Stupid old men

Dear Lalith,

Spoken like a "wise old man." I know what you mean about the "hardwiring" and there is a mountain of evidence to back it up. Sam Harris is doing brain-mapping now with "believers" and "non-believers". It's too early to say for sure but it appears that once you lock on to a "belief" you have just closed the door to "know" anything more about that. After all, if you "knew" you wouldn't call it a belief.

All I need to do to get you to do atrocious acts of violence is to first get you to believe something totally absurd and then get you to identify with it so the belief is you. Now you need to defend something absurd and the only way you can do that is with more absurd notions and facts until it eventually crumbles which is what we are seeing today with people saying the world is 6,000 years old. Eventually our present day beliefs will go to the mythological graveyards where all the others have gone.

I think the better word, instead of "stupid" would be "ignorant" as in ignoring the facts, and there are many ignorant old men out there and they seem to be the ones with most of the money and power and "all" the bombs. It's time to get "wise".

Take care, Rahasya 2believeornot.wordpress.com

posted by Rahasya on 2/29/2008 11:37 am

Comment from the Poet!!!??

Thank you for all your comments and thoughts. I did not mean to offend the wise old men out there and there are many out there who bring this world much sanity.

I wrote the poem first as a reflection for myself as I approach 50. Then I thought I will share it.

As I get older I realize my limitations arising from the hardwiring I got in my formative years. I experience this first hand in the hands of my teenage children. Every time I see my son with his long hair, trousers about to fall off his waist and daughter with her short skirts, I tend to go the

posted by Lalith Gunaratne on 2/29/2008 7:18 am

In the early years of my youth just starting to gather knowledge, the stupid old man in my life told me to gather all the information you can from everyone and every where-in books- on the street - at church- from peoples lives and always remember, 50% is truth and your perspective of the first 50% will tell you what is true in the 2nd 50%. As I got older and gained more knowledge I also started to gain wisdom and learned how to use what I had re-rememberd.Now that I have reached the distinction of a stupid old man, I realize I had the greatest parents in the world. All the stupid old men & women in my life taught me more about life than any college could have. The thinkes and spirtual people of the world remind us that we know all about the Universe, but if we could train ourself to re-remember. Agape to All

posted by EARTHHANDYMAN on 2/27/2008 8:05 pm

Dear Caribu, you're correct, people aren't stupid, but they can sure act like it:) But something that I have found is that by constantly reinforcing old dysfunctional beliefs that originated in the Iron Age we limit our neural connections. I have this on very good authority and there's a lot of research to back it up.

Imagine the knowledge you would need to cut yourself off from in today's world to support the belief that the world is flat, or the universe orbits around us and we are at the center, or how about the 27 million dollar creation museum in the south that supports the idea that the earth is 6,000 years old.

The only way to "believe" a belief is for it to be "believable and the only way for it to be believable that the earth is 6,000 years old is to actually limit your neural connections. Bruce Lipton told me, "If they fire together, they wire together, also means that if the don't fire together, they don't wire together" referring to neural connections.

So in a sense, we can make ourselves stupid by limiting our world view and closing down to further learning, which is easily accomplished by simply believing you "know."

The we need to look at what's going on in our educational system, especially in the USA. This is a design to "dumb" our kids down and believe me, it's working. In a conversation with Fred Alan Wolf (author of Parallel Universes) he said that the USA is at an all time low for producing any quality scientists from the younger generation, which is why he put out his Dr. Quantum series that's seen in What the Bleep Do We Know?

So for any of you out there beyond the USA, know this, what we are going through dealing with a moron president, a dysfunctional congress, and agencies that are, by any standards, corrupt, will be in the long run a good thing because it's bringing many of us back to our hearts. So hang in there, the best is yet to come.

