Are some cultures superior to others?

[Greenman]

It's amazing how much shit some of you will swallow to avoid making a simple judgment.

 

[Fenixgoon]

in theory (ie, according to sociology) the answer is yes - all cultures are equally valuable. in practice, the answer is some are clearly superior to others in terms of the ability to advance humanity (using technology as a measure of advancement), improve living conditions, etc.

as i understand it (and this is probably wrong), sociology places value on the information within the culture, and that's why all cultures are equal. everyone else, however, places value on what that culture has created, how it can benefit them, etc - therefore more technologically advanced cultures have more benefits and are better.

my hazard at a guess. if there are any anthropologists/sociologists in the house, i apologize in advance

 

[Moonbeam]

William Gaatjes: I think all humans are from a certain simplified perspective no more then autistic apes. That sounds like a bold statement and it is. But i mean it in a positive way, humans can live in the inner mind more then any other life form on this planet. This gives thus the ability of advanced problem solving while looking far ahead in the future. According to some plausible and proven theories neurons are to slow to act in real time therefore our neurons behave in a ballistic nature. This means predicting future events. This ballistic nature seems to exist in the neurons that control our eye movement as well. This system can be found in many animals and perhaps humans have more advanced versions of this in other parts of the human brain, which i think seems very likely because this system allows us to do simulations and see what the result will be of a certain action. We do on a subconscious level simulations to predict a future event. How many times does it happen when you see something out of balance like a cup on a table somebody pushed against at and you know it is going to fall ? Part of it is memory, the other part is prediction. But to able to flawlessly predict the future every time you must be able to take into account every variable that exists. This is impossible and thus we ignore a lot of variables and we apply a lot of fuzzy logic which partly is compensated for because of the nature of neural networks to be able to see patterns when only partial data is delivered( Pattern recognition). This drive to predict the future is what drives us. This unusual drive is what in my opinion what is part of the cause of this restlessness .

M: What you are talking about here is theory about neural nets and how our consciousness relates to them. You jump, it seems to me, without any logical connection, between this description and the implication that it created a drive, a need to predict and that this makes us restless. But I don't see how some words about the theory of neural nets created any drive in humans to predict. It attempts to explain only HOW we predict. The fact that we can predict means that we do because it has survival value. The capacity is inherent but it creates no drives that make any sense to me.

WG: When people become more insecure and feel they are no longer in control it means this internal system in our brain is losing its grasp on reality.

M: I think you are putting the cart before the horse here. When we begin to feel we may feel what it is we really do feel, our inculcated self hate for ourselves and it is the preliminary rise into consciousness of this feeling that created insecurity and a sense of loss of control. Control is keeping our self hate out of our awareness.

WG: Take into account some other variables differing from individual to individual and you know what happens.

M: Not sure what you are saying here.

WG: Another thing is people are born to feel a bit unhappy,

M: I wanted to suggest to you the reasons we are unhappy so I can't accept this statement as anything but dogmatic. In the first place I suggested that our unhappiness is caused by our self have, a split in our psyche, a war between who we were meant to be and what we were told with words and deeds that so painfully they had to be repressed. The implication, clearly, is that we are not aware why we are unhappy because we can't allow ourselves to feel why. Given that, when you say we are born unhappy, you do so because you don't know. You can't feel what is suppressed and therefore don't know it exists. In the absence of the capacity to connect to what you really feel you invent. Also, because you don't know what you feel does not mean that others haven't allowed themselves to relive their past and remember. If true, such folk know what they feel and if they are not unhappy there you are, we were not born to be unhappy but are unhappy for unconscious reasons.

When you don't know what you feel you turn to the intellect to make up stuff to paper over what you don't know. In this case, we have a need to tell ourselves we were born to be unhappy. Useless, that way, to find out what you feel, which is what the real motivation is. We want to stay asleep, as I suggested.

