. End of story. Feels good to her doesn't mean anything about you and your brain.

 

She tells of her child mysteriously having Non Hodgekins Lymphoma just dissapear. She says I can look at his medical records, it's there and it's gone without treatment. I have not asked for these records. I mean what is my point, to prove her deluded? Or what if i see she is right?

 

The life of cancer is not linear:

 

"The old view is that cancer is a linear process," said Dr. Barnett Kramer, associate director for disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health. "A cell acquired a mutation, and little by little it acquired more and more mutations. Mutations are not supposed to revert spontaneously."

 

So, Dr. Kramer said, the image was "an arrow that moved in one direction." But now, he added, it is becoming increasingly clear that cancers require more than mutations to progress. They need the cooperation of surrounding cells and even, he said, "the whole organism, the person," whose immune system or hormone levels, for example, can squelch or fuel a tumor.

 

Cancer, Dr. Kramer said, is a dynamic process.

 

It was a view that was hard for some cancer doctors and researchers to accept. But some of the skeptics have changed their minds and decided that, contrary as it seems to everything they had thought, cancers can disappear on their own.

 

Cancers Can Vanish Without Treatment, but How?

By GINA KOLATA, New York Times

Published: October 26, 2009

 

Now, to her credit, before i read how deluded she may be that is to follow... she has a knack for strange happenings. Fortunate occurences.

 

For example, recently we where talking about perfumes. I mentioned that i loved Emeraude but it was far too expensive for me to just buy it. Within days, she found it mistakenly marked down to three dollars insdie the lock case where they keep the high priced perfumes. I saw the package with the price tag on it when she gave it to me.

 

Is this precognition, law of attraction....? I myself have had strangely fortunate happenings where i "ask the universe" and it provides. Like I might think about a cirten movie and within days find it while flipping through channels. Little things.

 

I decided I liked a song on the radio once. I don't listen to the radio on my own. I didn't know the name or the artist. I started hearing it everywhere. It came into a higher level of my consciousness, so I noticed it.

 

Same with a car I decided I liked and had a brief conversation about with a boyfriend years ago. Suddenly I was admiring it constantly, forgetting it was the same car I had commented on a few days earlier. He noted it was the same vehicle. This kept happening, every few days. I finally learned to recognize it. Then I felt like "suddenly" I was seeing it everywhere! There weren't any more of those cars around than there had been previously. What changed was my brain, my way of thinking about them, my focus on them.

 

If we received to consciousness ALL of the data available to us throughout the day, we would be nonfunctional and comatose. Our brains make decisions about what to let in. That perfume was around the whole time in all sorts of different states, prices, etc. but at that point she was open to noticing it. Her brain let it in.

 

I miss chances all the time because I am not able to process all information around me all the time. Some people are more wired to see "deals". I am usually not aware of when I miss out, because I miss them! However, I have had occasions to see that I am not wired for that kind of thing in the way others are, when I am right next to someone who is looking in the same area as me, but they catch the "deal" whereas I am totally clueless. Some of it is "luck"; some of it is being wired differently.

 

Law of attraction...that's a real catchy idea these days. The part of law of attraction I can get on board with is that we have some (varying individual to individual) ability to shift our brain wiring to be more open to certain concepts or ideas. We train our focus and that opens us up. It feels like we are drawing things to us, but I think we are just opening ourselves up to what was already there. The exception is if the thing we are opening up to is another conscious being. If they are opening up to us, that can create some beautiful synergy.

 

My original intent for this thread was i am seeking words for these uncomfortable feelings.... she appears to have "the spiritaul it" and i assume it is some kind of delusion merely because the atheists say it is. That feeling associated when someone else seems to have the secret, and i am lost. But more than being lost i cant seem to believe that her "the spiritaul it" isn't simply a personified form of humanism..... but she makes me feel lacking becasue my humanism isnt currently acknowledging an external diety.

 

I can relate to the feeling that others have "it" and I don't. I'm working on that, too! I'm pretty sure it's a crap idea of someone else that I'm internalizing...working to get that outside voice out of my head. For me, that means I can't be around certain people AND feel good about my life. I make a choice. The less I am around the people saying those things, the more my crappy life is actually manageable most of the time.

 

Funny, that.

