Yeah you need to get her spade Jill or lock her up. You dont want a litter of kittens brought into the world unnecessarily. They cant do it till shes done with the heat so you might just have to cage her if shes not pregnant already.

she's an indoor cat, she never gets let outside. No babies in here

Why is this not a meaningful statement and what does any of it have to do with 'spirituality' and whether or not a person is an atheist?

I did not realize we were talking about 'spirituality' or a belief in God. I was under the impression I was talking about the law of attraction and the laws of this reality.

The question posed was "Did all these people who got laid off from their jobs attract that into their reality?"

The answer is yes they did, because they made the decision to work for that particular company. This is what lead to their experience of getting laid off. This is extremely obvious. It does not require "faith in God" or a belief in any "law of attraction or Karma."

It was just a simple obvious answer. You threw me for a loop when you said "even an atheist would agree with this one."

HUH?

Well why not?

This is discussion, as far as I am concerned, is not at all about whether a person believes in God or not.

So I guess I am confused about exactly where you are coming from.

Well, I guess we're just talking about two different things then.

I live in this share environment with other people. I drive on roads that are shared with other beings.

If one of them gets drunk and slams into me in a head-on collision their 'reality' becomes my 'reality'.

So the 'shared environment' becomes a 'shared reality' by the very nature of what it is.

If I go to a bank to deposit some money, and some trigger happy psychos decide to rob it while I'm there. Their reality becomes my reality because we share the same environment.

Now when it comes to living inside my own cottage. Sure, my reality is my own (barring any arsines or nuts who might decide that in their reality they go around burning down random houses!)

So I'm still unclear as to what you are trying to say in terms of shared evironments versus personal realities.

But clearly it's not important.

Whatever works for you.

I'm happy when I'm alone too.

The vast bulk of my life is my own reality too.

And it's NICE.

I hope I didn't sound like I was complaining about my own personal life. That was never my intent. I was just considering philosophy as a whole.

It does appear that some innocent people have been incarcerated for crimes they didn't commit.

Their reality then becomes controlled by their incarcerators. They are told what to wear, when to sleep, wake, and eat, etc.

They lose a lot of control over their reality, particular with respect to where they can go and who they hang out with.

But yeah, as long as your free from the others forcing their will onto you, then your philosophy seems to work.

You're just playing me. Trying to confuse me.

First you say:

I was under the impression I was talking about the law of attraction and the laws of this reality.

Then you say:

It does not require "faith in God" or a belief in any "law of attraction or Karma."

So I have no clue what you are trying to say.

That was my very point, "It does not require a belief in the law of attraction because it's not an effect of the law of attraction"

Those people who all got a job from a company that ended up laying them all off did not attract that layoff to themselves via the law of attraction.

That's not what the law of attraction is all about.

That's what I meant when I said that even an atheist would agree that the people who got laid off were kind of 'responsible' for working for that company.

And by 'atheist' I actually mean, an 'a non-believer in the law of attraction'.

Ok, that was probably a bit too much semantic abstraction there.

What they wouldn't agree with is that those people "attracted" the layoff to themselves via the law of attraction.

That's all I meant by that.

My whole point from the very beginning was simply to suggest that we are not responsible for everything that happens to us.

And what I meant by that is that we aren not repsonsible for "causing" or "attracting" everything that happens to us.

That's my only point.

And um stick'in to it.

We aren not repsonsible for "causing" or "attracting" everything that happens to us.

We aren not repsonsible for "causing" or "attracting" everything that happens to us.

We aren not repsonsible for "causing" or "attracting" everything that happens to us.

We aren not repsonsible for "causing" or "attracting" everything that happens to us.

We aren not repsonsible for "causing" or "attracting" everything that happens to us.

We aren not repsonsible for "causing" or "attracting" everything that happens to us.

Well, well, well. Looks like some one needs a time out.

JB! Abra! Separate corners!

Yeah, and this time I went with you and now he's mad at me too!

Look at the size of that cows tongue!

down girl.

They always try to have it both ways. They say you go to hell if you dont accept Jesus but then Jesus forgives you for your sins. So which is it? I personally feel like Jesus kind of felt like whatever, just do what you want because you are going to anyway. He even told them not to cause "discourse amongst brethren" but they insist on doing that anyway. They totally ignore what he said. I think some of them might end up in hell for all of this excessive proselytizing.

All I did was go in there to joke around with Jill. And, he deleted me from his friend's list.

I live in the same world that you live in. Drunks drive on the roads in my town also. I take the same risks other people take. And yet, some people get hit by drunks and some people don't.

