Guilt and Fear

If my act caused someone pain and I feel empathy for that person - and there were no overriding reasons why I needed to do whatever it was, this would make me reconsider my future actions and reevaluate my previous action.

I think guilt actually freezes learning. One can, yes, stop doing certain things - including good things - due to guilt. But you have not resolved the issue. You have what seem like bad urges and you have guilt, and maybe you create rules to control those urges. That’s no real solution. Remorse and empathy however can allow for real learning, rather than a bunch of rules. Guilt is basically like having an internal condemning priest inside you. YOu are still a sinner, just one who has control of the beast. You are still evil inside, but trying to behave well. Not out of love, but out of fear of being a bad person and all that entails.

Of course we’re not amygdalas on a stick, although some make me wonder.

Idk man, there’s a connection. Religious, dogmatic, scared, republicans, amygdala. Guilt fits in there somehow. Whichever environmental stress that causes the one, causes the other, I’m sure.

Guilt man, there is so much guilt on the left, in fact I think that is part of what bothers the right about the left. And certainly they both have guilts. And sure, I did acknowledge that the amygdala is involved, but man you gotta light up the whole brain including a lot of the ‘higher’ parts to feel guilty.

Is it guilt, laziness or ignorance? All of the above with the masses of everyday common Joe’s.

I look at it from an unbiased throne. I am the embodiment of chaos and order, nature. So why must I fully convert to order or chaos? I will be chaotic and fight when I need to without guilt or remorse or I will Love, be kind and orderly when not aggravated or my freedoms poked. Of course they already are extremely limited by this society of illogical, unreasonable common folk, ignorance is bliss but what you don’t know may kill you.

Most already “live” the epitome of death for and of themself.

I don’t know what the ‘it’ is exactly in your first question. But even if it is all of the above, guilt is a big factor. There are people coming out and saying they are bad and trying to role model others to do this. That to me is guilt. The guilt can certainly be fed by lazy thinking and ignorance and also not trusting one’s own feelings.

But are the higher parts missing? Or in addition?

I know for a fact that the insula is missing in the republican case. (Well, not missing, but attenuated)

Watts said the church institutionalized guilt, then the audience uproared in applause. We sinned against god and should feel bad for it.

FWD to 33:19

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdnZiv24fLc[/youtube]

So what happens is this: we are delivered therefore a gospel which is in fact an impossible religion; it’s impossible to follow the way of Christ. All right, many of Christian has admitted it: “I’m a miserable sinner, I fall far short of the example of Christ”, but do you realize the more you say that, the better you are because what happened was that Christianity institutionalized guilt as a virtue. [Applause] See, you can never come up to it. Never. And therefore you will always be aware of your shortcomings and so the more shortcomings you feel, the more, in other words, you are aware of the vast abyss between Christ and yourself.

How is this mirrored on the left?

It’s a tool to keep ignorance abundant. Depends on how one looks at it, I look at that “sin against God” quote as if it means that one does not let their subconscious guide them on their path to learning and this is to live in death already, to avoid self and their uniqueness. in terms of how the public masses interpret it is more along the lines of; “We need to have faith in God and reject any other information” because they believe knowledge and diversity is a sin, I shit you not. Systematic religion, the philosophy of ignorance to the common man who does not attempt to understand but only adopts, it was cleverly put together. I do not know it’s intentions… If it was meant to enlighten or control. I’d assume control since that is what it more so does.

I think you are correct Artimas.

Matthew 11:25

KJV At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.

NIV At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.

CEV At that moment Jesus said: My Father, Lord of heaven and earth, I am grateful that you hid all this from wise and educated people and showed it to ordinary people.

CJB It was at that time that Yeshua said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you concealed these things from the sophisticated and educated and revealed them to ordinary folks.

AMPC At that time Jesus began to say, I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth [and I acknowledge openly and joyfully to Your honor], that You have hidden these things from the wise and clever and learned, and revealed them to babies [to the childish, untaught, and unskilled].

MSG Abruptly Jesus broke into prayer: “Thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. You’ve concealed your ways from sophisticates and know-it-alls, but spelled them out clearly to ordinary people.

You get the idea :wink:

During guilt they are working hard, drawing in blood. And I think you should be able to feel this also. There is feeling sad or scared and there’s no higher cognitive stuff going on in some active way. As opposed to say, worry. And as opposed to guilt. Guilt is complicated. You can feel the thoughts coming down on the emotions.

That’s lovely. You think Republicans feeling guiltier the Democrats. You seem to keep trying to reflect guilt to them, with little success. in any case, we talking about guilt, not republicans.

And dnow we have a lot of secular guilts too. A cognitive self-hatred triggering emotions.

But it’s often the case that a cognitive process results in fear, whether it be by guilt or some other mechanism. Right?

