My belief system

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: There is a world of difference in belief in self as confidence and stealing the narrative of a made up alternate world history and calling if your own.

The belief in self need not be superficial.... it can include all manner of depth of imagined circumstance. Sports meditation involves visualizing conduct in high detail, as a means to train and motivate oneself. It's the same thing with spiritual systems, they serve as frameworks to anchor thought and action in tested paradigms for net benefit. So that issue aside, have you asked if he is the author of the article you linked? Because he did call it an 'article' in the OP.... and different people speak differently, and the wording could be taken to mean personal use and personal alignment with, rather then creation of. It's usually safer to ask then assume, unless I missed where it was stated as such.

Which goes back to my points, a personal spiritual belief system need not be entirely anchored in reality for it to have benefit in application to reality, calling something a belief is not the same as saying something is true, and calling something 'mine' does not automatically mean a person is saying it is their creation.

And in regards to origins of 'Jedi', I think that is less important what Lucas derived it from then what it can mean to someone in practise. For instance I like the chinese 極代 which google translates as 'Extreme generation' and is pronounced Jí dài

Tellahane wrote: When someone is dying literally in your arms and there is nothing that can be done about it, what they believe in does not matter. What matters is that they believe...

Why? And believe what? This seems a nonsensical statement. What if they are dying in your arms screaming because they believe they are going to hell to be tortured for the rest of eternity because they are a horrible person?

Why? And believe what? This seems a nonsensical statement. What if they are dying in your arms screaming because they believe they are going to hell to be tortured for the rest of eternity because they are a horrible person?

um... I've never heard of this happening. One of the reasons is because even a horrible person, if they believe, can make a "deathbed confession" and are generally likened to the thief on the cross. Do I think this is BS? Yes... because I'm more logical like you and Gisteron. However, belief helps people in different ways to deal with the parts of life and death that they don't know or understand. And usually if a person is so horrible that they accept damnation instead of confessing and asking for forgiveness then they're not the type to be screaming about it in the end.

After my dad passed, my mother pretty much retreated into her faith because it promised to reunite them in heaven. It annoys me that she wants to involve me or my children in it but as something that is "for her" if it helps comfort her and gives her peace, who am I to convince her otherwise? That's what she chooses. Now if she was dancing with poisonous snakes or something like that then yeah... at that point the belief wouldn't be worth the danger. But being wrong about something you profess to believe in (not to know) isn't criminal or automatically harmful. And if it is more help than harm then it is a net positive.

ZealotX wrote:

Why? And believe what? This seems a nonsensical statement. What if they are dying in your arms screaming because they believe they are going to hell to be tortured for the rest of eternity because they are a horrible person?

um... I've never heard of this happening. One of the reasons is because even a horrible person, if they believe, can make a "deathbed confession" and are generally likened to the thief on the cross. Do I think this is BS? Yes... because I'm more logical like you and Gisteron. However, belief helps people in different ways to deal with the parts of life and death that they don't know or understand. And usually if a person is so horrible that they accept damnation instead of confessing and asking for forgiveness then they're not the type to be screaming about it in the end.

After my dad passed, my mother pretty much retreated into her faith because it promised to reunite them in heaven. It annoys me that she wants to involve me or my children in it but as something that is "for her" if it helps comfort her and gives her peace, who am I to convince her otherwise? That's what she chooses. Now if she was dancing with poisonous snakes or something like that then yeah... at that point the belief wouldn't be worth the danger. But being wrong about something you profess to believe in (not to know) isn't criminal or automatically harmful. And if it is more help than harm then it is a net positive.

By your logic is seems completely acceptable that the Radical Muslims that found the greatest of peace and believed in the greatest of rewards in heaven for their act were perfectly reasonable in flying jumbo jets into buildings. If the comfort is false its false, no matter how much you might think it beneficial, its still a lie.

If you do a bit of research the djedi of Egypt where preists who wore cloaks and help guard the pharaoh’s. I even found in early Israel and some Arab states had believers in the Farr, which literally translates to the force.
I’m not telling any of you to believe in what is written. As this is my belief system. I class myself as a Jedi consular, who philosophies on the force and it’s real origins or fictional origins. I do not close my eyes to anyone’s beliefs or faiths as the more knowledge one has the greater understanding of others one gets. That is why I joined the Jedi temple, to gain a understanding of others who also believe in the force.

Should I be sad that you haven't answered my question Lenny C?
How does your belief translate to your practice?

Gisteron wrote: Call me narrow-minded, whoever must, but I just can't bring myself to feel much about any sort of spirituality that requires the practitioner to make up nonsense or believe it. There is plenty inspiring and beautiful and in their own way transcendent things about the world itself. And I'm not saying that in any sense of us having enough to not need more. No, I'm making a much stronger claim. I say I have yet to hear a fantasy that even came close in magnificence to what nature offers. Desperately weaving magical stories to feel like having a special place in the universe is no sign of creativity or spirituality, as much as, if anything, of a lack of both! At my most generous I can see Spirit Science having no ill motive and just innocently lying to themselves and spreading those lies to their audience. Why anyone might be better off with it than without I'm not sure and I can't begrudge those who already do a fantastic job at debunking this nonsense in the hopes that fewer end up falling for it in the end.

And how is this different from most/all religions? How many of them do we attempt to thwart or debunk?