GW: this is also an evolutionary effect because every time you do something that reaps rewards , your reward/pleasure center becomes active and the result is quite effective because this system also has control over your memory formation.

M: The part of memory function I would suggest paying attention to, is the capacity humans have of consciously blocking out unpleasant memory. We do not remember being made to feel like we were the worst in the world.

GW: Thus making sure that things or situations that make you feel good, that you remember these things or situations every time when appropriate. Thus it is part of your learning system. Evidence is seen with unhappy people. Unhappy people have a problem with learning, make them happy, see them devour what ever you throw at them. That is also an important message for the educational system that is not always understood. Al of this is a good thing but it can work against you. Because this reward system when wired wrong or under influence of chemicals can cause humans to exhibit strange unhealthy behavior.

M: It isn't about chemicals if what I have said is true. People become adjusted to being sick. They learn to cope and they learn to undo damage that was done. We grow and we progress or we may act out our negative feelings. We can create nurturing environments that support healthy parts of the ego, or we can feel the monster. The reason for this, is simple, as I said. We hate ourselves at an unconscious feeling level, and these feelings are a lie. There is nothing wrong with us. If we live in an environment that supports the truth rather than the lie we can develop and grow as we were meant to. But to relive the experiences that created our self hate and thereby see they were lies created a different level of health. Here one become totally free and can't be hurt again. Consciousness becomes whole because there is no need to be unconscious. The pain is gone.

GW: Simplified for now : The prediction drive , the natural tendency to feel a bit unhappy to force one to act and feel happy. The memories. This all when not nurtured properly causes a lot of unhappiness and restlessness only an powerful conscious spirit can overcome and reshape.

M: I suggest it does not take a powerful conscious spirit, what ever that might be, but reliving painful memory. All of this is about self hate, the fact it is a lie, and seeing it for the lie it is. Knowing the facts reveal the methodology.

GW: When born humans are unwritten pages.

M: We were born in the image of God, a blank mirror that perfectly reflected the universe. Our consciousness and our being were totally integrated. We were exactly what we felt without possibility of guile or self deception, and we were divided by the duality of good and evil. We ate from the tree of Knowledge.

GW: The neural network of the brain is extremely flexible but also very volatile and can be psychologically explosive.

M: Yes we were made sick by words, bu being made to feel with words that we were no good as we were born and had to be this and this, anything but who we were.

GW: When human infants come into the fortunately short aggressive phase this can clearly been seen.

M: You mean while they fight to stay alive instead of programmed machines.

GW: This is just part of the social programming that needs to be done.

M: Yes, Stockholm syndrome.

GW: Afcourse how you do this as a parent determines the outcome of having a happy and curious child and later on in life an happy adult. Karma at it's finest. And possible epigenetics too. Which can also be seen as a karma effect.

M: What it was was psychic death and adjustment to prison.

The lament of the flute is for its osier bed.

GW: I am of opinion that the only solution is the gradual increase of knowledge. No flooding of knowledge because humanity will just destroy itself.

M: The fear that we will destroy ourselves is a projection of self hate and the fact that we were already destroyed. Everything we hear has already happened.

GW: Not the collective humanity will do this but rogue individuals.

M: The cumulative effect of the universal disease of self hate, some more badly damaged than others, will be an unconscious need to destroy ourselves as we feel we deserve but don't.

GW: I like this statement, because it is true :
"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life".
However, knowing the strength which is also the weakness of the human mind(which is the flexibility of the neural net) I think this version is better :
"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him to fish wisely and he will eat for the rest of his life". Because then he will only consume what he needs and uses no more.

M: We were born perfect. To feel perfect is to have few needs. To pretend to be perfect with unconscious needs in control is the right hand fishing and the left hand stabbing us in the back.

