Belief can make you stupid.
When you believe something strongly, when you firmly hold an opinion, you can end up spending your intelligence on justifying or explaining away facts that are contrary to your belief. Your intelligence and power of reasoning could be better spend on constructive efforts like fixing the flaws in your beliefs or creating something new.
We see this in politics every day – trying to justify one’s own position instead of keeping the eye on the ball, the result… a better society.
Marty Rathbun’s latest latest blog post is an excellent example of a guy justifying his beliefs. Mike Rinder’s comment inspired me to write this post here. Scientologists become experts in justifications as they are told to believe that the subject is The Only Way to salvation. When cracks become visible – they start justifying why the cracks are not there or why they are there for a greater reason. After years of studying the subject, they become extremely skillful in this. This may be the reason why Scientology is and should remain a religion. It is a belief system. It could move into the category of science, but not without inflicting severe pain in its justifiers.
Science is the practice of doing away with one’s beliefs and replacing them with knowledge.
Beliefs are healthy and important when they serve as motivation toward a goal. Beliefs are great for urging to action, but a substitute when used to explain what is.
Geir Isene - uncut 
I totally agree, I had also to bend my reality to justify what did not make sense. I realized that there were flaws that I could not accept, so I used the following justification: “Scientology is like a bus, I will step down as soon as I get to where I want to go”. What really helped me is that my wife did not use or buy any justification and so we were not both of us totally involved. So I was free to step down as I could not justify any more, without the problem of going in conflict with my wife, but with her help. We still use Scientology, but we cut totally our links with the “church”.
Yes. And some get stuck on the bus indefinitely.
Their beliefs become their reality, their reality becomes THE reality. Cause becomes effect.
Seems to me that hardened Scientoligists seek only to increase agreement on their beliefs as if they where creating a brave new world.
Yes. It is Confirmation Bias:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
Yes. The AWESOME is strong in you.
I love me a Zen teacher with a potty mouth.
Excellent points.
Please do add them to my blog as a comment for all to read.
->Geir Isene 🙂
On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 12:07:28PM -0500, Don Filbert scribed:
Geir,
Your comments on belief systems contain some great info – and truth. However – I would offer the following clarifications on a couple of later comments on your site – as follows:
Geir said: “Scientologists become experts in justifications as they are told to believe that the subject is The Only Way to salvation. When cracks become visible – they start justifying why the cracks are not there or why they are there for a greater reason. After years of studying the subject, they become extremely skillful in this. This may be the reason why Scientology is and should remain a religion. It is a belief system.”
Don: – I would hold that many of the “Scientologist” that subscribe to the current CoS (and some from the past as well) have NOT spent years studying the subject !! They have spend years “belonging” to Scientology – or years pretending to study the subject !!
To me – Level 4 of the Training Route contains some of the most relevant Scientology Tech data available !! Yet it gets very little air play due to distractions posed by the much more drama riddled Level 2 – Overts/Withholds/Ethics – etc. Hubbard’s tech data on Level 4’s Fixed Ideas and Confusion; Justifications; Service Facs – etc. pave the way to “right and wrong”; dominance; and ultimately to association with identities and natural GPMs (which are core to the fundamental case of a thetan). And Level 4 concepts certainly do NOT espouse “belief systems” !! None of the Scientology Tech espouses “belief systems” !! Much to the contrary – the real tech data is in total support of your comments on Knowledge; Science; and continuous inspection !!
It is somewhat disconcerting to me to see the public perception of Scientology continuously being identified with the belief systems of those who do not fully study it or understand it. I am not commenting on you – but on the general awareness of Scientology these days due to incredibly poor public relations and the dissemination of mis-understandings. And I think it is our duty to clarify those mis-perceptions as best as possible.
Anyway – Scientology – the real Scientology – is NOT a Religion. Perhaps the CoS version – with all of it’s exaggerated manifestations and poor ethics supporting the self-serving agendas and domination of the “ruling class” – is however a Religion for those who subscribe to it !!
Don. Ex Academy Levels Training Supervisor 1970 – 1972 !!
This was from an exchange on the FreeZone mailing list.
You made two excellent points, probably the two best points of all. One was with regard to “the public perception of Scientology continuously being identified with the belief systems of those who do not fully study it or understand it.”
And the other was: “Level 4 of the Training Route contains some of the most relevant Scientology Tech data available!!”
“All that is wrong with any case is a service facsimile. Discover and reduce the service facsimile and its chain, and the auditor changes the nature of man and promotes him. An individual who has no service facsimile will not accumulate facsimiles to his harm or become restimulated by others. The heart of auditing is the service facsimile.” (AP&A)
Belief, Fear and Ego are the three evils that block increasing your consciousness. They are interrelated. One holds a belief and is right for it which holds off the fear of what is out there. It is an easy solution that saves one from the effort of looking and having to make up his mind based on what he sees. A great book that goes into all this is My big Toe by Thomas Campbell.
