heard a referance yesterday to "magical" thinking as opposed to critical thinking. I am ok with magical thinking until it gets in the way of critical thought and reasoning. The fact is, no one knows for sure but if you want to believe you do, that's ok. I want to be a part of figuring this shit out.
Don't try to block funding based on a religious view, don't try to paint "non believers" as being bad or evil, and for sure don't show prejudice against us on the job or in a school. We have lawyers for that. I think the separation of church and state is about halfway there, we need a guarantee for medical and scientific funding, before we start paying for anything based on magical thinking including a religious war anywhere, any time. (pretty much all war is). Anything less is a waste of time between now and the better future we would all like to see come about. I think that clock is running backwards some days.......
For what it's worth, my point of view is that magical thinking is right when I see an eagle perched on a nearby tree in the wilderness, and for some inexplicable reason it feels like a visit to say hello from my beloved, deceased father who I miss so dearly, and it is wonderous.
Magical thinking is wrong in many ways too. When it involves self-deception that is serving the purpose of self-flattery, for example that because you're in a special spiritual group on a higher path to enlightenment and thanks to meditation you know that everything is an illusion; so suicide, rape and child abuse is just an illusion too and nothing matters except of course your envy of your neighbour's car and your status as a member of a special spiritual group which is better than everyone else who isn't on a higher path to enlightenment. We need to watch out when magic gets comically Orwellian.
I think it’s an especially American concept to associate saying what you want as a form of freedom. Which doesn’t make it wrong or bad, but something to perhaps be aware of.
For me? I don’t need to go round telling people who have shat on me that they’ve been an arse. But it does inform the way I associate with them in the future.
I gain nothing, personally, by telling people things they don’t want to hear. I’d rather talk to people who are interested in listening. I get much more out of that.
Thank you for your input. I'm not American and while there's many things I like about America, I have a European's scepticism of American "Freedom and Democracy that was given to the people of Iraq in return for their oil" and the "Freedom to carry a gun" and the "Freedom not to receive free public healthcare and go live on the streets instead" bullshit, with all due respect to America.
By the way, I've also had experience of living in a totalitarian country, where the desire for freedom of speech without being killed was extremely real and nothing to do with the freedom to choose between Coke and Pepsi.
Having been traumatically imprisoned as child, the feeling of freedom I feel as an adult is real. I know myself pretty well by now, and I know I needed to tell the person who tried to destroy me what they did. It may be an extroverted personality trait, which I am above average on, and many people aren't. So what I did is not for everyone, it was for me.
Being self-critical for a moment, I can confess there may have been a compulsive element to it, it was something I felt was right rather than what I knew was right.
There was a family dynamic involved, which I haven't mentioned. There was a third person, an interfering go-between causing a lot of trouble by carrying and distorting messages between us (a flying monkey?), who I needed to short-circuit, too.
Thank you again, I respect and understand your point of view. I take my hat of off to you for not needing to tell people that they've been an arse. And I agree with you, I'd rather talk with people who are interested in listening too.
Thank you for listening so actively, it's much appreciated.