Tuesday 3 May 2016

HOW TO BECOME MORE SMART



1. "In 2000, when psychologists studied Clinton lovers and haters ... they found Clinton lovers tended to see Lewinsky as an untrustworthy homewrecker and found it difficult to believe that Clinton lied under oath."

The Backfire Effect

....

The latest Rasmussen poll says Trump has the support of 41% of US voters and Hillary Clinton has 39%. - dailymail.



2. New research from the University of Michigan suggests that people tend to stick to a 'wrong' belief.

And when presented with facts showing that the belief is wrong, people stick to the original belief even more strongly.

In Politics, Sometimes The Facts Don't Matter.



3. At least 23 people in the USA were shot by toddlers between January and April 2016.

The pro-gun-control group, Everytown for Gun Safety, found at least 77 events between January and April 2016 in which a child younger than 18 accidentally shot someone.


But the gun lovers will stick to their belief in guns.



4. Trump says about Russian warplane encounters - Gotta shoot them!

But this won't worry the Trump supporters.

Some Trump supporters are 'Expectant Visionaries', who defend themselves against reality by reinterpreting reality.

DO YOU RECOGNISE THESE PEOPLE?

...
Dancers in the world's largest Moslem country.

5. Fundamentalists see their beliefs as absolute, fixed and final, which means 'it is not possible for them to change'.

These people feel that they cannot survive without their fundamentalist beliefs.

Most people have emotional attachments to beliefs.


What do you see?

6. Certain people have 'biased information processing'.

Such people may only notice the 'events' that confirm their prejudices about their health, their religion and their politics.

The depressed person will not want to discuss alternative ways of thinking.

The fundamentalist Moslem may refuse to look at evidence that the Arab Empire hijacked the story of Muhammad.

The fundamentalist Christian may refuse to look at evidence that his church is riddled with child abuse rings.

Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to evidence that seems to confirm a particular position, while ignoring evidence that may contradict that position.


7. Cognitive dissonance theory states that when a person is confronted with facts that conflict with their beliefs, certain mental defense mechanisms are activated.

In other words, if you were to prove that 9 11 was an inside job, a lot of people would choose to disbelieve you.

These people would find it too uncomfortable to think that their own government would kill innocent people.

Selective perception is the tendency not to notice, or more quickly forget, stimuli that cause emotional discomfort and contradict our prior beliefs. 



8. According to UK psychologist Oliver James:

"The closer a nation approximates to the American model ... the greater the rate of mental illness amongst its citizens".

Feeling anxious?

We are often conditioned to feel fear.

"According to recent research, anxiety is becoming increasingly prevalent in the US, now eclipsing all forms of cancer by 800 percent."

Anxiety Is 800% More Prevalent..



One of the keys to removing anxiety is to be flexible in our thinking.

1. Do we always salivate when Pavlov rings his bell?

Classical conditioning.

2. Do we have fairly fixed views about religion, medicine and politics?

3. Do we avoid discussing our problems and fears with the people around us?

Maybe we need to break free of our conditioning and act and think differently.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. / STATUS - PECKING ORDER - BEING ONE UP - POWER GAMES.

....

9. Aaron T. Beck, the father of cognitive therapy, teaches people to treat evidence impartially, rather than selecting only the evidence that fits in with their fears, phobias, hypochondria and depression. [64]

How does such therapy work?

Having suffered some misfortunes, a man may believe, "I'm useless and can't do anything right."

He may then avoid life's challenges and get depressed.

However, if the man applies the therapy, he makes the decision to become more flexible in his thinking.

He talks to people about his problems.

He becomes less conservative in his thinking.



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6 Comments:

At 3 May 2016 at 13:52 , Anonymous brabantian said...