Person A perceives stimuli, initiates processing, result is diverted to amygdala.
Person B perceives stimuli, initiates processing and is terminated due to reasoning.

Obviously the problem isn’t in the amygdala itself, but lack of mechanism to rationalize the fear response before it is triggered.

Republicans are associated with amygdala and guilt, so there must be a connection.

Well, leftists can be pissed about climate change, but not feel guilty because they’re doing their part and demanding others also. The rightist should feel guilty once he realizes the damage he may have done.
The leftist can be pissed about trickle-down policies, but not feel guilty.
The only thing I can imagine that leftist may feel guilty about is slavery because slavery was associated with the democratic party, but even that is not really true since only a faction of the democratic party defended slavery.
The leftist homosexual may harbor guilt, but only because of retained rightist impurities that haven’t been purged (ie religion).

I hate to seemingly put the left on a pedestal, but the right seems to contain all the problems: fear, guilt, ignorance, authoritarianism. I’m a prisoner of the facts here. What am I supposed to think?

Jeez, I really don’t know what you’re on about. You say guilt is the amygdala, when in fact MRIs show it is a lot of the brain. Sure, cognitive processes or higher brain functions can trigger fears or the amydala. That was what I was saying.

Sure, and things that tell you you are bad or you will be ostracized will scare you. Things that tell you that there is a danger will scare you and this may well lead to problem solving. Guilt is a bad process because of what the content of the higher brain has. It initiates a dead end trigger.

That’s one of many things that can happen.

But then you can’t reason, and certainly not socially, without emotions. Damasio showed this.

I don’t like the way you pathologize the amydala.

It is the content of the thoughts that is the problem, yes.

They don’t seem to be biting when you keep guilt tripping them about the poor. The left is regularly using guilt in relation to the poor and women and minorities. The far left used guilt in relation to the proletariat or anything that was not for the people. Individualism is seen as a sin. Standing out is seen as a sin.

No western leftists are doing their part. Indigenous peoples, some of them, people in third world countries, many of them are doing their part. The West is transforming the earth into garbage. And most of the left feel guilty. That they are white, about native americans, whatever. Original sin still seeps around in the left.

So the right has hypothetical guilt. But you are saying they are more associate with guilt. I don’t see it. Seems to me their ideas reduce guilt. They are entitled to what they have. The market will work it out.

I see guilt all over the left. I see them regularly using guilt as a weapon. The right is much more likely to use shame.

If you can’t see that guilt is endemic on the left and has less bite on the right, then I do not understand how you keep telling the right poeple here what bad people they are and they just laugh it off.

The right is shame based. The religious right has guilt, though precisely in the ways you say the left feel OK about not making things bad, those guys think they are on the wave of God.

And look at all the left pc stuff and all the white coming out and calling themselves racists There is guilt all through lefty culture.

Emotions are seated in the most primitive part of the brain and there is no way to circumvent them.

I don’t like the way you crusade to its rescue while simultaneously pathologizing yourself to your own cause. Why do you want to paint those degenerates in any positive light whatsoever?

What do you mean with little success? Who are the religious???

The left uses guilt as a weapon, but does not feel guilt. The right feels guilt and uses it as a weapon.

I acknowledged the left may harbor rightist impurities to feel guilty about, but that’s not a leftist thing.

If anyone could feel guilty about climate change it could only be a rightist who turned leftist. The rightist doesn’t believe in it in order to feel guilt and the leftist never engaged in harmful climate action.

List some ways the left feels guilt. Not uses it as a weapon, but feels it.

Shame is just weaponized guilt.

That just means dogmatism is a stronger force than guilt. People too stupid to know they’re stupid can’t feel guilty about what they can’t or refuse to understand.

The most primitive parts are the brain-stem down to the visceral brain.
The parts that triggered emotions are sited in the limbic region, i.e. so-called middle brain.

At present we do not have the ability to manipulate the emotional parts directly. In any case the emotions functions are essential for survival and well being of the individual, i.e. having its pros and cons.

However, since thousands of year ago humans has been developing [& improving on] techniques to strengthen certain inhibitors to modulate the emotional impulses to ensure they positive while dampening the potentially negative ones.

Note Aristotle on emotions with anger as an example;

It is not easy but possible for those who know how to modulate the anger and other emotions. This is called Emotional Intelligence. The Buddhists and others has been doing it since 2500+ years ago.

If we were to amplify the brain to the size of the Earth, the amygdala could be the size of Australia.

To be precise we cannot state with certainty ‘fear’ is triggered via the amydala, period!

Recent neuroscience studies are attempting to determine the precise system and paths related to fear in the amygdala, i.e. down to the roads linking the various cities and town in Australia rather just Australia-as-a-whole as analogical to the amygdala.
There are possibilities the emotion of fear is traceable from the amygdala to the visceral regions, the heart, the respiratory system, etc.
This is where my suggestions of breathing techniques as basic is critical.