GW: Religion is a tool to help people see the way that is best, education. Unfortunately as any tool it can also be abused as can be clearly seen in the past and in the current present and unfortunately the not so far future, even beyond 2012. It is just a prolonging of sequence. I am not stating the existence of a far more omniscient entity is impossible, because i can not and even if i could will not prove such a statement. However, humanity has a planet to grow and enlighten itself and become closer. Yet to much people prevent humanity from reaching a higher level because of desired personal gain.

M: I have tried to explain why. We hate ourselves and don't know it. We are needy and unaware of why we feel those needs.

GW: I understand what you mean with ego. But it is a balance issue, you can not have good without evil or evil without good.

M: Good and evil do not exist. There is and always was only perfection. The healed mind is at one with the universe. There is only love.

GW: You cannot have democracy without dictatorship or dictatorship without democracy .

M: These are only words. There is no dictatorship when the self isn't at war with the self. There is only love when our broken hearts mend.

GW: You cannot have life without death or death without life. Both must exist or none will exist at all. That is the real issue of man. Failing to understand and accept and control ones body.

M: Who knows what is meant by control of the body. Who is in control and who is the body? You have eaten from the tree of knowledge and become abstracted. The disease is duality, the identification of the self with what has no existence.

 

[Moonbeam]

There is another way. Some view all cultures as variously misguided ways to achieve "the Good". I think it's kind of a weaselly way to avoid answering any questions while still pretending to have definitions, but some like it like that.

Who was it that said he didn't know how to define pornography but he knew it when he saw it?

On the one hand, it is difficult to know the effects of one's cultural bias and on the other it's absurd to abandon judgment. The dark age were, from what I've read, not my idea of culture. It's the age old struggle, what is truth. I'm glad I know at least.

 

[soccerballtux]

I think it was Dave Chappelle who said "I'm not saying white people are better, but being white is definitely better."

 

[dguy6789]

How many people has "Western Civilization" killed in the last 110 years?

Killing lots of people isn't bad if they deserved it.

 

[Jaskalas]

Which culture is best?

Depends on how you want to value a culture, which traits to emphasize and which to demonize.

We are by far the wealthiest culture, but will we outlast others? Perhaps our wealth has made us an easy prey. We attempt to abhor violence though we have our fair share of it. We're not very disciplined and I find we're quite unstable like a pot of boiling water.

 

[William Gaatjes]

These again are my personal opinions based on reading scientific literature of various scientific disciplines and my own thoughts about those scientific discoveries.

M: What you are talking about here is theory about neural nets and how our consciousness relates to them. You jump, it seems to me, without any logical connection, between this description and the implication that it created a drive, a need to predict and that this makes us restless. But I don't see how some words about the theory of neural nets created any drive in humans to predict. It attempts to explain only HOW we predict. The fact that we can predict means that we do because it has survival value. The capacity is inherent but it creates no drives that make any sense to me.

It has a survival value yes. But when searching for spirituality without going to the realm of magic,
Part of spirituality is right here. When do we desire something on the conscious level ? When we daydream. When we think of what we would like. When we think how to solve problems. The idea's created from these thought processes (is subconscious simulation) create the drive. Hunger is a drive too. Sex is a drive. But those are hardwired and can be ignored but not forever.

WG: When people become more insecure and feel they are no longer in control it means this internal system in our brain is losing its grasp on reality.

M: I think you are putting the cart before the horse here. When we begin to feel we may feel what it is we really do feel, our inculcated self hate for ourselves and it is the preliminary rise into consciousness of this feeling that created insecurity and a sense of loss of control. Control is keeping our self hate out of our awareness.

Maybe you feel selfhate but most humans do not. Perhaps you must let go of this selfhate notion.

WG: Take into account some other variables differing from individual to individual and you know what happens.

M: Not sure what you are saying here.

No outcome is fixed. No 2 results are ever exaclty the same in life when thinking of 2 humans.