Namaste, Rahasya Poe lotusguide.com/blog/believe-book

posted by Rahasya on 2/26/2008 6:12 pm

Optimism towards the future, and with respect to humans' capability to learn and grow as new science and wisdom emerge, is a first step toward creating the Peace we really do all desire. Thank you, Ode, for your role in this. The next step has everything to do with realizing that we are all in this together, we are all One, all struggling with the same deeply held outdated paradigm that somehow there is a right and a wrong, and how we all would rather be

posted by KarinMeyer on 2/26/2008 4:00 pm

They are not STUPID! Perhaps from my perspective they are shortsighted, full of fear or even greedy

posted by caribou on 2/26/2008 3:49 pm

Gosh, thanks for enlightening me. I didn't realize stupidity was confined to a particular sex and age group. I maybe old (and gasp a white male to boot!) compared to the author of this 'poetry' but I'm sure I'm much more open minded and tolerant.

The line 'Yet, we have now a new generation of humans who have a more balanced view' is a contemporary egotism not a truth. Each age, as they are variously defined, believes itself to be the most enlightened and the sole and final arbiter of truth, and yet as time passes they too are ridiculed and tossed to the trash heap by yet another group of contemporary egotists.

posted by cjines on 2/26/2008 2:52 pm

As pointed out by Rahasya, we don't have time to wait for "old" truths to be accepted in this brave new world. What was once accepted as "the ONE truth" is no longer "truth". I believe "stupid old men" is simply a metaphor for old ideas that stopped working when the ordinary man opened his books and began to read, observe and think for himself.

One truth is a dangerous philosophical when so many truths exist in science, religion, mathematics, and society.

One truth leads to one voice and one government and one leader and one bomb.

posted by Andie on 2/26/2008 2:26 pm

I can already see that your article will be misinterpreted by many, which is one of the problems with Stupid Old men. I think the term may offend some people but we no longer have time to wait like Galaleo waited 300 years for the church to agree and take him off their list. We must hold a light on the absurd beliefs people have on this planet that date back to the Iron Age. We are seeing in action what Voltaire said, "If they can make you believe absurdities, they can make you commit atrocities."

I'm writing a book about the neurological and social consequences of belief systems because after interviewing many authors and spiritual leaders for my magazine I realized I needed to make whatever contribution I can to the ongoing insanity of "pretending like we know something that we actually have no way of knowing, and eventually forgetting we were pretending." This is when "belief" magically transforms itself into "false knowing." and it's been shown that there is a neurological breakdown when this happens, in the mental hospital we call it "delusional thinking" but for some reason we have given religious believers a special dispensation from even needing to have dialogue about their beliefs let alone wanting them to validate them...well, those days are over. So the actual problem isn't being "old" or just a "man" it's the maintenance of old dysfunctional beliefs that has this detrimental affect on us and our society.

My Blog is lotusguide.com/blog/believe-book And by the way, I'm an old man (60 years old) so there's hope :) We are all in this together and we must remember that we are all one, one consciousness, one planetary being, ONE.

Namaste, Rahasya Poe

posted by Rahasya on 2/26/2008 1:22 pm

"Stupid old men"...and stupid old women! Small town America is no less stubborn and vain. Destroying the dreams and inspirations of the future begins in the stringent and structured small towns. Community cooperation is a buzz word used with little meaning. Small town greed and politics is the foundation of the national and internatinal personality.

Digging one's heals into the old clubs, expecting the criticism and 'no', pushing back the old ruinous wisdom, hate and sadness is the only way to crumble the foundations of the old timers clubs. Pushing with respect and gentleness overcomes far more than bombs and diatribe. Draw a line in the that protects the souls but allows the change to step in.

Hope for change came from a small town fundamentalist minister who said, "It's interesting how science and the Christian Bible intersect." With open minded men and women taking small steps towards growth, peace may yet be the universal language.

All that believe in the ayurveda, homeopathy, genetics, and holism take heart in the small steps, and the cracks in the foundation of old conventional wisdoms.

Carry on. Namaste'

posted by Andie on 2/26/2008 1:02 pm

Based on my perception of you, you would probably consider me an opinionated old man.

However, the problem you are describing is NOT age-related, as there are MANY wise old men (or women) and MANY VERY STUPID young people, who act like they know everything, but in the end know very little.

There are no old truths or young truths - there is only ONE truth.

posted by steelpeter on 2/26/2008 12:46 pm

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