Re: If free will is so prevalent, then why do oracles work?

Kat on Fri May 22, 2009 6:27 am

Stanze wrote:
Hi Kat

I always said I'm not an expert and I don't hold the truth. We are discussing here in an objective way, so I think. When you talk about lack of empathy you are guessing I don't have any traumatic experience. I have a cousing whose father was shot to dead (my uncle) in front of his eyes. I saw the biggest trauma this 10-year old kid went through even trying to kill himself or go out of home to kill the killer.

I have another cousing who drowned and another one whose wife died because of an aneurhism at the day of their daughter's 15th-birthday. A very close someone I know was victim of rape and I myself was almost raped and/or killed in an assault. So, I do have experience with traumas. All of these people, including me, have reconstructed their life. Maybe the trauma has not disappeared completely but they have survived it. And I do think that even a drama as you say can be a hard trauma for someone. I don't judge the pain of the others.

Also, I work with people in nood, sons of misery and despair. I visit them and talk to them. What I do though is to show them there is another way. I don't feel pity because this would be considering they are incapable to get out of that situation and construct their life EVEN with trauma experiences. What would be the other option? To cry, to feel miserable the rest of their lives and die like that? Sorry, but I don't think so.

But we are going far away from any discussion. I never said "reincarnation" or "Law of Attraction" are the truths of this world. As a card system, this works for me and it has been working in my life so far. I do respect what works for you, as I said before.

If you are feeling angry I must excuse for having caused this feeling on you. I'm keeping this very objective but I see you have a subjective view of it. I'm not intending to convince you or anybody, so let's keep it here.

Cheers and please, peace and love.
Stanze

Hi Stanze,

I'm not angry at you. I get angry about the whole concept of saying that people choose these things, that somehow they attract them and that they can choose to deal with them, get over them and go on to have a fulfilling life.

I too, as I'm sure have many others, have had a few people near and dear to myself die in horrific circumstances...a couple a lot closer than cousins... I would not consider though that I have had a traumatic life because of it. Yes, these things were traumatic, but I wouldn't put them in the same category as suffering years of physical, mental or emotional abuse.

I fostered children up until a few years ago and what had been done to some of them was incomprehensible. It used to break my heart when I saw what some had suffered and how damaged they were because of it.

Although I no longer foster I still work as a counsellor and I see the effects of abuse on others. I see some of them so psychologically scarred they will never be able to live completely fulfilling and happy lives.

I don't pity them, but I do understand what they are going through and as I said, the whole concept of "they chose this life or they attracted this to them in some way", thereby saying that they are in some way to blame for what happened is very wrong. No one that suffers abuse of any kind is ever to blame.

Kat

wood on Fri May 22, 2009 8:59 am

Just because someone has free will doesn't mean they are the one making the decision. Others also have free will, they choose to abuse. If someone has the foreknowledge of an event that is distastful most would choose to avoid it, some would not. A person can choose to give up their free will.

fennario on Fri May 22, 2009 9:17 am

Seriously, Stanze, while the Roosevelt administration wasn't perfect, if they'd pulled stupid George Bush style stunts like that, how could the Allies have won the war? FDR was totally concentrated on winning, not letting people and resources be destroyed as an excuse.

wood on Fri May 22, 2009 9:33 am

There is no such thing as fate, it is only a concept used to express a lack of contol over a given situation.

Stanze on Fri May 22, 2009 9:38 am

Fenn

You know, maybe better than me, that the US citizens were not willing to support the War effort directly. It was not their war, it was outside their frontiers, it was in the distant Europe.

What could change this (de)motivation? A direct attack. To save the poor Europeans suffering under the Nazi army was not enough to make people sacrifice their own sons and daughters. Something bigger had to happen to make people get angry and pick up arms (history repeats itself). When I said "made-up" I was not exactly saying 'creating the attack' but 'letting it happen'. The American government was studying and following the actions of the Germans and the Japanese. It would be extremely impossible to not perceive the Nagumo's fleet in that region. Maybe they didn't imagine the size of the attack.

Of course this will be always a chapter on secrets and speculations of History, but I still can't buy the "completely surprised and innocent" version.

But, of course, this is completely off-topic here ;-)

Stanze

fennario on Fri May 22, 2009 9:42 am

Stanze, while attempted rape and losing family members are painful events, I'd hardly put them in the same category as living in a war zone or being raped repeatedly from toddlerhood. You don't know trauma. At all.

Stanze on Fri May 22, 2009 9:52 am

fennario wrote:Stanze, while attempted rape and losing family members are painful events, I'd hardly put them in the same category as living in a war zone or being raped repeatedly from toddlerhood. You don't know trauma. At all.

I don't think you can say that to anybody. I can't say this to you and I wouldn't dare to say this to anybody. Trauma is a psychological consequence of a terrible event. What a terrible event is can only be measured by the person who suffers it. I'm not going to say - and I will never do that - that the pain you suffer is smaller or less valid than other person's pain.

It's your own opinion I don't have traumas - or don't know what a trauma is - because I've never suffered what you call a tragedy in my life or that the tragedies I've suffered have a minimal scale than tragedies suffered by other people.

If you believe this way, it's OK. I disagree but it's just my opinion.
Stanze

wood on Fri May 22, 2009 9:57 am

Knowlege comes in all forms, trauma, history, etc. are just forms of knowledge. We chose what to believe from any given event. We have the free will to decide how we will react to any give event, based on whatever knowledge we have at the time.

fennario on Fri May 22, 2009 10:01 am

No we don't. I would have preferred to conduct myself admirably during childbirth, but I swore like an old sailor!

wood on Fri May 22, 2009 10:05 am

fennario wrote:No we don't. I would have preferred to conduct myself admirably during childbirth, but I swore like an old sailor!

You chose to swear, based on the pain!

fennario on Fri May 22, 2009 10:24 am

No, Wood, it just kinda came out. Laughing

Stanze, you can label common life events "trauma" if you prefer, just don't presume to advise people who have been through the more intense forms based on that little bit, or tell them they "chose" it. It's extremely offensive. Just sayin'.

wood on Fri May 22, 2009 10:33 am

fennario wrote:No, Wood, it just kinda came out.

Could you have chosen to have an epidural or a pain killer. If you had the foreknowledge of the amount of pain and knowledge of the means to prevent the pain would you have!

fennario on Fri May 22, 2009 10:47 am

I was on medicaid, they wouldn't give me anything for pain! I nagged for months!

wood on Fri May 22, 2009 10:51 am

fennario wrote:I was on medicaid, they wouldn't give me anything for pain! I nagged for months!

You did not have the knowledge to change your situation, or their minds. Therefore your decision to swear was based on their decision to not let you have painkillers.

fennario on Fri May 22, 2009 11:10 am

Nothing would change their minds, it would have to go through the legislature. Not a choice. Could have gotten some street drugs but they'd have locked me up and taken the kids. Not a choice. Pain was not a choice, I made repeated efforts to avoid it. Checkmate, yuo is pwnd. Laughing