We're all (mostly) dogmatic... Only few admit it while others call it faith or science.

[dianaiad]

Second-hand maybe, true wisdom is from within.

Part of that true internal wisdom is this: that if someone has said something perfectly, one need not attempt to improve upon it. It's perfectly OK to quote someone who expresses a thought better than one can oneself.

“People who count their chickens before they are hatched act very wisely because chickens run about so absurdly that it's impossible to count them accurately.”
― Oscar Wilde

Proverbs 4:7
7 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

Dunno about you, but I couldn't have said either thing better.

 

[psychoslice]

Part of that true internal wisdom is this: that if someone has said something perfectly, one need not attempt to improve upon it. It's perfectly OK to quote someone who expresses a thought better than one can oneself.

“People who count their chickens before they are hatched act very wisely because chickens run about so absurdly that it's impossible to count them accurately.”
― Oscar Wilde

Proverbs 4:7
7 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

Dunno about you, but I couldn't have said either thing better.

Repeating someone else's words isn't wisdom, wisdom can only come from within each one of us, the words can only point to what they mean.

 

[dianaiad]

Who the hell do you think you are, of course you know nothing about me, yes I am one of those who had cancer, i was one of those who was shot by someone, I was raped as a young man, I also have schizophrenia..............yes I do know what I am talking about !.

I'm just one of the people on this forum that you told were...what...only surviving, not 'living."

I am sorry for your past, psychoslice, and you are correct. I don't know anything about you except that you ARE judgmental. Perhaps you, with your experiences, feel that you have a right to sit in judgment upon those who haven't been injured, raped, are cancer survivors or have had mental or emotional challenges.

So, no, I don't know what it's like to have had your experiences. However, you don't know what challenges all the people you are lecturing have dealt with, either. My POINT, sir, is that I'm not telling you how to live your life, or whether you are 'living' or only 'surviving,' and what you need to believe in order to properly live rather than simply 'survive.'

As for me, I figure that I've dealt with enough in my own life to know whether I"m truly living...or simply 'surviving.' I don't need you to tell me which I'm doing.

Good luck with your own living, sir, and believe me, I wish you the best.

 

[dianaiad]

Repeating someone else's words isn't wisdom, wisdom can only come from within each one of us, the words can only point to what they mean.

Then it is wisdom to find the best words...and wisdom to recognize them when someone else has said them first.

.............and it is, most of all, wisdom to give whoever said them proper credit, in order to avoid lawsuits.

However, I DO have some 'old sayings' that I didn't get from anybody else. They are old only because I am old.

1. Fifty cents or fifty dollars...it's all the same if you ain't got the fifty cents. (best used with a used car salesman).
2. It's best to forgive everybody; grudges are heavy to hold and are bad for the back.
3. (actually a continuation of 2) Forgiving some people is like forgiving a steam roller: you may as well forgive them, since you can't change them. However, you don't have to stand in front of them, either.

I suppose there are more 'old sayings' in my 'Mom box,' but I'm too tired to rifle through 'em to make sure they're all mine, at the moment.

 

[psychoslice]

Then it is wisdom to find the best words...and wisdom to recognize them when someone else has said them first.

.............and it is, most of all, wisdom to give whoever said them proper credit, in order to avoid lawsuits.

Yes of course it is, but that is wisdom from within, if you didn't have that wisdom then the words are just that, words, so yes that is true.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Really, there is no room for jeer but there may be plenty of room for fear. That if God said that in that time there was a deer. Oh, some people just love to drink their beers. But with God they persist still for their rights. Yes, even up to very end of all the world ever offered was lies. Lies to create more burials. More food stuffs. More idiots now on drugs. What are slugs? The word languages.

Are you a rapper?

 

[dianaiad]

Yes of course it is, but that is wisdom from within, if you didn't have that wisdom then the words are just that, words, so yes that is true.

OK...so is it your position that those who find their opinions and sentiments better expressed by someone else are not, then, 'wise?"

I personally think that the ability to find a quote that expresses what one wishes to express is wisdom. After all, only the wise would know themselves well enough to trust their positions to the words of others.

..............and then there is this: some of us simply can't write worth a hoot, and have more wisdom inside than they have talent to express. Sometimes, I suspect, someone can use a quote to better purpose than the original author did. For instance: let us look at that quote from Oscar Wilde about counting chickens before they are hatched. I'm sure that he was simply being his normal witty self, reacting against what was even then a rather tired cliche' about not counting on the results of an action not yet taken. You know, don't spend your salary before you earn it, don't practice your acceptance speech for the Pulitzer before you write the book...stuff like that.

However, when you deconstruct his witticism, it is truly applicable to this thread...and to your point, I think. Believe me, dear Oscar wasn't thinking of either one of us at the time he came up with it.

 

[dianaiad]

Are you a rapper?