 

She tells me that if the bible and god are not true she would feel more dissapointed with life, especialy her crappy life. She needs the hope factor of her faith. I would not take that from her, but sometimes she throws me for a loop.

 

How can her life be crappy if she is so lucky that fortunate occurrences happen to her all the time? Does this story of good fortune actually match her life, or is it something she believes to help counteract the very real difficulty and pain she has experienced?

 

That's cool that you don't want to take that from her. I have also been thrown for a loop similarly, but not wanted to tear my loved one's beliefs down. The options, then, are to tolerate your distress or distance yourself from her. In friendship, sometimes it's possible to just not talk about certain things.

 

It's ok to protect your heart and mind from confusion and harm. What works for you is ok to believe in.

 

Phanta

[insanezenmistress]

I'm not going to try and dissect this post, but I probably should. The lady is dangerously deluded.

 

I am most worried about her child with a history of Hodgkins lymphoma. First, you really don't know the treatment history. It was diagnosed, and also probably treated, by physicians. Treatments work pretty well, and there are probably histories of spontaneous remissions, but there isn't any way to know unless you contact child protective services to see if they can verify the history. Since he was later treated for "bone cancer" it sounds like he was probably treated, and has been reevaluated, so there seems to be less of a problem than would first appear.

 

Things like not being any rain until she got her child back are less interesting for the rain stoppage than the reasons she lost her child to begin with. Abuse, neglect, failure to provide adequate medical care? Why did her other child die?

 

Let's hope she doesn't really believe that God will cure her child without medical care.

 

 

 

 

The dead chlld was three, if i am remembering rightly, there were some snacks in the car and he went to get them, he fell asleep in the car, in the summer. The father was playing video game swith the older son, and thought the mother had the youngest. And the mother went for a nap thinking that the father had the youngest. Child services investigated as they must, and corrupt as they are created living hell.

 

They where not religious reasons for the boy's death, and the drought occured i imagine during the initial investigation and continued untill they released the boy.... he was in foster care for at least 8 months. But i may be mistaken. The subject is naturally painfull to her so i am not going to grill her for the details.

 

 

 

Phanta, I think i heard her say Lake mead. But thank you for the website info. Eventaully i will have all the proper information and will check into it.

[Franko47]

There's no point getting hung up on details, or whether such events happened, or so on.

 

You're dealing with a friend that is partially living in a fantasy world, front-runs positive coincidences, likely isn't very grounded in reality, etc.

 

I've had the odd whacky casual friend who was like the lady you describe. And remember, people like that are always fantasizing a bit, and are often full of it. They like to weave their little stories that confirm their delusions, and it can even be a little dangerous to attempt to pin them down or prove them wrong about an "incident" and so on.

 

Don't get drawn into her wierdo mindset; you're not missing out on anything. These people make every little nice thing that happens in their life into a major miracle; heck I had five nice things happen to me today and I'm just getting started. But I'll ignore the scrape mark on my car door in the meantime.

 

Shopping carts.....grrrr....

[ElrondHubbard]

I lost my best friend when I de-converted. We grew up in the faith together, and she was closer than a sister. It wasn't specifics - we never argued, and she never tried to talk me back into believing - it was just that we lost something that was at the core our bond, and we drifted apart. It hurt, but I also realized how many wonderful old friends still cared about me, and I invested myself in relationships with people who were more on "my path." We still speak occasionally, and I still miss her, but I think I've learned that friends come and go, it's part of life, and even though it's hard, I'm happier now than I was when I was a Christian.

[Alice]

a phrase I find useful is 'the map is not the territory'. We are all trying to make sense of our world (the territory) and create individual 'maps' or representations of the territory as we see or understand it.

 

Your friend has created a map that makes sense to her. I agree that there is little mileage in challenging the detail of her map and the conculsions she draws about the terrain. I made similar maps to your friend as a christian in relation to amazing recoveries from illness that occurred in my family and were hailed as 'miracles'. I wasn't dangerous because of this.

 

I note that what happened to your friends children has caused some confusion. I assume the circumstances were that one child died and social services took the other child into care whilst an assessment was carried out as to whether the parents were culpable in any way. A lack of supervision such as you've outlined can be indicative of parents who are using drugs and alcohol or are for some other reason 'unavailable' to their children - I'm not saying this was the case, but the possibilty would need to be investigated. If your friend's focus was on God ordering a drought until her child was returned, rather than addressing social serivces concerns, this might have added to the concerns social services needed to assess before reuniting the family.