WG: Another thing is people are born to feel a bit unhappy,

M: I wanted to suggest to you the reasons we are unhappy so I can't accept this statement as anything but dogmatic. In the first place I suggested that our unhappiness is caused by our self have, a split in our psyche, a war between who we were meant to be and what we were told with words and deeds that so painfully they had to be repressed. The implication, clearly, is that we are not aware why we are unhappy because we can't allow ourselves to feel why. Given that, when you say we are born unhappy, you do so because you don't know. You can't feel what is suppressed and therefore don't know it exists. In the absence of the capacity to connect to what you really feel you invent. Also, because you don't know what you feel does not mean that others haven't allowed themselves to relive their past and remember. If true, such folk know what they feel and if they are not unhappy there you are, we were not born to be unhappy but are unhappy for unconscious reasons. When you don't know what you feel you turn to the intellect to make up stuff to paper over what you don't know. In this case, we have a need to tell ourselves we were born to be unhappy. Useless, that way, to find out what you feel, which is what the real motivation is. We want to stay asleep, as I suggested.

If you only wish to read this sentence and not the other sentences then read in it what you like. I am explaining on a psychological level why this is. Hypothetical example : A random human has everything that human desires. What is the point of living ? The big question most people ask :
Why do i exist ? What is my meaning, my purpose ? Now one can accept that it is just prolonging and continuation of the species. Or one can transcend. Most humans have chosen to do both. Some choose to transcend only which means making sure the species continue because of gained knowledge and the ability to transfer newly acuired skills, other choose to be responsible for the continuation of the species by reproducing as much as possible or at least practice when they can.
Therefore the evolutionary selection of motivation. Sleep is important that is. It is needed to properly store memories. Without it, false memories accumulate and the choice must be made to ignore and erase all of those memories. If not, the innermind reality is no longer an acceptable representation of reality.

WG: this is also an evolutionary effect because every time you do something that reaps rewards , your reward/pleasure center becomes active and the result is quite effective because this system also has control over your memory formation.

M: The part of memory function I would suggest paying attention to, is the capacity humans have of consciously blocking out unpleasant memory. We do not remember being made to feel like we were the worst in the world.

The human mind does not forget that easy, it gets shaped because of memories. You can block your memories, but these memories will still be there if these memories are part of a large process that you use every day. Use it or loose it... When you do not use it, you forget it. The human brain has an automated feature of removing unwanted memories yes. But it is not perfect. Unwanted memories can be forgotten or erased. To do so, re act the pleasant memories that are associated with the unwanted memories, but make sure that the unwanted memories are replaced by memories created from pleasant situations. Cells in the brain die constantly and are replaced by fresh cells while taking over the fuctionality. This mechanism allows for forgetting the unwanted memories. But it takes time and dedication.

WG: Thus making sure that things or situations that make you feel good, that you remember these things or situations every time when appropriate. Thus it is part of your learning system. Evidence is seen with unhappy people. Unhappy people have a problem with learning, make them happy, see them devour what ever you throw at them. That is also an important message for the educational system that is not always understood. Al of this is a good thing but it can work against you. Because this reward system when wired wrong or under influence of chemicals can cause humans to exhibit strange unhealthy behavior.

M: It isn't about chemicals if what I have said is true. People become adjusted to being sick. They learn to cope and they learn to undo damage that was done. We grow and we progress or we may act out our negative feelings. We can create nurturing environments that support healthy parts of the ego, or we can feel the monster. The reason for this, is simple, as I said. We hate ourselves at an unconscious feeling level, and these feelings are a lie. There is nothing wrong with us. If we live in an environment that supports the truth rather than the lie we can develop and grow as we were meant to. But to relive the experiences that created our self hate and thereby see they were lies created a different level of health. Here one become totally free and can't be hurt again. Consciousness becomes whole because there is no need to be unconscious. The pain is gone.

All this selfhate is not good... Nor is taking chemicals to make you feel good. The only chemicals you should be taking to make you feel good are those to sustain and power your body.

