The only reason I mentioned it was it would appear in the last 3 weeks or so there have been many more warnings going out and temp bans so just think twice before you post something if its sarcastic or rude sounding. You never know how someone will internalize it and get all upset.

I try to look at it from the perspective of "would I make this comment to someone's face" if I honestly wouldn't for the sake of harmony then there is no reason it needs to be posted on a forum.

Before I temporarily left, there were topics that were deleted as soon as they showed up, so it really is quite peaceful compared to then.

General Religion has always been terrible as far as argument and discourse. There are literally "cyber holy wars" taking place in there. If you are going to post in that forum, you pretty much have to do so with the understanding that someone will more than likely disagree with anything you say no matter how seemingly innocuous the remark as is their right. It just should remain civil and in a debate format rather than personal attacks yet it always seems to degrade to that point eventually. Both sides are immovable.

General Religion is AKA "The War Room"

Yes these are the factors that created a set of circumstances that would have lead to the reality of being involved in a car accident.

Of course the drunk driver (or the driver at fault) would bare the responsibility according to the law.

But that is not what I am talking about when I talk about accepting responsibility for your experiential reality.

When I got my license to drive and bought a car I am aware that this is a dangerous activity and I decided to take the risk and do it anyway. That is me accepting responsibility for my experiences. If I get hit or run into a tree, or even have a heart attack and run off the road, or get car-jacked by a criminal, these are all possibilities under this risk. I understand the risks.

That is me participating in creating my reality. Accepting the risk of the activity.

I like to ride horses, and I accept the responsibility that it could be dangerous. My horse could stumble and fall, or buck me off, etc. If I don't get on that horse to begin with these experiences will not have a chance of happening.

It is in that respect that our choices create our reality. We accept the risk. We are then technically 'responsible' for creating that experience which become our reality.

With anything we decide to do we cannot know all of the things that could happen as a result, but we do them anyway, and we understand there could be factors and risks we don't know about. By choosing to do them, we accept the risks.

The spiritual part of it is in your higher mind that knows things that 'we' (the little self) do not know. That higher mind is self. It knows more than we do about what is happening and what is about to happen. If you learn to listen to your higher mind you can be warned and guided in your decisions.

Some call it instinct or intuition or "gut feelings."

But that would not be the same as being at fault. I guess we are talking about apples and oranges here. Never mind.

I agree with you... tho sometimes I just can't let things slide without dropping a small smidge of my opinion It's a weakness of mine I'm trying to focus on. I am however just spending a lot less time in the general religion simply because it's such a losing battle.

Exactly! I feel the same way. You summed it up. Im battered and broken and I would much rather just hang out on this thread now. I was always involved in the Creationism/vs Biological Evolution saga and its just impossible. They wont understand it. They refuse to even try. Its yucky and they arent related to monkeys. Im done.

Well I try to consider myself open. I almost never flat out call someone wrong unless they are just totally skewing the facts. So I guess the naive side of me expects the same in return. A good old fashioned debate where no one gets all pissy and angry just over someone's opinion. Where I can ask and answer questions without getting burned at the stake like the Witch I am

If that is what you want to call it, then okay.

But I don't understand why everyone is so concerned with finding out "who is at fault." Is it because they don't want to share in their part of being responsible?

There are many causes at work in any event. Every person involved in any event is part of the cause. Many of the details will never be known, but they would include the state of mind, the attitude, the thoughts, the decisions of every single person involved in that event and much more.

After something happens, people will reflect with thoughts like: "If I had not done this... or if I had done this... blah blah blah..."

People don't want to be "at fault." People don't want to take any responsibility for things that happen to them.
That is okay with me. Like I have said, it is a choice.

It is not going around blaming others or blaming yourself totally and feeling "at fault" for everything that happens to you. It is not about regret or feeling guilty about anything. It is not about blame.

It is just about becoming aware of causes and decisions and attitudes and thoughts that do create your personal experiences. That is all.

(I don't know why this is so hard to understand or believe.)
But total freedom and total responsibility is not an easy thing. It begins with accepting responsibility.. not for the entire state of the world.... but for your own life experiences.

jb


If you don't want to have any bad experiences, then you can rent a padded cell never go anywhere or do anything I guess.




But even then, you create that reality of living in a padded cell.

No, quite the opposite. It appears what you are saying is the victim is at fault. That is simply incorrect. Maybe I am misunderstanding you but I will need to politely disagree. I believe that actions have consequeces and that if a person is at fault or to blame, they shoud be held accountable.

I dont believe that the victim is at fault for driving a car. When is accountability taken exactly in your personal reality? What if I am the lone survivor in a plane crash? Am I to blame in that scenario also just because I was one lucky son of a b1tch?

So, if I'm on my way to work because I have to earn money, just minding my own business, and I get run over by a drunk driver, where am I responsible?
Because I chose the shortest way to work?
Or because I went at a particular time because I didn't want to be late?
Or what?

apparently you chose your own fate before you came here... that's how you are responsible for it. That's how I have taken it anyway...

this is a concept I couldn't believe in, no matter how hard I tried.

I think I dont fully understand it and I admit to that. What Im grappling with is the concept that I somehow "attract" my own misfortune through no fault of my own. Im having a hard time wrapping my head around that quite honestly.

It also begins to sound similar to that of Medieval Christianity where they would very often blame people's diseases or birth defects on "family curses" or that they had upset god in some manner. I dont like that idea and its a dangerous bridge to cross. In fact it was a recessive gene trait.

lol I'm not saying I agree with it... it's just how I took the information from JB.