 

I would just think of your friend as someone with a different map to yours and enjoy the good things about her that mean she feels like a sister to you - without worrying too much about the detail where you'd be likely to see things very differently.

[Phanta]

a phrase I find useful is 'the map is not the territory'. We are all trying to make sense of our world (the territory) and create individual 'maps' or representations of the territory as we see or understand it.

 

Your friend has created a map that makes sense to her. I agree that there is little mileage in challenging the detail of her map and the conculsions she draws about the terrain.

 

This is a great description, and a great phrase. Great points in this bit all around.

 

I made similar maps to your friend as a christian in relation to amazing recoveries from illness that occurred in my family and were hailed as 'miracles'. I wasn't dangerous because of this.

 

Another good point. It sounds like DCF checked the situation out.

 

I would just think of your friend as someone with a different map to yours and enjoy the good things about her that mean she feels like a sister to you - without worrying too much about the detail where you'd be likely to see things very differently.

 

I don't think this is about Zen wanting to challenge her friend. This seems like an internal battle...It seems that Zen's friend's faith and strange experiences are a real challenge to her own atheism. Is that right, Zen?

 

Phanta

[Loren]

IZM, I can't speak for what's going on inside you, as to why this stuff bothers you, but from what you've written about your friend in this thread, I can speak to what bothers me. A lot of it has to do with various types of tacit insult coming from implicit arrogance disguised as piety.

 

For instance, all the magical occurrences in her life have apparently not served to make her the least bit curious about the implications. Strange things like the ones you mentioned happen all the time to a great many people. There is an ancient sorcerer's technical term for it:

 

Weird shit.

 

Weird shit happens. The fact that she has all this weird shit in her life, yet it has not served to even make her a little bit curious about the implications of what it might mean for and to other people is important. It's one of the first things I see in cases like hers. She hasn't bothered to notice that Muslims, Buddhists, Mormons, Scientologists, atheists, pagans, agnostics and stamp collectors also have weird shit in their lives, too.

 

And that's the crux of the insult: She hasn't bothered.

 

She seems to want credit for having an amazing, magical life, yet all it seems she really deserves credit for is being amazingly spiritually lazy.

 

There are behavior patterns here seem to point consistently toward selfishness.

 

The spiritual one-upsmanship which can't be addressed without the person addressing it being made to look like the bad guy. Does that serve you at her expense, or does it serve her at your expense? And what would the answer indicate about the true nature of her relationship to a presumed god?

 

The passive-aggressive tactics disguised as piety. Does that serve you at her expense, or does it serve her at your expense? And what would the answer indicate about the true nature of her relationship to a presumed god?

 

The incident with the obviously underpriced perfume bottle. Even if all her weird shit is real, the first thing I noticed was her complete lack of concern for ethics. Rather than pointing out the error to the store (conceivably saving someone's job.), what she did instead was to try to get you to collude with her in an act that I have to see as stealing on a technicality. What if her weird shit told her to go down a back alley where she saw that a padlock had been left unlocked on a business's back door with, "No Admittance," painted on it? Would she have said, "The Lord wants me to go in there and take something! Isn't my relationship with Him amazing?" Did that serve you at her expense, or did it serve her at your expense? And what would the answer indicate about the true nature of her relationship to a presumed god?

 

I find this behavior insulting, and demeaning to the people around her, yet she manages to come out looking like an angel, or something. And unless I'm reading it way wrong, that's the point for her. That's how it serves her. It's insulting because she's letting others pay the price for her gains, yet still wanting to be seen as pious and godly.

[Shyone]

The incident with the obviously underpriced perfume bottle.

You know, I didn't really address this, but it is stealing.

 

I have actually had things like this happen to me, and I have brought it to the attention of the clerk or manager.

 

Once, when the price of gas was $2.50 per gallon, I filled up my tank and the price per gallon that was programmed into the pump was $0.25 (twenty five cents). I knew that was wrong and brought it to the attention of the clerk who dutifully charged me the correct amount and then fixed the price on the pump.

 

I do that all the time. Maybe I'm a fool, but I'm an honest fool. I may forgive others for stealing out of necessity, but I would encourage them to at least try to find a better alternative.

