There are 3 choices, 3 votes for grant's debate

Can relationships be truly intimate if based on belief?

  • Belief or Acceptance

    People tend to believe stories told to them about others by friends in order to feel that believing them is what friendship is based on. However, there is always, at least, two sides to every story. Why believe any story by any side? Belief is an obstacle to intimacy and understanding. If one hears a story of another's experience it will never be the listener's experience no matter how much belief is involved. One person's experience will always be influenced by one's conditioning and this colouring personalises one's perceptions of the world including the phenomenal human reactions to events. True intimacy involves the understanding of this and so the acceptance of the story told is all that is required. To accept anothers world view is not believing it. An intimate friendship is quite unachievable if either the story teller demands to be believed or the listener feels pressure (in order to maintain friendship) to believe. Belief (or the phenomena of) is the root of all conflict. Internal or external. Belief is the easy road (of the ego), acceptance is of the heart. Example; The only times a father uses the word "love" in reference to his son is when he(father) is drunk. This is because (due to the father's conditioning), to him, love equates to pain and so the anaesthetic (alcahol) allows the word to be expressed without feeling the pain. The acceptance of this "love" statement by the son will only be due to the son's understanding that his father's idea of love does not have to be a shared one (historical family "values" traditional to this particular family, or blind allegiance to this "cult" of family). This (son's) understanding that conditioning is not who we truly are, therefore, allows him the freedom to investigate/experience his own context for "love". If, on the other hand, the son "believes" the father there is the potential for the son to act out the father's (distorted) vision of love and, therefore, continue the cycle of the Love is pain=addiction syndrome. This is a "cult of beliefs". Beliefs are fundamentally illusory, as one can believe anything. It doesn't necessarily make it true (unless one wishes to live only within an illusory world in the vain attempt to avoid pain).

    Voted for by grant.
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  • Very amusing

    You sound truly troubled my friend. But, I respect you as an intellectual, and a worthy match for debate. Unfortunately, what you failed to recognise is that the very text you have presented is itself, not a proven, known truth, but an 'illusionary' belief of your own. You believing it doesnt make it true. Unfortunately, this type of thinking would then lead us to 'believe' that all belief is illusionary, therefore, everything is an illusion, or, that real truth is unknown. I hold this as true, but, unfortunately, this creates a problem, because this itself is a belief, and so also an illusion by my own system, creating an illusionary system, and a flawed one at that. Best to just stick with your beliefs, because,you have to have them, and you cant escape them. And yes, this is my 'belief'. And this can also be applied to your little theory as well. You have stated a belief, which is 'Personal beliefs can be damaging to a relationship when we expect those we are in relationship with to also believe what we believe, hence forcing it to be the foundation for the relationship. Therefore, we should not expect this to occur' But then, by your theory, wouldnt your own belief cause friction in relationships when you seek to impose it?

    Voted for by TeChNoWC.
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  • Ummm....

    Based on belief completely?....no.....that's it....I have nothing else to say....weird, huh? lol.

    Voted for by to-each-his-own.
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