So why is that do you suppose? Why are some people victims and others are not? Are some people just lucky?

If a drunk slams his car into mine, his reality does not "become my reality."

His experience of the event will be completely different from mine.




Again, no it does not! Your reality is unique and it is not the same experience. You are simply at a bank while it is being robbed. He is doing the robbing. That is not the same reality or the same experience.

People rob banks everyday. Why have I never been at a bank while it is being robbed? Why have I never robbed one?




I don't know how more clearly I can explain what I mean.

A personal reality is the world from your exclusive point of view. No other person can share that reality... ever. No other person can walk in your shoes, or feel what you feel.

A shared environment is a place where many people with will's of their own cause things to happen and attract and are attracted to things that match their thought frequency.



My 'philosopy' works because it is the law of attraction, not because I have been lucky and not because no one has been successful in "forcing their will onto me" for any length of time. (Some have certainly tried.)

Screw him then. People take this much too seriously. Or you just give them food for thought but they dont want to think about it so they get angry.

Now you are just making me laugh my ass off.



P.S.

YOU ARE TOTALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR PERSONALLY REALITY.

oooh but he wasn't mad tho.

oooh but he wasn't mad tho.

sorry... I went and pissed off the christians again

I’d like to interject something about the “responsibility for your own condition” issue.

It seems to me that if you are going to enter into a situation where you are interacting with others, there must be some provision for being the effect of another’s cause. This is a fundamental requirement of communication. (As a Physical Universe example, sound waves emanating from another person’s vocal chords must be able to move the membrane of your ear drum.) This is where I believe the viewpoint of “We are not responsible for "causing" or "attracting" everything that happens to us” comes from.

But it’s not a matter of being either total cause (solipsism) or total effect (materliaism). It’s a matter of choosing to be either effect or cause at different times and for different reasons.

If we were not "effect of" the light waves from a sunset, we could not experience the awe that it inspires. If we were not "cause of" the words we are saying, we would not be able to communicate with others.

To the degree that we choose to communicate with others, we choose to be effect of those others. That is the nature of communication. If we chose not to be the effect of anything, we would not be able to communicate with each other.

To the degree that we choose to operate within this physical universe, we choose to be effect. That is the nature of this physical universe. If we chose not to be the effect of anything, we would not be able to operate within the physical universe.

To me, that is the reasoning behind the “responsible for you own condition” belief.

In it’s simplest form, “you didn’t choose to get hit by the drunk driver, but you did choose to be in the location where you got hit.”

The randomity inherent in the physical universe is simply part of the rules we accept when we decided to join in the game. And we cannot abdicate responsibility for having accepted those rules.

But then, all of that is dependent upon a belief that we choose to be here in the first place. It will naturally not be compatible with a belief that we are not here of our own free will.

Thank you Skyhook.

I think when we agree to live in a reality where we can be the effect of things and where our existence can be acknowledged by others, we trade that for the risk of these same effects.

If we were operating in 'ghost' (or astral) bodies and could not be seen or heard we could also not be hurt if a truck runs us down because it would pass right through us. We would not be the effect or the cause of anything within this world.

In a physical body, if we get a license to drive a car and we start driving around the city, there is a risk of injury as a result of a possible car accident. Do we then choose not to drive the car to avoid the risk? Maybe and maybe not. The point is, if we accept the responsibility of driving the car, we accept the risk.

So then if some other driver crashes into us and puts us in the hospital, we realize that we accepted that risk and responsibility in exchange for what we chose to do in driving the car.

We actually created the entire experience through the process of:
a. getting a license to drive,
b. accepting the risk of injury
c. driving the car,
d. driving it the same time and place as the driver who hit you.

There of course are many other unseen causes at work that brought you to that intersection at that moment in time.

So even if the accident was not "your fault" you are responsible for that event and for creating or attracting that experience in your reality.

jb

We actually created the entire experience through the process of:
a. getting a license to drive,
b. accepting the risk of injury
c. driving the car,
d. driving it the same time and place as the driver who hit you.


None of these reasons would assess responsibility to the injured party. They are in fact not reasons, they are factors which created a set of circumstances. Maybe I am misunderstanding your personal reality definition of responsibility. However most people, either rightly or wrongly tend to associate blame with responsibility. Meaning that drunk driver will now be required to take the blame for his or her poor judgment which resulted in the accident.

I dont see any way around that unless it was a hit and run situation and the suspect was never caught. That still would not require the injured party to take responsibility. The perpetrator of the crime will still remain responsible.

I think that is the standard definition of the word "responsibility" that people are familiar with though that may not apply to your explanation here if I am misunderstanding you.