 

Food is a necessity. Perfume is not.

 

So stealing perfume is alway wrong - in my "book."

[insanezenmistress]

I would just think of your friend as someone with a different map to yours and enjoy the good things about her that mean she feels like a sister to you - without worrying too much about the detail where you'd be likely to see things very differently.

 

I don't think this is about Zen wanting to challenge her friend. This seems like an internal battle...It seems that Zen's friend's faith and strange experiences are a real challenge to her own atheism. Is that right, Zen?

 

Phanta

 

 

Sorry i have not gotten back to the thread untill now, it's been a very busy weekend.

 

Phanta, yes you get it. Shortly after i wrote all this down and after reading Florduh's post my issue started to come in to focus.

 

The problem is with me. I enjoy Alice's analogy and will apply it's wisdom. Now i have another issue.

Why is her christianity MY issue? It is not her that pushes.

 

I think that i get uncomfortable because i just come out of a place where when she quoted the bible i agreeed and we would get into a charged and uplifting spiritaul discussion. And also i never made true friends with fundy type people, my friend is down to earth, common just like the rest of us ( not completely heald, useing mental crutches, none of us are entirely free) Only thing is she is just holding on to her spirtaul anchor.

 

It shouldnt bother me.

 

I dont want to find and document things to prove her statements. I realised over the weekend that suppose i find the drought occured during the time of her ordeal, it does not prove the bible, but it does not nessacarilly prove god either. This referres back to You where saying with the cars, perhaps the drought was already in progress her mind clicked on it and either by dumb luck or unconscious reasoning she used the knowledge during her grief and fantasy to make the announcement.

 

And if that rationalisation doesn't work, a hundred more will follow to support that it was not god after all.

 

What bothers me is the inequality of our understandings. We have kept each other straight, use each other for reality checks. How is it that we now live in different realities and if she has a spiritaul happening, my mind spins off into psychological explainations where i used to seek the mystical lesson.

 

I miss the mystical view. ( note i did not say radical religious fundy veiw i mean seeking a lesson form the events of life) And that is the core of my issue with her christianity.

 

i think..... it is hard to self shrink.

 

IZM

[insanezenmistress]

There are behavior patterns here seem to point consistently toward selfishness.

 

The spiritual one-upsmanship which can't be addressed without the person addressing it being made to look like the bad guy. Does that serve you at her expense, or does it serve her at your expense? And what would the answer indicate about the true nature of her relationship to a presumed god?

 

The passive-aggressive tactics disguised as piety. Does that serve you at her expense, or does it serve her at your expense? And what would the answer indicate about the true nature of her relationship to a presumed god?

 

 

 

You have given me alot to think about. An angle even my husband ( manipulator extordinare) hasn't envisioned. And i timidly say, your's seem to ring of truth.

 

I am sure it's been brought up between us concerning other people of other faiths having weird shit happen. When we first met i was aspireing to be a buddist type and my life seemed filled with weird shit that i attributed to gaining clarity of mind. She witnessed these things but i believe we rationalised them as both having found the "true formelss essence that would be god"

 

She's done a fair share of spiritaul study but we differ in that i dont stop once a conclusion has been drawn and oftin go back to re-researh and re-check in light of new info and she leaves her study in the past.

 

I had not thought of the purfume as stealing, but she did tell me that she asked the clerk about the price and it was the clerk's bad work ethic saying" well i was todl to mark them down, if it's there then that what i am selling it for" that absolves my friend of "sin".

 

But i can see i have things to concider over the next long while about ... 'serve me and her expence or her at my expence.'

 

 

 

izm

[Loren]

Thanks for your response, IZM.

 

I know that people are much more complex then they might come across as being in a simple post, particularly when that post is the kind your OP was. I'm sure you wouldn't have been friends with her at all in the first place if she was nothing but some kind of horrible, selfish jerk. But I also know from my own experience how I've cut some friends a bit too much slack or given them too much benefit of the doubt because I had been so deep into the relationship for so long. Sometimes, it's just habitual to kind of choose on a subconscious level to overlook certain things. But then the things I've overlooked kind of pile up and continue to bother me on a deeper level.