Can't be. He didn't drop the "F-bomb' even once, and there are no allusions to slutty women, their rear ends, or any negative comment about anybody's mother.

 

[psychoslice]

OK...so is it your position that those who find their opinions and sentiments better expressed by someone else are not, then, 'wise?"

I personally think that the ability to find a quote that expresses what one wishes to express is wisdom. After all, only the wise would know themselves well enough to trust their positions to the words of others.

..............and then there is this: some of us simply can't write worth a hoot, and have more wisdom inside than they have talent to express. Sometimes, I suspect, someone can use a quote to better purpose than the original author did. For instance: let us look at that quote from Oscar Wilde about counting chickens before they are hatched. I'm sure that he was simply being his normal witty self, reacting against what was even then a rather tired cliche' about not counting on the results of an action not yet taken. You know, don't spend your salary before you earn it, don't practice your acceptance speech for the Pulitzer before you write the book...stuff like that.

However, when you deconstruct his witticism, it is truly applicable to this thread...and to your point, I think. Believe me, dear Oscar wasn't thinking of either one of us at the time he came up with it.

I don't know if these people are wise or not just for looking in a book and picking out words, true wisdom is from within, in fact most of the time it needs to say nothing, because it has nothing to say or prove, that is basically all to it, the rest is just playing with words with I don't like doing.

 

[dianaiad]

I don't know if these people are wise or not just for looking in a book and picking out words, true wisdom is from within, in fact most of the time it needs to say nothing, because it has nothing to say or prove, that is basically all to it, the rest is just playing with words with I don't like doing.

I do like words. I like using them and choosing them for the meanings that they have, understanding that there really are no true synonyms. Each word has an emotional and literal meaning unique to itself. I can express myself fairly well, when my brain is working well. Just as importantly, I can appreciate when others have crafted words to precisely express their own wisdom and meaning.

To dismiss the search for precise and expressive meaning as 'playing with words' is, I think, indicative of a 'sour grapes' sort of attitude, like the man whose artworks are found only on his mother's fridge criticizing Picasso for 'playing with paint." One 'plays with' dolls, and pets, and toy soldiers, psychoslice. Words, on the other hand, are communication and meaning...and have very sharp edges. Playing with them is dangerous and can hurt people.

Indeed, unless one IS Oscar Wilde, it would be a good idea to refrain from playing with them.

 

[psychoslice]

I do like words. I like using them and choosing them for the meanings that they have, understanding that there really are no true synonyms. Each word has an emotional and literal meaning unique to itself. I can express myself fairly well, when my brain is working well. Just as importantly, I can appreciate when others have crafted words to precisely express their own wisdom and meaning.

To dismiss the search for precise and expressive meaning as 'playing with words' is, I think, indicative of a 'sour grapes' sort of attitude, like the man whose artworks are found only on his mother's fridge criticizing Picasso for 'playing with paint." One 'plays with' dolls, and pets, and toy soldiers, psychoslice. Words, on the other hand, are communication and meaning...and have very sharp edges. Playing with them is dangerous and can hurt people.

Indeed, unless one IS Oscar Wilde, it would be a good idea to refrain from playing with them.

Well then keep playing with your words, that's up to you not me, and why do you keep going on and on, what are you really trying to say ?.

 

[dianaiad]

Well then keep playing with your words, that's up to you not me, and why do you keep going on and on, what are you really trying to say ?.

Basically?

I'm trying to say that one should be careful with language. Say what you mean to say...and don't attempt to make other people responsible when you fail to do so.
I'm attempting to say that precision in meaning is important, especially when discussing science, religion and the relationship between the two.
I'm attempting to say that perhaps, if one is unclear oneself about what one wants to say, attacking the other person isn't the best way to clarify one's position.

I am attempting to say, as gently as possible, that being judgmental and arrogant is NOT 'wisdom,' that wisdom really is found first in examining what is around you, including what others say and think, and that it is important for us all to understand that 'wisdom is the important thing...and with all thy getting, get understanding."

 

[psychoslice]

Basically?

I'm trying to say that one should be careful with language. Say what you mean to say...and don't attempt to make other people responsible when you fail to do so.
I'm attempting to say that precision in meaning is important, especially when discussing science, religion and the relationship between the two.
I'm attempting to say that perhaps, if one is unclear oneself about what one wants to say, attacking the other person isn't the best way to clarify one's position.

I am attempting to say, as gently as possible, that being judgmental and arrogant is NOT 'wisdom,' that wisdom really is found first in examining what is around you, including what others say and think, and that it is important for us all to understand that 'wisdom is the important thing...and with all thy getting, get understanding."

