Have you challenged your personal views on anything lately?

I can’t offer any specifics but I try to in general both accept that there is the possibility that I could be wrong, try to be open to hearing and reading opposing positions and to not be an ideologue or a knee jerk, to keep an open mind, but right to wrong, and maybe everyone thinks this, but a lot of my values and positions have come after a lot of thought and my core values and beliefs are probably not going to change, but there’s always the possibility. I have changed my mind over the years about a number of things. Some of that has come with getting older and perhaps having a little more wisdom and experience and some has come because I ended up being just plain wrong about something. And Next Generation is better than DS9. Though I likee Cisco; I don’t like Ferengi and I could never really connect with the other characters either. I also like Voyager. Next Generation and Voyager are my favorites

Lately I’ve been trying to understand Republicans and conservatives. I understand fiscal responsibility and conservatism, but I just can’t get over the social conservatism. I don’t think I’ll ever budge on understanding social conservatism.

STNG when I’m in the mood for something light. DS9 when I want to be more serious.

was there more to this question? I usually read only the last sentence.

I used to be under the impression that people who are very liberal with their sexual encounters were harming themselves and to be looked down upon. @simone has really shed light on the whole topic for me.

God. I’ve challenged my views about whether or not there is a spiritual realm, and I’ve come back to the same conclusion: if there is, I doubt it “looks” like anything any human imagines.

@Blackberry, maybe this will help. He also has a TED talk on the same subject.

I have been hung up a for a long time on what one may describe broadly as the Problem of Evil—in my case manifest as the various imperialisms, economic, cultural, and military, and with wanting to somehow escape the “human condition” of living subject to the terms of empire.

I recently digested the film “The Quantum Activist” which has been discussed here before. One of the “instructions” or methodologies that it talks about is a different way of responding to violence and conflict, both in terms of an “external” manifestation such as violence between people (war, maybe) and “internal” violence such as hating something or someone. Instead of reacting or pressing for resolution of the violence (and one’s response to it), the theorist who narrates the film advises one to simply observe it and also to throw it open to the realm of possibilities. In other words, shift your thinking to imagining how it might be different, and essentially pray/meditate/visualize/send-your-thought-to-the-universe on your wish for it to be different. (This is a basically a rehash of the tenets of many religions but explained in terms of quantum physics, according to the theorist.)

The mechanics of this process is basically appealing to the “cosmic consciousness” (the realm of all possibilities and maybe closer to the subconscious) instead of the realm of “individual consciousness,” which is what we conventionally think of as consciousness. As a brief example, if we both want a green light at the same intersection, and we believe in “The Secret,” can we each concentrate really hard to get the green light? Say the answer is no. Well, then who decides? The cosmic consciousness decides and perhaps exercises discretion for who should get the green light (such as one person having an emergency and emanating that emergent need.) Or, perhaps people who have learned to hack the Matrix:: not sure how that fits.

So, back to the Problem of Evil. Does it exist in principle because we still have evil in our hearts? Does it exist in specific manifestation because of our inability to imagine something better? And do “the powers that be” have to sustain a balance of evil to maintain order? In other words, is evil, judiciously applied, preferable to evil run amok, and is it our current best option because we can’t dream up something better that will work? Is water seeking its own level and is the level of violence only as high as our collective tolerance for it?

Alternately, is evil being judiciously applied for the benefit of our evolution? Am I eating GMO corn and paying to kill women and children in Afghanistan because it furthers the development of the human race toward an ideal that will ultimately benefit humankind?

Or, are we (those who are not TPTB) sort of suckers in accepting base/coarse programming that keeps us from changing the world by imagining something better?

Anyway, challenging my usual angsty reaction to the above has been somewhat helpful—in the very least towards feeling less immediately wound up about the world’s state of affairs.