 

About a year ago, I cut ties with a friend of twenty years. This person definitely had some very good, admirable qualities. But there were things about her which gradually grew to bother me more and more until I couldn't ignore them any more. There were a few large incidents which were the things which forced me to really take a look at the situation, but those large things were of a type with a thousand little things which had piled up over two decades and they all pointed in the same general direction.

 

It all came down to a combination of selfishness and her not having any real respect for the people around her.

 

I'm not advocating that you cut ties with your friend. I'm just saying that I know what it's like to be in a friendship where there are things that bother me, and they feel as though I've been wronged by my friend in some subtle way, yet I can't quite put my finger on exactly what those things are or what they mean.

 

I know how that feels.

[ElrondHubbard]

a phrase I find useful is 'the map is not the territory'. We are all trying to make sense of our world (the territory) and create individual 'maps' or representations of the territory as we see or understand it.

I would just think of your friend as someone with a different map to yours and enjoy the good things about her that mean she feels like a sister to you - without worrying too much about the detail where you'd be likely to see things very differently.

 

THIS.

[Alice]

just for the record, I think you are doing a fabulous job of the self head shrink :-)

 

I think identifying that you have moved away from the aspect of your relationship - where previously you were able to enter a charged and uplifting state together via agreement, might be significant.

 

On one level you might still be missing the 'buzz' that comes from this kind of connection. Now when she say's things you can't agree with or connect to in the same way, your need for connection (one we all pretty much have) isn't met and this can lead to uncomfortable and conflictual feelings.

 

I sometimes look back on aspects of my christian life where I used to have a heightened sense of purpose, specialness and being loved by a deity, as well as my 'connection' with others who were also 'experiencing' this - with the same nostalgia I experience when I look back on eating high fat high sugar foods (now this analogy might not work for everyone, or won't work for anyone who still enjoys these foods in their diet, works for me because I also changed the way I eat a few years ago :-))

 

I have literally danced for joy as a result of percieved spiritual connection (without, as Loren points out - thinking about what this said about others not so 'priviledged') and I have drooled with pleasure tucking into chocolate eclair (without thinking about what this was doing to other parts of my body)

 

I do actually quite like salad and chick peas - overall the benefits for me as a whole person are all positive but is the temptation there for me to go back to something that was about short term 'selfish' enjoyment .. yep ... do I occasionally feel really cross with establishments that serve food of dubious nutritional value ... yep and have I felt cross with people who haven't wanted to join me in changed eating habits .. yep

 

I was one of those cooks who put cream in almost everything and I miss the noises of pleasure people used to make when eating this fat rich food in the same way I miss the buzz and tingle from thinking the holy spirit was in the room and had a personal message for me (so my family really like my replacement tofu chocolate mousse but being honest - it wouldn't win on a taste test against a cream and egg version :-))

 

But I am healthier and overall happier ... both since I changed my diet and my religion. Although I miss the religious buzz I can't separate this from the messages about mankind that came with them (and I was too selfish, preoccupied and indoctrinated) to notice - now I've had my eyes opened, I wouldn't want to go back and I know the buzz would never be the same again.

[ShallowByThyGame]

When it comes to tales of miracles and prophecy, you have to understand that if something exists, it can be scientifically measured. Confirmation bias is the backbone of all of that stuff. We see coincidences and we tie them together. We remember the hits and forget the misses. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so your proper response is 'bullshit'. She may truly believe in what she says, but humans are very good at deluding themselves.

 

Maybe you'll enjoy this video.

[insanezenmistress]

She may truly believe in what she says, but humans are very good at deluding themselves.

 

Maybe you'll enjoy this video.

 

Nice video

 

I will look forward to exploring Skeptoid dot com. But dang.... Way to make my world smaller.

 

but i guess smaller means lessor means of being taken advantage of.

 

izm

[ShallowByThyGame]

But dang.... Way to make my world smaller.

 

but i guess smaller means lessor means of being taken advantage of.

 

izm

 

I prefer to think of it as taking out the trash so there's more room for things that work. I know I feel better when that broken computer monitor from 1995 finally gets cleaned out of the garage. Nature is still full of things that blow my mind away, and can also be verified to exist.

 

The ancients thought there were creatures in the sky, but the reality of what constellations are, suns and galaxies, is far more fascinating.

[Phanta]

more room for things that work.

 

I like that. Letting go of things to make room for more things that work.

 

Nice.

 

Phanta