Oh come on now, are you saying English literature is to any extent about making up nonsense and then believing it? Far be it from me to defend the subject, but this surely must be too harsh.
Also, assuming that anybody can do any such thing as to choose to believe anything, I'm still not fully convinced, in light of the entire treatise being a straight copy of a decade-old article, that this is actually what anybody here believes. I'm by no means one to put the gloves on over things people are emotionally invested in for poor reason or for none at all, but when genuine-ness is called into question this hard, how can we even make that appeal still?

math = genuine-ness
literature = art

logically, there is no argument I'm trying to make because logically I agree with you. However, that is the approach of my left brain. My right brain, being the creative, tells me to let people dream. Art can be 100% accurate or it can be a distortion of reality. It is interpreted. So the VALUE it has depends on the eye of the beholder. That's not something that you or I can independently assess because it's personal. The OP didn't say "here are the facts". He said "my belief system". The word belief itself is the main indicator that it is not presented as knowledge or factual information. Beliefs cannot necessarily be proven. If they could they would quickly either become knowledge or discarded as error. Beliefs allow us to hold ideas in our hands and play with them long enough to extract value. That value... that meaning... is defined in the analysis. When he analyzes this information and he's connecting the dots, the dots form a pattern of significance to him. That's what matters. It's the same as reading a fable that has a moral to it. Enjoy the fable. Don't toss it because parts of it are fantasy. Even those parts have value.

I'm here because of Star Wars. I'm fully aware of the fictional nature of the SW universe. I appreciate that it isn't presented as any other but. However, do I believe there is a force? Yeah. Does my belief have to mach up to Lucas's imagination? No. Does "Jedi" come from Egypt? No. Does it have to? No. The rules of scientific discovery and exploration do not apply to belief systems. If they did belief systems would not exist. And we would not have Star Wars or Jedi. And we wouldn't be here discussing anything because that intrinsic value... of something within the story (spirit), within the characters, within the nature of the thing... would be lost.

My belief system helps with coping with my mental health issues. Without it I would not be strong enough to be able to live a so called normal life.
I’m not telling anyone to believe I’m what I believe. Everyone has a individual life and beliefs, some are christian, some Muslim and some the force. If it helps in life by what you believe, then you have the right to say this is my belief system that gets me through everyday life.

Lenny C wrote: If you do a bit of research the djedi of Egypt where preists who wore cloaks and help guard the pharaoh’s. I even found in early Israel and some Arab states had believers in the Farr, which literally translates to the force.
I’m not telling any of you to believe in what is written. As this is my belief system. I class myself as a Jedi consular, who philosophies on the force and it’s real origins or fictional origins. I do not close my eyes to anyone’s beliefs or faiths as the more knowledge one has the greater understanding of others one gets. That is why I joined the Jedi temple, to gain a understanding of others who also believe in the force.

I appreciate you and what you have shared.

While I do not believe the force is a sentient entity the way that the Hebrew God is, I do accept the logic that Paul used when he said that his God was called by other names. And the titles used for God didn't really matter and were different in different languages and cultures. So even if there's no direct linkage between Djedi and SW's "Jedi" I encourage you to keep doing what you're doing because who knows? Who knows how ancient knowledge could have survived and lived on to inspire others while still maintaining some sense of itself and some consistency, masking itself in different cultures and societies.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

ZealotX wrote:

Why? And believe what? This seems a nonsensical statement. What if they are dying in your arms screaming because they believe they are going to hell to be tortured for the rest of eternity because they are a horrible person?

um... I've never heard of this happening. One of the reasons is because even a horrible person, if they believe, can make a "deathbed confession" and are generally likened to the thief on the cross. Do I think this is BS? Yes... because I'm more logical like you and Gisteron. However, belief helps people in different ways to deal with the parts of life and death that they don't know or understand. And usually if a person is so horrible that they accept damnation instead of confessing and asking for forgiveness then they're not the type to be screaming about it in the end.

After my dad passed, my mother pretty much retreated into her faith because it promised to reunite them in heaven. It annoys me that she wants to involve me or my children in it but as something that is "for her" if it helps comfort her and gives her peace, who am I to convince her otherwise? That's what she chooses. Now if she was dancing with poisonous snakes or something like that then yeah... at that point the belief wouldn't be worth the danger. But being wrong about something you profess to believe in (not to know) isn't criminal or automatically harmful. And if it is more help than harm then it is a net positive.

By your logic is seems completely acceptable that the Radical Muslims that found the greatest of peace and believed in the greatest of rewards in heaven for their act were perfectly reasonable in flying jumbo jets into buildings. If the comfort is false its false, no matter how much you might think it beneficial, its still a lie.

sorry, but did you not read what I said?

Now if she was dancing with poisonous snakes or something like that then yeah... at that point the belief wouldn't be worth the danger. But being wrong about something you profess to believe in (not to know) isn't criminal or automatically harmful. And if it is more help than harm then it is a net positive.

so my logic doesn't include radical islam which is different from non-radical Islam. BOTH of them include errors, lies, deceits, etc.

...just like Judaism. (How many people did Moses kill?)

The truth is that Muslims would have to kill millions more people just to catch up to the loss of life caused intentionally by Christianity during the Crusades and Inquisitions.

But we accept those who practice Christianity within Jediism. The OP isn't claiming any such harmful narrative. He isn't claiming the Force is talking to him through the ancient Djedi, telling him that the infidels must die. So there's no need to equate the two very different things.

Every religion can claim some kind of history. However, that account of history isn't perfect and cannot be completely proven. Even in SW there is the canon and the non-canon EU. And in the canon and EU there are stories of lost religion and people like Han Solo who doubt the existence of the Force or even the Jedi. So we can talk about the Force, light sabers, whatever we want to, as long as we're not suggesting to people what they have to believe or pass off our own beliefs as truth.