That's why I said initially that it's a faith-based premise.

Glory Jean is preaching it with the proselytizing certainty of the Christians.

But it's a faith-based belief that cannot be verified. That's my main point.

We don't know what we may or may not have agreed to before we got here. So any belief along those lines is pure speculation.

Jeanniebean is speaking with a tone of authority like this is the way things are like it or not.

She's as bad as the Christians.

My argument is based on the following:

Empowerment = Responsibility.

No Empowerment = No Responsibility.

We can only be responsible for what we have the power to chose.

If we are stuck with limited choices, then our power to chose is limited.

If our power to chose is limited, then clearly our responsibility is also limited.



Based on my assertion that Empowerment = Responsibility, then I would hold that, YES, you were responsible for being in that place. But NO, you weren't responsible for being hit by the drunk driver, because that information was not known to you, and therefore you were not empowered to chose or not chose that event.

No Empowerment = No Responsibility.

I mean, the idea that everyone is responsible for everything that happens to them is actually a dangerous idea.

If you see a homeless person on the street and you believe in this philosophy, then you have to think to yourself, "That person is only homeless because they chose to be homeless".

It's their choice. They are totally responsible for being homeless.

Some thing with the little children who were born in starving countries.

If we agreed to things before we came here, then those little children must have agreed to be born into starving poverty.

It's their choice. It's their responsibility.

I just don't believe that life is that simple.

Gloria Jean preaches this like as if it's the gospel truth.

Let's face it Jeannie baby. It's YOUR BELIEF and it could be WRONG.

We just don't know, and neither do you.

You choose to believe it.

More power to you.

But why preach it like Christianity?

Jeanniebean the "Law of Attraction" Evangelist.

I say that Empowerment = Responsibility.

No Empowerment = No Responsibility.

If you want to claim that I'm responsible for everything, then you are also claiming that I have the power to do everything.

But I don't.

And even if the "Law of Attraction" is true, I don't know how to wield it's power purposefully.

Therefore I am powerless to use it methodically.

No Empowerment = No Responsibility.

If people have a power, but don't know they possess it nor now how to wield it, then they have no empowerment, even if on some technical level it is somehow available to them.

Ignorance of a power that you might possess is the same as not possessing it.

If you're going to preach "The Law of Attraction" then preach that people can take control of their lives.

Don't preach that they are already responsible for having that control, if they don't yet know how to wield it.

That'd be like the Christians who tell everyone that they are sinners whether they did anything wrong or not.

Penczak covers this issue nicely in his books.

He talks about the concept of Empowerment = Responsibility.

He states that as we learn to wield the power of "The Magic of Witchcraft" our responsibility increases with that Empowerment.

Now that's something I can sink my teeth into.

Responsibility comes with Empowerment, and is directly proportional to it.

Now that I can agree with.

It's hard to understand because of the following:

We don't appear to have Total Freedom

But you seem to be assuming that we do.

I would be the first to agree with you that Total Freedom = Totally Responsiblity.

My argument is that we don't appear to have Total Freedom.

We are restricted in the choices and power that we have.

At least I certainly am.

I don't know about the rest of you.

I can't buy into it either.

The word "responsibility" has several meanings that are quite different.

1) "dependable" as in "a responsible person.

2) "willing cause" as in "assume responsibility for making sure something happens as planned".

3) "duty", as in "it is the responsibility of the cook to ensure that the food is tasty."

4) "blame", as in "he is responsible for the accident".

#2 and #3 are similar and could be confused. The difference is that with #2 the resulting actions are self-determined according to one’s own evaluation, whereas with #3 the resulting actions are pre-determined and require no evaluation or choice.

So when discussing “responsibility for” a car accident, the only relevant definitions are #2 (willing cause) and #4 (blame).

Now #4 (blame) is usually determined by something like “the last causative action that contributed to the condition”. The problems with that are twofold:
1) Determining what actions did and did not contribute to the state of affairs. Did your “willing cause” in being at that intersection contribute to the state of affairs? There can be no denying the fact that had you not been there, the state of affairs would not have included you being in the accident.
2) Assigning blame based on the “last causative, contributing action”. To me this is the biggest problem and the heart of the disagreement. The problem is that it ignores all contributing factors except one, when it is obvious that there are many, many contributing factors.

And even if you don’t accept that definition, any definition of “blame” is based on the principle that some actions contributed to the condition and some did not. And the problem is the same. It boils down to what actions you choose to assign as having contributed to the state of affairs.

It seems that Jeannie’s argument is (and correct me if I’m wrong here Jeannie) that both your actions and the other person’s actions, contributed equally to the state of affairs.

The only real difference is that your actions are acceptable to the majority, whereas the drunken driver’s are not.

So it would seem that “blame” is really a matter of majority rule, which seems to be borne out by simple observation of our society.

Thus, the “blame” viewpoint of responsibility is almost the exact opposite of the “willing cause” viewpoint of responsibility. Blame is essentially an other-determined assignment of having done wrong, whereas “willing cause” is a self-determined decision to do right. It is unfortunate that the latter can lead to the former through the capriciousness of our majority rule system.

(Wow! That was more of a rant than I intended to go off on. )

"We'd like to know a little more about you for our files.
We'd like to help you learn to help yourself..."

Simon and Garfunkel