Tom Campbell is a favorite of mine, a philosopher who comes from a physics background. I have his book but have been finding it somewhat tedious to read. (He is so thorough!) But there are dozens of videos of his lectures on youtube and they are excellent.
Isn’t “belief” in this sense basically any stable datum that holds off that scary confusion?
Yes. That’s why it can make you stupid.
Better confront & handle the confusion.
Isene
I would rather go for finding the root of a belief or let it float away than fixing the flaws in it. The best is, what you say, to create something new (not based on anything else than my creativity).
The root of a belief is the prior confusion the belief is placed there to handle. It is kind of a “1st postulate, 2nd postulate” type situation. The belief is the altering consideration which persists; the confusion is providing the enrgy for the belief.
Thus the greater and stronger the original confusion, the stronger the belief and the more tenaciously one clings to the belief which resolves or wards off the terrible confusion.
As Geir said, it is better to face the confusion and resolve it – accurately? Is that the right word? Oh, I’m so confused! 🙂 Help me Obi-wan Kenobi!
Val, there is also such a thing as a stable datum from which a body of knowledge is built. it may not be a correct one – but it could be – as implied in the following:
“Any body of knowledge is built from one datum. That is its stable datum. Invalidate it and the entire body of knowledge falls apart. A stable datum does not have to be the correct one. It is simply the one that keeps things from being in a confusion and on which others are aligned.” (Problems of Work)
I´ll try to be Obi-wan Hahaha
Maybe we need to find out what is really real to free ourselves from our beliefs………So let me ask you Marildi and Valkov:
Do you agree with Scientology because it is really real, or Scientology is really real because you agree with it?
Of course, the inverse question would go for the critics….
I am trying to figure out what in Scientology that is really real and then agree to that.
Cool ! 🙂
Hi Rafael.
You asked whether I agree with Scn because it is really real, or Scn is really real because I agree with it – and the answer is both. Couldn’t be otherwise. It appealed to me from the beginning because what I was learning was really real to me and thus I agreed with it and thus I thought it was really real. Basically, for each person agreement and reality and “beliefs” are essentially synonyms.
So let me ask you something too (and please tell me if I am misrepresenting your observation, your truth, your reality). From your occasional blog posts over the last many months, I got that what is most “real” to you as the basis of existence is CREATIVITY. Well, it so happens that rings as truth to me too, since I agree with LRH that the being itself is Basic Truth and that the being alone is capable of creativity. And, here again, the reason I agree is that it is real to me.
There is a scale called “The Create Scale” that shows “Create” up near 40.0. Below that, but still well above 4.0, is “Create-Create-Create”, and below 4.0 is “Create–Counter-Create”, on down to “No Create – Ceases Create, Ceases Exist”.
At the very top, 40.0, is “No Create”. That might possibly be the next level of awareness/reality/belief for you. At least, that is what I have duplicated from Marianne’s comments of her own experience. She also talks about a reality even higher than 40.0, and about a reality level even above that! (Marianne, correct me if I haven’t stated it correctly.)
Btw, that scale is in the latest edition of Scn 0-8 and is from LRH research notes, 1956.
Marildi
Correct! Tone 40 is NO-CREATE (by the “person”), yet a Creation from Life as a “bonus” can appear in the Physical Universe. And that creation shows an “actual state of being”.
Also, there can be “creations” above 40, but not in a mest sense. Marildi, you not only duplicate – you live! the Flow! ( I have observed it in our coms and in your coms with others, like now). Are you aware of that?
It’s a funny thing, Marianne, but I sometimes don’t know the words to express what I do, or know, or feel. For example, in an exchange with Spyros recently I had a hard time describing what is happening when reactions turn on while I am doing TR 0 and just being there. I know I can do it and how it “feels”, but wasn’t sure how to describe what the mechanism was. (I have a better idea now, though, and will get back to him on that exchange – an exchange which, btw, is a great example of the benefits of blog participation.)
And now you ask me if I’m aware of something that is even harder to put into words as it seems to go beyond mechanisms (although I have a “sense” of what you’re saying). In your various posts you have been helping me get a better idea of these other realities and I am going to try to put it into words for you one of these days! For now, thank you for the well-received validation, and as always any validation is especially well-received when it comes from you. 😉
Marildi
” I sometimes don’t know the words to express what I do, or know, or feel”. Aren’t the best experiences unexplainable with words?
“If you want to know something, go elsewhere. If you want to unknow everything, stay here and listen” – this is the quote on Adya’s website. IT is the Unknowable by the mind stuff where it gets really interesting…..of course one can still use the mind, knowledge and words…but “intuition” “knowingness” “ability” just come….