It’s not the most primitive part of the brain. It’s the mammalian brain. But a brain isn’t parts, it’s a whole, and the whole is damaged when we decide certain parts that are necessary are not. There is a lot of evidence that one cannot reason well with a damaged amygdala.

I believe here I am defending parts of the brain and trying to clarify why I think you misuderstand things regarding the brain. I understand your question in the context of political threads when I have been a kind of devil’s advocate (+plus a little other stuff), but here, you are pathologizing me by proxy. And likely yourself.

YOU keep tell conservative here in political threads how terrible they are to the poor. You notice much guilt in the people who are supposed to have more guilt - the republicans?

Who do y ou think shows more guilt about the poor or oppressed groups, repubs or dems?

All the left I know struggle with guilt. So I can only go with my experience. They feel guilty if they don’t sort their recycling. They feel guilt about their carbon footprint. They feel guilty for eating the meat they eat. They feel gu ilty they havemoney and the poor do not. And on and on.

Stuff I do not see rightists feeling. I see rightists as more succeptible to shame. For failing for not having stuff and so on…

Gotta go. I’ll come back for more.

The left IS guilty. But of far worse things than they reportedly feel guilty for.
And they have no shame about it. They attack those that fight to undo the sorrows they have caused.

Just to correct your position here.
The right defeated isis. Because the right consists of healthy people who largely have compassion.
The left created isis, along with the slave markets in Libya.
They feel no guilt about this.

I could name there clinical term for such beings but that would do no good.
It is illustrative (and painfully sad) how contemptuous Serendipper is of emotions.

Baloney! The right created isis with their stupid wars for profit! The right created the mess the left is trying to clean up.

And neveryoumind about your pain of my emotions. Get over it!

exactly!

the appeal of the imperialist efforts of the U.S. in the middle-east (which so outraged the people and gave rise to the terrorist groups) originated from the circumstances in which they took place; it appeared as if the ‘noble’ effort of the U.S. was to democratize the region and free the people from the evil theocratic rule of the dictators holding power there. but this was just an expediency, a script to be followed to get the approval of the people so that the U.S. could occupy the region for other reasons. nudge nudge

so really what we witnessed was simply the displacement of one kind of tyranny for another, but it looked good, and it looked good because american ‘democracy’, pepsi cola, and jordache jeans was something truly revolutionary to the people of the middle east. oh hell yeah! c’mon in, we want some of that. sick of wearing these frickin’ burkas and drinking alcohol free beer, know what i mean?

but let’s take a time machine back a few hundred years and ask of that region what would have been different had they already revolutionized themselves from the religious nonsense that granted so much power to the theocrats that ruled the region. there would have been no tyranny… so there would have been no political front for the imperialist U.S. to use to justify its occupation for other reasons. nudge nudge

everywhere across the entire surface of god’s gray earth where we find a stunted or stalled socialist revolution, we find capitalist imperialists worming their way into the mess to exploit it of it’s weaknesses. and as long as the people of the world remain ignorant of this travesty, the more naive will welcome such imperialists if they bring pepsi cola and jordache jeans… and the enlightened few will form terrorist groups… founded on the very religious fundamentalism that stalled the regions revolutionary progress in the first place and set up the tyrannies that the imperialists would later on use as an excuse to invade.

see the vicious circle?

god i’m good.

I’ll second that! You’ve definitely got it goin on! Don’t hold back now.

Precisely!

FWD to 1:41:43

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcSBqkLDxmo[/youtube]

What we call the military budget is the technique by which taxpayers pay the costs of high-tech industry. So that’s how you pay off IBM and, you know, electronics industry and aeronautics. Our biggest exports is aircraft, well that’s publicly funded. And in fact virtually every functional part of the economy is publicly funded. Of course, everyone knows capitalism is completely unworkable, we try to impose it on 3rd world countries to destroy them, but we don’t have capitalism. [Audience laughs] And never have. The military budget is one of the main techniques by which the state intervenes in the economy to funnel money from the taxpayer to the wealthy.

_the neocons knew they were creating IS, memos demonstrate this. They knew that Saudi ARabia was using IS and supplying IS and SA is the neocons other buddy in the region. Despite their policies contributing to the presence, size, success of IS they maintained their policies. Of course IS was created by a whole lot of factors, but NeoCon wars in the region certainly contributed. The Schisms in Islam and all the players fucking with Syria, Western and Middle eastern contributed to IS. The neocons hoped that Syria would collapse earlier, and if HIlary had come in she would have put troops in much earlier. It all got fucked up, in part because of Russia backing the gov there.

…with the aid of the then Labour leader Tony Blair, who is now being considered to be charged with war crimes.

Neo Cons… left-leaning fascists in disguise?