I like this phrase as a way to describe self immolation haha:
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That is a funny phrase, I am going to test that on people. Language is so weird. I can’t help but visualise some ghost trapped inside my fleshy prison.
Let out the spirit! Be gone spectre! Dwell here no more! I release you!
We need the self-busters or soul-busters, a team of scientists with a tangible way to scientifically extract our selves lol. Hopefully we don’t need some complex containment system to store them though.
I dented my belief in a soul before encountering AF. I found the words use on the AF site really annoying when I first encountered it. Mainly because it is not conveying the general usage of the word as it would be conveyed by the general population, they are considering some infinite and eternal part of themselves, some kind of energy of themselves, at least this is usually how most people explain it to me when I ask what a soul is. They are not thinking, oh…who I feel myself to be. For people, soul/ghost kind of seem weirdly linked phenomena.
I get why Richard used the word though. Many atheists/agnostics that I introduced to the site once I was onboard with it (esp people I had only known from other forums) they seemed to see that word and it just flagged something, like nope, not going to read this properly or give it a chance. Like oh they said soul, they used the word soul in that paragraph, you saw that Steve, there was definitely a soul mentioned there, fuck no, must be some form of religion or cult.
I misunderstood thinking it was some form of spirituality as well, it is only because I wanted to stop my friend from validating it that I continued to read more and more to refute it but failed lol. It is so easy not to not understand something correctly!
I still remember having such a soul belief. I remember my dad saying to me when I was very little (about 8-9) that when you die, you die like some ant. Squished, gone, no more. You think there is an ant soul and an ant heaven full of trillions of ants. I found that harsh. I just totally adopted a soul belief because it made me feel good, my mum and sister believed in a soul too. It was a belief in a soul without any affiliation to a religion, God or authority so it was still quite different to how most other people believe in one. I remember thinking death might mean you are free to traverse different dimensions and realities. I had a very niche soul belief. I really didn’t want to let it go though. I didn’t want to accept my finiteness, I really loved the concept of infinity and infinite possibilities. Hence the appeal of imagination and making my own realities. I found big bang really depressing when I first learned about it because it challenged my ideas around infinite possibilities in imagination.
It is actually ! Conveying exactly what people mean by it. If someone were to say to me they don’t have a soul id ask what they think if I say they are a soul that dies with the body. Or I refer to it as the “seat of emotions”. No one has contradicted this or disagreed. It’s just a little odd at first but they immediately get the gist of it.
Soul is who you intuitively feel yourself to be. Everyone gets it at an intuitive level
Yea these people don’t have a shot lol. If the word soul sets them fleeing … no chance of success with actualism.
The oddest one for me recently was being turned away because the site doesn’t have SSL. Not sure if that was you haha. But for anyone to succeed they have to at least grasp the basic concept that it doesn’t matter what form the words come in, it’s what they mean/refer to/are , what is actually being conveyed. Then you get sucked in …
I disagree, not that I am trying to be pedantic on purpose, I would say more precisely it is conveying an aspect of what it means to people. In the sense that there is a mental image and construct with beliefs also tied into that sense of feeling themselves to be something. Though I am sure most people would not find it hard to understand the definition given and intuitively understand what Richard is describing here.
This might be a cultural difference. Nobody in the UK I have ever spoken to has used it in this explicit way. One might be able to say it is what they are inferring by its usage without realising they are. I have never had the chance to get to describe such a definition to them though to confirm whether they would get the gist of it. I am sure they would.
It is a question I have asked people a lot over the years, especially since abandoning my own belief in one. I am always curious as to what it means to different people.
What is more interesting is their arguments for the proof of it. So, when defending it, they will say interesting responses such as “I just know that I am this. This is where my feelings come from. Where else do your feelings come from? Where else does love come from? I just feel that I am this. I have had outer body experiences. I know have lived before.” An interesting array of different responses.
Yes, I think in this way I have come to realise there is a degree of closed mindedness in the atheist realm. So quick to shoot anything down as spirituality or as belief without even giving it a chance to be discussed. My friend who introduced me had many such similar clashes with trying to discuss with others though I think the font and styling of the site offended them too. You could have a site just discussing latest information on nanotech but if the styling was offensive then the same reaction would occur.
It was interesting to realise that though, that Richard can upset the religious, spiritual, agnostic, atheist and everyone in-between.
Most of these forums have gone now and I have lost contact with these people but I think introducing to this forum would have been a better starting point than the AF site direct. I think I would have at least got to a point of more discussion than simply turning their nose up to it.
