Comments on: You believe WHAT?

By: Madonna the whore

Madonna the whore — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 03:34:36 +0000

Hello, Kat

“I have found that some of the most “liberal” people are the most judgmental. ”

That’s your belief.

What a contradiction.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:27:20 +0000

Kenny, I dont think when you challenge someones beliefes, you force them to think or change. Are you saying that they no longer have a choice, merely because you expressed your opinion?

In my experiance, they dont even consider the argument. They ignore it in favour of “But I believe it. Its true for me…” etc.

By: Kuro

Kuro — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:10:46 +0000

I belive i can fly

By: Kenney

Kenney — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:59:11 +0000

I believe in challenging beliefs and giving them a chance to think. We upset their comfort zone, and they are forced to think or change.

By: Vitor

Vitor — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:32:35 +0000

You should publish a book. I’d buy it.

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:29:56 +0000

I think respect is a form of acceptance, and a way of treating other people well even though we don’t always agree with them. It’s when you take someone seriously even though you’re convinced he’s wrong, and when you turn off your goddamn cell phone in a movie theatre

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 16:54:31 +0000

I dont understand respect. To me, it goes along with other meaningless concepts such as honour or fairness. I have asked many people, who talk about these qualities, to explain them to me. So far, none have been adequit (cant spell). Most cant even begin to explain them.

So, imagine I was an alien, and knew nothing about human society.
Could you explain respect to me, Jay? I want to know what you mean by it, as you use the word alot in this article.

As for the “You should exercise this opportunity only when a belief is limiting the life-experience of another individual”-I think religion limits life experience.
Just because we think we will not succed is no reason not to try. I want to make the world a better place, and thusly, will not stop trying to argue people out of irrational beliefs.

By: Megan

Megan — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 07:24:16 +0000

Enrico, that was a great story, thanks for sharing it. I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue lately, as relating to two distinctly separate scenarios. One, openly sharing my “new age” (an easily targeted and dismissed set of ideologies among some) with my boyfriend of 4 years openly, without fear of judgment, and two, supporting my chosen political candidate with out trying to “convince” others of my beliefs while honoring theirs.

(What a fine line we walk!)

And Tim, you make a good point. My response is that I think people can really sense when comments are made with sincerity and respect vs. with patron ism.

I should check out Halls book…

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 06:14:28 +0000

People generally don’t make a distinction between “beliefs” and the truth. So stating their ‘beliefs’ is to them simply being a realist. Almost everyone is more aware of the more fluid and contentious nature of their ‘religious’ and ‘political’ beliefs and is usually more sensitive about their presentation, but people have ‘truths’, opinions and indeed beliefs about all sorts of things outside those subject domains. We obviously need to be sensitive, or at least (…or maybe more importantly…) polite about the presentation of our views on everything. The trouble with ’sensitivity’ is however is that it can be demeaning too, no adult with self respect wants to be “handled with kid gloves” and hyper-sensitivity or at least “conspicuous sensitivity” itself is offensive.

By: Enrico

Enrico — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:31:52 +0000

Jay, Thank you very much for being such a inspiring person. I think that if I lived in NY I’d be one of your yoga students! In your simplicity and capacity to talk to hearts, I think you’re a real modern guru!

Talking about beliefs, there’s a fundamental book regarding them, its title is “Mind Lines”, by Michael Hall. He’s one of the fathers of NLP and in his book he does a deep analysis of beliefs, on what are based and in which way they can be changed asking “simple” questions to our counterpart.
Avoiding any ethical evaluation of NLP, which you can appreciate or not, this book is like a magic formula and gives solid results.
Some years ago I was on a train and I started a conversation with a woman who, in a matter of minutes, began to express her hate for african immigrates (in Italy racism became a huge problem just in recent years).
Since she was quite young and looked like an educated person, her words sounded even more horrible than they were. I had just read Mind-Lines and I instinctively started to ask some of the beliefs changing questions that Mr. Hall listed in his book. I was doing it more as a try than as a real will to influence her: I doubted this technique would be effective with such a person.
I was shocked when, after about 20 minutes of questions and answers, her hate became softer and she started to justify herself for her extreme ideology, as if a small part of her began to understand how her previous words were blind and stupid. And how she could show me a better, greater self…

So, always respect others and their beliefs because we’re all different and the world is so beautiful… But fight to change any belief that nurture hate and racism, that says that war is the only way, that cries that others are enemies and that hate is natural and humanly.

Remember, this can really be a better world… if all of us start to BELIEVE that it’s possible, that love exists, that hate is natural only if you live in fear…

PS: hope that my english is good enough.