GW: Simplified for now : The prediction drive , the natural tendency to feel a bit unhappy to force one to act and feel happy. The memories. This all when not nurtured properly causes a lot of unhappiness and restlessness only an powerful conscious spirit can overcome and reshape.

M: I suggest it does not take a powerful conscious spirit, what ever that might be, but reliving painful memory. All of this is about self hate, the fact it is a lie, and seeing it for the lie it is. Knowing the facts reveal the methodology.

The human brain has a natural mechanism to supress negative memories. However this system is not perfect and cannot be because then humans would never learn from their mistakes.
But you can actively forget by accumulating more pleasant memories from pleasant situations.

GW: When born humans are unwritten pages.

M: We were born in the image of God, a blank mirror that perfectly reflected the universe. Our consciousness and our being were totally integrated. We were exactly what we felt without possibility of guile or self deception, and we were divided by the duality of good and evil. We ate from the tree of Knowledge.

That is your opinion. However, i have to state you should not take the texts literally. My opninion is these texts are bad copies of original texts created with a more philosophical background. When i read what you have written it sounds to me you want to revert to the common ancestor of humans and apes. The eating of the tree of knowledge as you put it was the human start point of advanced consciousness. The original texts where created to stimulate people to think before acting, not blindly follow. But this is afcourse my opinion. Feel free to believe what you prefer.

I like this text : Do not think, just join. Do not think together, just copy...
Perhaps it can be of help.

GW: The neural network of the brain is extremely flexible but also very volatile and can be psychologically explosive.

M: Yes we were made sick by words, bu being made to feel with words that we were no good as we were born and had to be this and this, anything but who we were.

No , i mean great power comes with great responsibility. Ignorant people and/or emotional people can say hurtfull things.

WG: When human infants come into the fortunately short aggressive phase this can clearly been seen.
M: You mean while they fight to stay alive instead of programmed machines.
GW: This is just part of the social programming that needs to be done.
M: Yes, Stockholm syndrome.

Called it what you like. But social behaviour is not stored in DNA. We learn social skills in the stage during foetus and adolescent. At least this is the most important of the entire life. Important are the first few years after birth. If then the child is not receiving enough love, depending on the child itself can cause for problems in later life. While not taking into account drugs, alcohol, smoking ,chemical poisoning during while the mother is carring a child. We know right from wrong, but that is a far cry from social structures. Love is the key, you are very right indeed. To discipline a child is not wrong, as long as you make sure the child understands what it has done wrong. Just punishing or just disciplining is very idiotic without explaining what the child has done wrong and making sure the child understands what it has done wrong. Great responsibility for the parents and the people in the social structure. Because what is right and what is wrong ?

GW: Afcourse how you do this as a parent determines the outcome of having a happy and curious child and later on in life an happy adult. Karma at it's finest. And possible epigenetics too. Which can also be seen as a karma effect.

M: What it was was psychic death and adjustment to prison.
The lament of the flute is for its osier bed.

This i read as personal, i remind you i give my opinion with a kind heart. But if you have serious issues i must strongly advice you to seek help from people you can trust blindly are good for you and/or seek profesional help. I am not omniscient. I am living by the same laws of the universe as you and everybody else.

GW: I am of opinion that the only solution is the gradual increase of knowledge. No flooding of knowledge because humanity will just destroy itself.
M: The fear that we will destroy ourselves is a projection of self hate and the fact that we were already destroyed. Everything we hear has already happened.

The fear is that most humans(exceptions always exist), even adults are to much like little children, unaware of what consequences their actions have. Then to later find it out what is done and not being able to undo what is done.

GW: Not the collective humanity will do this but rogue individuals.
M: The cumulative effect of the universal disease of self hate, some more badly damaged than others, will be an unconscious need to destroy ourselves as we feel we deserve but don't.

Nobody should ever think that they do not deserve to live. That is wasting your life.