Look, I don't need you to tell me what I should and shouldn't say, so please stop talking down to me, anyone would think that you knew all the answers, well you don't as I don't also, so if you want to talk to me then talk, don't talk down to me because I will not take any notice at all.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I don't know if these people are wise or not just for looking in a book and picking out words, true wisdom is from within, in fact most of the time it needs to say nothing, because it has nothing to say or prove, that is basically all to it, the rest is just playing with words with I don't like doing.

Yes, religion is mostly playing with words in an attempt to justify unfounded beliefs. People get emotionally attached to nonsense and brush their cognitive dissonance under the carpet, clutching instead at confirmation bias.

 

[dianaiad]

Yes, religion is mostly playing with words in an attempt to justify unfounded beliefs. People get emotionally attached to nonsense and brush their cognitive dissonance under the carpet, clutching instead at confirmation bias.

"Cognitive dissonance" "confirmation bias"...yes, those are forty dollar terms, indeed. The problem is, they are terms that apply equally to believer and unbeliever alike, no matter what the belief is being talked about.

Shoot, Rick...if you don't think that 'confirmation bias' has a role in science, perhaps you should take a closer look at the idea of the 'hypothesis." All scientists...shoot, everybody...goes into any new area with a bias, and every single one of us is more attracted to evidence that supports that bias than to evidence that doesn't. Even scientists.

OK, make that 'especially scientists." Consider the coelecanth. Turns out that folks were catching those things for many years before the scientific world got its collective noses pointed in the direction of 'yeah, maybe those things AREN'T extinct!"

Or mammoths. WHAT did it take in order for anybody to accept that they were still around when people were actually writing stuff down on clay tablets?

Or plate tectonics. This idea has been floating around for literally hundreds of years, but more than one scientist's career was ruined before it finally became accepted and established in my lifetime.

What did it take to change everybody's mind? Scientists are champions of 'confirmation bias.' Why? Because they are human, Rick. It's the 'red volkswagon' syndrome. You know...as soon as you buy a red Volkswagon, suddenly you see them all over the place, where the day before you wouldn't have noticed them. We all look for the evidence to support our own beliefs.

............and yes, this does go for religion, too. However, don't figure that it is exclusive to religion or anything else. Confirmation bias operates in every aspect of our lives, for all of us.

As for 'cognitive dissonance," now THAT is a term that is about as subjective as it is possible to get. You know...I multi-task well, you concentrate well on one thing at a time, he has a major problem with cognitive dissonance?

arrgggh.

As for me, I'm going to take my confirmation bias and enjoy the fruits of my beliefs, and my cognitive dissonance and concentrate on finding joy in learning how God did things.

....and if I'm wrong?

(grin) Well, I may not be right about who God is, or what the afterlife is like, should there be one, but one thing is certain: between the two of US, one of us believing that there is a deity and some sort of afterlife, and the other declaring that there isn't either one, I'm the only one who is going to be able to say 'I told you so."

 

[viole]

As for me, I'm going to take my confirmation bias and enjoy the fruits of my beliefs, and my cognitive dissonance and concentrate on finding joy in learning how God did things.

Do these things include parasitic wasps?

....and if I'm wrong?

You will either disappear or burn in the hell of the competition.

(grin) Well, I may not be right about who God is, or what the afterlife is like, should there be one, but one thing is certain: between the two of US, one of us believing that there is a deity and some sort of afterlife, and the other declaring that there isn't either one, I'm the only one who is going to be able to say 'I told you so."

Please don't do it. It is annoying to be reminded to have been wrong while I gnash my teeth, or teeth prosthetic if I get old enough.

Ciao

- viole

 

[dianaiad]

Do these things include parasitic wasps?

Why, yes.

...and scorpions and asps and zika and multiple myeloma and earthquakes and floods and all the things that make up the world we live in.

You will either disappear or burn in the hell of the competition.

Ah, but if I 'burn in the hell of the competition,' I'll STILL be the only one who can say "I told you so" about there being a deity and/or an afterlife, won't I?

The rest is simply an add on. Mind you, everybody should hope that if there IS an afterlife, something like the one I believe in is the alternative choice, since of course we don't send anybody to burn in hell, whatever their beliefs are here.

This isn't a Pascalian wager, voile.

Please don't do it. It is annoying to be reminded to have been wrong while I gnash my teeth, or teeth prosthetic if I get old enough.

Ciao

- viole

I'm sorry, voile...but I've been mocked, attacked and insulted by non-believers about this issue for too darned long. Being able to say 'I told you so' is a very, very mild pay back for all that, y'know. If I find some bit of glee in knowing that if YOU are correct, neither one of us will know anything about it, and only if I am will either of us be aware enough to say...or listen to..'I told you so," then forgive me.

Or not.

It's just that I, being me, am rather looking forward to having the last word, and knowing that no matter what, the atheist WON'T have it.

We take our quiet comforts where we can, unworthy and sneaky though they may be.

..........btw, gnashing your dentures isn't wise. They are EXPENSIVE to replace. Trust me. I know this.