Indonesian 'Muslims' are heretics to many of a billion-plus Arabised Muslims

Dear Angirfan

Truly I share your love & appreciation for the very warm and beautiful Indonesian people

And I also enjoy cigars with Java & Sumatra tobacco, as found in many Dutch-company cigar blends : - )

But though Indonesia is the country with the largest 'Muslim' population, the truth is that Indonesian Islam is quite different from that of the billion-plus Muslims who are dominated by the Arabised cultures

Indonesian 'Islam' is a melange of Islam & Hindu-Buddhist ideas including a lot of 'native nature spirit' beliefs ... and of course Bali remained Hindu altogether forestalling the Muslim conquerors

Indonesian Muslims are currently under severe pressure as 'heretics to Islam', Java Island for example suffering under the Saudi Arabian (& also in fact Western-Zionist) extreme Muslim madrassa schools ... traditional Indonesians are appalled that some fellow Indonesians are adapting Arab clothes in the street, & women are under severe pressure to be veiled recently in parts of Java

Though Indonesians are nominally 'Muslims', many Muslims of the billion-plus Arabised group, or the also often fanatic Shia groups centred in Iran, would denounce Indonesians & brutalise the Indonesians with floggings & executions if they had the chance

The Abrahamic religions are all bad news ... the nice Muslims - Jews - Christians are nice because they ignore the ugly core of the Abrahamic tradition

 
At 3 May 2016 at 23:47 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Creating Frankenstein: The Saudi Export of Wahhabism?
http://www.redressonline.com/2016/03/creating-frankenstein-the-saudi-export-of-wahhabism/

 
At 4 May 2016 at 02:10 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Children worldwide are conditioned with fear and terror in order to enforce obedience to authority. Generally speaking the higher the level of fear/terror inflicted the more rigid the thinking of the individual. Spanking is pain inflicted on the body nerve center that governs survival, elimination, fight or fight, money, sex, time and work pressure. There are other more horrible forms of attack on this center that may result in the total loss of individual thought and will. We never question that we must use fear and terror to raise our children and thus the system is endlessly perpetuated. We all just focus on the horrors and injustice of our world,for the most part overwhelmed by feelings of impotence which serve to prevent a clear knowledge of causation and actionable solution. The fact that any emerging dissident leaders - even parents - are quickly sidelined, discredited or even eliminated further enforces the fear conditioning. Emerging leaders-quite often strongly terror conditioned- willing to perpetuate the fear system are handsomely rewarded for selling out their brothers, sisters and all humanity's children.

 
At 6 May 2016 at 14:16 , Anonymous No More Myths said...

brabantian 3 May 2016 at 13:52: The Abrahamic religions are all bad news ... the nice Muslims - Jews - Christians are nice because they ignore the ugly core of the Abrahamic tradition.

No More Myths: Well written.

Anonymous 4 May 2016 at 02:10: Children worldwide are conditioned with fear and terror in order to enforce obedience to authority. Generally speaking the higher the level of fear/terror inflicted the more rigid the thinking of the individual. Spanking is pain inflicted on the body nerve center that governs survival, elimination, fight or fight, money, sex, time and work pressure. There are other more horrible forms of attack on this center that may result in the total loss of individual thought and will. We never question that we must use fear and terror to raise our children and thus the system is endlessly perpetuated.

No More Myths: Agreed

50 Year Analysis Shows Spanking Does Not Work

http://www.activistpost.com/2016/05/50-year-analysis-shows-spanking-does-not-work.html

Note the "Godly biblical Truths and training" comment on the Activist Post article. I doubt that the author of that comment has ever read the Bible in a critical manner, or has studied comparative religion and mythology.

 
At 7 May 2016 at 20:00 , Anonymous No More Myths said...

Human Sacrifice in Judaism

Excerpts:

Though the usual assumptions are that Yahwehism, or archaic Judaism, was free of human sacrifice the evidence in the Bible refutes that belief. A careful reading of the text - despite all of the editing by the priestly caste which was done before the text became "Holy" and fixed - shows a lot of nasty material which the devout manage to read without seeing. Those who have eyes, let them read!
...
This human sacrificial tradition may have had a long life in Judaism. The Jewish heresy of Christianity only makes sense if these sacrifices were still going on at the times of the Christianity's origins. Whether Jesus was a man before he was a god; or was killed in a tree or was crucified does not matter. This all makes no sense as an act of redemption unless there was a human sacrificial rite!

All this goes a long way toward explaining the violence which has been created by the Followers of the Book, Jews, Christians and Moslems. What was born from and nurtured by centuries of ritual murder would be expected to create more violence.

Read the rest:

http://www.come-and-hear.com/supplement/br-ursamajor/index.html

 
At 7 May 2016 at 20:10 , Anonymous No More Myths said...

“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.”
– Thomas Paine (1737-1809): Age of Reason, Part I, Ch. VII

 

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