I get what you write….can you put here again what your sister advised me because I just shortly looked at it and would like to…or which thread it was on. Sorry for this plus activity!
Marianne, thanks for your duplication!
What my sister wanted me to pass on to you was a website URL she thought you would like: http://www.probablefuture.com/ Let us know your thoughts if you decide to check it out.
Marildi
Thanks for the link to probablefuture. I checked it out. As I see it, it has to do with the power
of thought and influencing with thought. I, as many others, call that the “dream state”, which has nothing to do with Truth. Truth, real experiences which I have posted a little about. Thank you for your and your sister’s care towards me. Interestingly, out of the blue, a major shift has started to take place in “me”. As I have not been controlling anything for quite a while (you know, no sense of I, rather the Flow), I don’t know where it is leading to, what the outcome will be. If I am a little LESS on the blog from now on, that’s the source of it – very positive what is happening and is taking some of “my time” on certain things. Thanks again!
Marianne: “As I see it, it [the link to http://www.probablefuture] has to do with the power of thought and influencing with thought. I, as many others, call that the “dream state”, which has nothing to do with Truth.
I think it depends, Marianne. See what you think of this very short video:
Lately I have been in no create, but I couldn´t tell if it´s the top or the bottom of the scale!!! Hahaha!! Now seriously, my mind is mostly empty of thoughts and I´m not very much interested in philosophizing, so what I´m doing instead is working at outflowing love/admiration towards life, the universe and everything, and I like this outflow mode, seems to take me back into pure create and clears my view, I´m advancing slowly but nicely, I´ll let you know what happens 🙂
From where I stand now, the need to be given a stable datum seems to indicate a condition of being at effect, or, to be on topic, a condition of being created which will not be solved with any data whatsoever, be it right or wrong, the solution would be more in the area of ceasing to be at effect.
Let me tell you I have no idea at all if it is possible to be primary cause in this universe, but in our own universe there is a big difference when we consider ourselves to be at effect, because then, no solution can be seen from that position, everything seems to depend on external sources.
A real Scientologist for me would be one capable, or at least willing, to create his own stable data by himself, having a clear vision of the situation at hand, instead of depending on stable data fed to him by Scientology or any other external and therefore unavoidably fixed source of knowledge. (Of course, I´m the first to admit that I´m still very far from that state myself Hahaha)
Rafael, thank you so much for all of that, telling me where you’re “at” these days!
R: “Lately I have been in no create, but I couldn´t tell if it´s the top or the bottom of the scale!!! Hahaha!!”
M: LOL, you are as hilarious as ever! I love your self-deprecating humor – which only a humble and wise man could have, in my unhumble opinion :).
R: “…so what I´m doing instead is working at outflowing love/admiration towards life, the universe and everything, and I like this outflow mode, seems to take me back into pure create and clears my view, I´m advancing slowly but nicely…”
M: That makes me very happy to hear. And your viewpoint seems to be the same as other great philosophers (including our own Marianne), who also have given the greatest importance to LOVE. That’s the exact word many of them use, and LRH used “admiration” and “affinity” only because “love” has so many meanings. Also, I “love” 😉 that you “advancing slowly but nicely”.
R: “Let me tell you I have no idea at all if it is possible to be primary cause in this universe…”
M: I can answer that :D. It isn’t. Not “in” this universe. The fact that we are IN it to start with means we are at the effect of agreements with it and all its laws. Saying it a bit differently, we agreed to the rules of the game and to that (very large) degree we are at effect. (But you know all that.) As for myself, so far I don’t have a problem knowing I’m in a game and thus not primary cause. “No Game” doesn’t appeal to me, at least not at my current level of knowingness.
R: “A real Scientologist for me would be one capable, or at least willing, to create his own stable data by himself, having a clear vision of the situation at hand, instead of depending on stable data fed to him by Scientology or any other external and therefore unavoidably fixed source of knowledge.”
M: Precisely right – that would be a REAL Scientologist, since what you describe would align with the philosophy itself which happens to be a very coherent and consistent system that delineates the game we’ve agreed to as well as inferring a path to free ourselves from this game. Unfortunately, however, many (if not most) Scientologists don’t know enough about that philosophical body of knowledge to know that its whole purpose is to enable people to be more SELF-determined (in the very broadest sense of “self”) such that eventually they can be free of not only the laws of the physical universe but of Scientology itself (not necessarily in that order :D).
R: I´ll let you know what happens”
M: I look so much forward to it. Don’t forget! 🙂
What I want to add to this article is that belief can be a strong motivation to move forward when you experience critical periods in life. Orthodox, Lutheran or Catholic, there are many Christians who say something like..”Doesn’t matter what’s the problem, as God is up there and protect me, I will go on with courage and faith, no matter what”.