GW: I like this statement, because it is true :
"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life".
However, knowing the strength which is also the weakness of the human mind(which is the flexibility of the neural net) I think this version is better :
"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him to fish wisely and he will eat for the rest of his life". Because then he will only consume what he needs and uses no more.

M: We were born perfect. To feel perfect is to have few needs. To pretend to be perfect with unconscious needs in control is the right hand fishing and the left hand stabbing us in the back.

Perfection is relative and can only exist in a certain situation from a certain perspective.

GW: Religion is a tool to help people see the way that is best, education. Unfortunately as any tool it can also be abused as can be clearly seen in the past and in the current present and unfortunately the not so far future, even beyond 2012. It is just a prolonging of sequence. I am not stating the existence of a far more omniscient entity is impossible, because i can not and even if i could will not prove such a statement. However, humanity has a planet to grow and enlighten itself and become closer. Yet to much people prevent humanity from reaching a higher level because of desired personal gain.
M: I have tried to explain why. We hate ourselves and don't know it. We are needy and unaware of why we feel those needs.

Hating oneself leads to self destruction, you claim. The cure for loosing your self hate is to help others who are in need of help. Their gratitude will heal you. Help older people (+60) who have physical disabilities. The life experience and rest can be of assistance.

M: Good and evil do not exist. There is and always was only perfection. The healed mind is at one with the universe. There is only love.

There cannot be love with out hate. Without hate you would not know what love is. That is the balance issue. To understand how to love you must understand how to not hate.

M: These are only words. There is no dictatorship when the self isn't at war with the self. There is only love when our broken hearts mend.

And that is where your opinion is fundamentally flawed. All life is based on being the first before the other one gets there. When we are alive , our body is non stop fighting pathogens that wants the energy our body has. And that energy can be seen as Einstein beautifully formulated it : E=M*C*C (short version). It is a war of resources, and when we die our resources are taken. The body decays... In this universe nothing is lost. But heavens like this planet are scarce. And life will exist everywhere it can, when the balance of energy is enough to support it and not enough to destroy it.
That is a very wide range by the way...

Altruism:
Altruism is not a human only feature, but it is the best feature of life. Without this basic concept there would be no motherinstinct, no cell divison or cells sacrificing themselves for the greater good, which means protect the collective: The body of the organism. Altruism is a concept and just a word. But it is very important. Altruism = Love. Humans have something special, while cells can only do what the programming (inside dna ) requires, humans can transcend there instinctive behaviour and patterns and willingly choose not to obey such a programmed behaviour (locked in our dna). Now this is partially done by what you call : Stockholm syndrome.
You have to accept that humans are not perfect because humans are born with outdated instinctive behaviour. But give it some time. If humanity takes the right choices, evolution will take care of the flaws by means of natural selection. Humanity might try to do it through genetic manipulation in the near future, but not everything is yet understood. And biogenetics is like a biological nuke. Know what you are doing because when you start something it will not be easy to make it undone. Epigenetics is part of the equation. Karma...

GW: You cannot have life without death or death without life. Both must exist or none will exist at all. That is the real issue of man. Failing to understand and accept and control ones body.

M: Who knows what is meant by control of the body. Who is in control and who is the body? You have eaten from the tree of knowledge and become abstracted. The disease is duality, the identification of the self with what has no existence.

Your body is a vessel and a description for your mind. Without your body your mind, your so called soul in your religion cannot exist. Your body is very important. Treat it well and it will treat you well, sharing it's secrets to improve yourself. You will instinctively know what to eat and when to eat when required. When your body is happy, you are happy. And your body is not just your cells. It is billions of bacteria and viruses together with your own cells.