Yes, that was some of my former colleagues, though that is niche to the types of environment I am working in at present. I tend to work in government sector in very secure sensitive areas here in the UK, so my colleagues and I get the same training and interestingly they push for us not to be using HTTP sites. So, from a work computer perspective often the use of connecting to HTTP sites has been blocked, so they attempt to view Richard’s site at work after I discuss and guess what, they can’t view it. Then when on their home computer they take the same feeling from work and won’t check out the site. You would think I have asked them to view pornography or something. I always hope for the curiousity to win but it doesn’t. That fear of doing something wrong or something risky is in their head.
As an aside, from an SEO perspective it is good to have an SSL cert lol.
In the same way that people don’t trust or get a bad feeling from a site with bad styling (like looking from the 90s or early 2000s) because they perceive it as dodgy (or misbranded as something spiritual lol), the sites without HTTPS are immediately just seen as a risk and a threat and a no-no. Like I am trying to send them to some scam website.
In a world where you are constantly hearing about people being conned, hacked, defrauded and other such malicious activities then people are naturally more afraid and guarded. I think in the UK, we have a much more guarded and distrustful nature, it is a very cynical culture lol.
I think in future, I will definitely more likely introduce them here first. Maybe then they will have sufficient interest to explore the AF site. Many of these encounters were before this forum and the one that Srid trashed though.
This is relevant for people that immediately think actualism is a cult as well, there has to be sufficient naivete & courage to even read the words Richard writes
Really makes you realize how most people feel about themselves / their lives if they can’t even cross that boundary
I think openness or at least curiousity as a starter point. Then to continue yes, that naivete and courage are important, I might add sincerity too.
To complicate it further, I would say some have crossed that boundary in other spheres of their life and then been burned. So, they became extra guarded and then put up more walls and close themselves off to other options that might help them.
We all start out naive!
And naked, don’t get forget naked.
It is interesting to have kids, and see that naivete in action and diminish with each year. Despite trying to encourage it, peer pressure, socialisation seems to be winning. Maybe I haven’t been a good enough example and role model.
Their own instinctive being & interactions with others have their part to play too, but it never hurts to closely examine oneself & see the role one plays - especially with one’s children, they are very closely imprinted by parents.
I have a good friend who is a single mother of two 7 year olds - in her own words, they are just the same as her.
It is always possible to be more happy & harmless 
Yes definitely, I have seen so much of this and gleaned much from it. How much my own parents behaviours have affected me and determined my reactions too. It is interesting to try and break the habits and cycles.
Indeed, I am having a nice evening actually, hope you are good. 
Excellent!
I’m having a ball, with occasional hiccups to examine.
The closer I get, the more obvious the necessity of proceeding becomes!
Ya that’s what I was getting at. For me I’ve had this happen a lot where I realize something on the site describes something perfectly in a way I hadn’t though of before but in hindsight is exactly what it is.
Ya exactly! You ‘know’ you are a soul because you feel that you are. It is intuitive. That is the actual proof haha. The only way a soul can be known. And it refers exactly to this – the seat of emotions. So it really is a perfect description.
I know by this you mean how they ‘prove’ they are an eternal/everlasting soul etc. One that’s reincarnated. But what they’re really (and properly [albeit accidentally so]) referring to is this ‘me’/seat of emotions. Even atheists will agree that they have this ‘soul’ referring to the emotions. I find it funny this is the actual way to ‘know’ it (intuitively haha). And you can’t prove it actually exists because… it doesn’t 
.
hehe it is funny indeed. that’s a good indicator that it’s something truly different …
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Lovely jubbly. I say evening when really it is midnight lol.
I have really enjoyed reading your journal lately, some interesting insights. Interesting to see the same as my own, and then remind me of realisations I had forgotten.
I’m glad you’re enjoying it, that’s my intent with putting it up here!
Yes, we’re all quite the same - another benefit of ‘putting it all out there.’
I do wonder sometimes how much I’m misleading people as well - Peter, Richard, and Geoffrey (I think) all deleted a lot of their old writing upon becoming free. But things do seem to be headed in the right direction.
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Cool, I thought that might be the case. I was trying to portray how much more is involved with that belief, this description being the core aspect with other idiosyncratic features built on top of it.
It is interesting to see that the soul feelings are accompanied with other beliefs, and those other beliefs are less universal, so not all think reincarnation possible, not all think outer body experiences possible, but all think their feelings and idiosyncrasies are formed from it.
This goes back to what I describe as unconscious imagination, they then imagine that they feel themselves to have lived before and be unbound by the body, or have some imagined idea of energy, etc. Though the feelings around their soul are so core and intense they make those aspects a certainty, not imagination. In the same way my anxiety made imminent death seem a certainty, despite the absence of facts to support it.
Yes, exactly, I think my brain just popped lol.
I was always curious if you could interfere with neurons involved in imagination/creativity and would it stop people being able to believe. I am curious if similar functionality is involved for imagination and belief.