What you believe came from somewhere.

In all of human existance, especially in your life, everthing anyone believes came from some source outside of themselves.

People like to believe they are unique individuals free from the constraints of being labeled. Yes, you are a unique snowlfake in no way identical to all the other snowflakes in the world. However, you're still a snowflake that falls onto the ground and makes a big white pile of snow that looks the same as all the other snow surrounding it. Unique but still human, no matter what you feel or say otherwise. Many people resist labels and are offended when they are labeled as X. Well, too bad. Putting a label, classifying the world around us including the people in it is part of how the human mind works. You can be angry at being labeled all you want, but it isn't going to change that it will happen to you.

Everything you believe came from these sources; Philosophy, Theology and Religion. Don't believe me, that's too bad for you because then you won't actually make any effort to understand what you believe, where it came from, and why believing it is right or wrong for you as an individual. They way you aquired these beliefs vary and can come from thousands upon thousands of various ways. Still, the roots are the three sources. If you truly and deeply feel you believe something unique and free from any precedent then you better write it down and submit it for publishing because you will be very, very famous for coming up with something new. If nothing else, please e-mail your unique position to me because I'd love to see something new.

In the U.S. the majority of people in this era are being shaped in their beliefs by the media they consume. Movies, books, radio, news, etc... Whether or not you realize it you are being taught how to think by everything around you. There's a theory of learning that explains how we, as humans, learn. One major method of learning is intrinsic learning, which is learning by watching. The problem with intrinsic learning is it shapes how we think and what we believe without any formal education and that means we cannot vocalize or explain why we believe something specific, we just feel it is right. This is what intrinsic learning does, it transmits the message, the belief, without the words to explain it. It mostly works on the emotional and intuitive faculties of our minds.

I'm just as much a victim of intrinsic learning through the media as everyone else. The two major examples I have to offer are my attitude towards violence and what I find physically attractive in people. First, my attitude towards violence is desensitized and I find violence entertaining and fun. I also morally and ethically am against the use of violence as a tool to get what I want, however that doesn't change the fact that I find it entertaining and fun. I've been the victim of violence and it didn't horrify me, though it did hurt quite a bit and cause some problems. However, as crazy as it may sound to many people, it was at the very least an experience I feel was positive and exciting. That is the effect of media and the lessons regardings violence it has taught me through intrinsic learning.

Second, regarding physical attraction. The way physical attraction would work outside of all the influence exerted on us through the media is we would be attracted to what is familiar to us and to the types of people we've had positive experiences with in our development. I am attracted to people that resemble my family, my intimate friends, and who are similar to me. But, thanks to media, I am also attracted to physically fit, tall, and exotic people. I have no significant personal experience or reasons other than the influence of media to be attracted to such people, and yet I am. People are also affected in their own self-esteem by the standard of beauty taught to us through the various medias.

I was entertaining myself by writing a short blurb on philosophical views. I'll post them here and continue to add to them as I feel like it.

Existentialism is intellectual laziness. Nihilism is an intellectual temper tantrum at how hard the process of critical thinking is. Utilitarianism is thinking just hard enough to get what you and your friends want out of life. Moral Relativism is intellectual terror at the prospect of conflict and having to fight for something in which one believes.

Natural Rights are the rights which people believe are a given in human existance, conditions which must be free to pursue in order to be human. If some one gives you a list of "Natural Rights", be aware they are telling you this is what I'm willing to kill you over if it comes down to it.

Pragmatism is thinking only about what is immediately relevant to your personal life. Logical Positivism is eliminating all imagination from your thinking and dealing only with literal reality. Post Modernism is a strategy to get everyone to get along and get to work. Stoicism is being the master of your own universe and feeling like you are better than everyone else. Skepticism is figuring out how to not think about anything. Empiricism is not believing in anything unless you can prove it through experimentation and senses. Epicurianism is trying to figure out how to feel good and avoid feeling bad. Atheism is just a lazy way of being a Zen Buddhist without the moral imperitive of Buddhism.