 

[Moonbeam]

WG, You are a person, I believe, who struggles to make sense of the world and contribute to it positively. I wanted to share with you a simple truth that explains the paradox of human behavior. But, alas, you have already found an explanation for everything, in fact several of them. The problem with my truth is that if true, nobody will want to believe it. I suggest, therefore, that the truth is protected from common knowledge because it is automatically dismissed as impossible. You, for example, either do not hate yourself as you claim or do and can't allow yourself to know it. I look at others and see easily how their own self hate destroys them and that tells me I do the same even though I don't want to see it. But I have confirmed that feeling for me via feeling what I feel.

At any rate, while you build what you think of as a scientific understanding of human nature, to me what you build and add to is a wall, one that protects you from feeling what you feel.

Should your thinking every fail you I suggest you look for answers in how you feel. Good luck.

Our wall, the story we tell ourselves to explain and objectify who we think we are, our ego, is what is sometimes called cabbage and those who know the truth describe the problem thus:

We have to cross a river to reach the shore of truth and we want to cross that river with a thousand pounds of cabbage. In order to swim you have to let go of the cabbage. It's hard to let go of such a beautiful hand tended crop.

As one teacher said, 'I consider him a man who can tend to both the wolf and the sheep entrusted to his keeping and you may know the problem of crossing the river with all three.

The problem is also represented by the impossibility of filling a full cup. It needs first to be empty. Anyway, good luck to you.

 

[William Gaatjes]

WG, You are a person, I believe, who struggles to make sense of the world and contribute to it positively. I wanted to share with you a simple truth that explains the paradox of human behavior. But, alas, you have already found an explanation for everything, in fact several of them. The problem with my truth is that if true, nobody will want to believe it. I suggest, therefore, that the truth is protected from common knowledge because it is automatically dismissed as impossible. You, for example, either do not hate yourself as you claim or do and can't allow yourself to know it. I look at others and see easily how their own self hate destroys them and that tells me I do the same even though I don't want to see it. But I have confirmed that feeling for me via feeling what I feel.

I myself, i do not have a need for struggle. I understand the world and why things happen. Therefore i am not bothered by the restlessness or self hate. I just do not find it difficult to see how a lot of seemingly unconnected situations can be the cause for a positive or a negative end result. If i would live for many decades or if i would die in 1 hour. I accept and enjoy life without creating an unbalance in the life of people.

At any rate, while you build what you think of as a scientific understanding of human nature, to me what you build and add to is a wall, one that protects you from feeling what you feel.

Should your thinking every fail you I suggest you look for answers in how you feel. Good luck.

Because of my scientific understanding i understand my feelings. And because i can even put it to test and confirm it, i can safely accept the scientific knowledge. It works for me and others. Why should it not work for you ?

Our wall, the story we tell ourselves to explain and objectify who we think we are, our ego, is what is sometimes called cabbage and those who know the truth describe the problem thus:

We have to cross a river to reach the shore of truth and we want to cross that river with a thousand pounds of cabbage. In order to swim you have to let go of the cabbage. It's hard to let go of such a beautiful hand tended crop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabbage
You have very strange impressions. Cabbage makes people smile :

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/89/CabbageFarmer.jpg/565px-CabbageFarmer.jpg

As one teacher said, 'I consider him a man who can tend to both the wolf and the sheep entrusted to his keeping and you may know the problem of crossing the river with all three.

Sheep and a wolf on a boat. You do not want your sheep eaten. Make sure your wolf is not hungry. The wolf does not attack sheep for fun. The wolf does attack out of necessity to sustain his body. However, exceptions always arise. Give the wolf something that will remove his desire to feed for a few ours. Make the wolf sleep during the voyage would be the most humane.
Put the wolf in the cage. Less humane would be to make the wolf nauseous.
Do not blame the wolf for it's hardwired behaviour. It has no choice, only instincts.

The problem is also represented by the impossibility of filling a full cup. It needs first to be empty. Anyway, good luck to you.

Why do you wish to fill a full cup ? There is no reason for it for it is already filled.

Good luck to you. May you loose your beliefs in self hate and see the advantage of acquiring knowledge and compassion.