How exactly do you clarify your thinking?

Question

I'm going to college soon and one thing that I have realized is that I do not have a firm and logical basis for many of my beliefs. Many of my beliefs are simply taken from a large variety of different things which I have read; consequently they are not consistent. So I would like to know how others have clarified their own thinking, or created consistent moral codes.

Answer 1

I have got a lot of differnt beliefs from differnt religions and it makes it hard sometimes. I find just breathing (in for 3 seconds, out for 3 seconds) and just thinking about life can really help you clarify your ideas and thoughts. My husband and I often talk about our takes on life after death and really just thinking about it, reading up the differnt ideas and then maybe dicussing it can really help. It is really all you can do, no one can tell you what you believe. Think about yourself, what you have done in the past, why it was a bad idea. Think about who you want to be, imagine all the possiblities. That may help you straighten out your morals. But honestly, self-reflection is the only way to enlighten yourself

Answer 2

First, I’d have to say that I’m not certain another person can help you “find” your moral compass.  However, if you just remember the golden rule “Do onto others as you would have them do onto you,” I think once you find your compass it will always point true north!  Thanks for the intelligent and thought provoking question!  Take care!

Answer 3

I try not to think about it too much, and rely on my conscience a lot - you can't be certain about everything - but life is a learning process and that is what experience and wisdom is about - I clarify my own thinking and beliefs as I go along, and gain these things - dont be so quick to know everything - it will come with experience and time.

Answer 4

I was told once to be like water. Water takes many forms. It's ice, steam, liquid... meaning it's good to be flexible.

If you want to be more logical you should think about things when you're not feeling too emotional. That way you are able to reason with a clear head. Just step back and look at the issue from an outsider's point of view..

Answer 5

Consult stately plump buck mulligan!

You're thinking too much - relax and enjoy yourself more.

Answer 6

Smart people believe weird things because they are good at defending belief they arrived at for non-smart reasons.

Rule #1.  LOSE THE EGO.  Enlightenment is its own worst enemy.

Rule #2.  The ONLY thing you can be sure of it the possibility of error.  I.e. Everything is a guess.

Rule #3.   All guesses are NOT created equal.   The simplest explanation is usually true.

Rule #4.  Style lies.  Substance doesn't.  People will SAY anything.  It's what they DO that matters.  Money doesn't lie.  Anyone can say they are sorry, when they cut you a check for the damages, that means something.

Rule #5.  Define, define, define.  Words mean things.  If you can't define a word, you don't know what you are talking about.

Rule #6.  Almost everything is relative.  Wolf good is rabbit evil.  Nothing 'means' anything by itself, only with respect to something else.

Rule #7.  Everything is energy.  Money is symbolic energy.  Life is an energy machine that replicates.  Nature is the competition between these machines for energy.

Rule #8.   Darwinism.  The fittest survive.  Self interest is PRIMAL.  Group interest ARISES from SELF interest.

Rule #9.  The effect of a belief is more important than its truth.  As per #8, the lie that promotes survival will endure, the truth that disables with fade.  Doesn’t mean you shouldn't seek the truth, just means nature is about survival not honesty.

Perfection is an attitude not an attribute.

Love is considering the self interest of another as your own. It is a self interest strategy to gain the survival advantage of collectivism.

Most 'Spirituality' is about beliefs that promote good survival behavior.  If you evaluate the EFFECT of a belief, rather than the accuracy, you will find logic where others do not.

Beware semantics.    Darwinists believe life is created by natural selection, aka Physics, the unchanging eternal logic that runs the universe.   Christians believe life is created by God, the unchanging eternal logic that runs the universe.    So be on the lookout for blind men arguing about an elephant.

Note on Rule #6.  It's easy to think someone is a bonehead idiot, when they are simply looking at something from a different angle.    Clarity is a mind like a 3-D CAD program.  You gain enormous power if your viewpoint is adjustable.   But remember, the TRUTH is NOT relative; it just looks different when you change your viewpoint.

BUT….

… at the end of the day, you must know where you stand.   It fine to understand a why a lion views you as a tasty meal, quite another thing to imagine you should let it have that meal.    Understanding the valid grievances & desires of your enemies does NOT make them your friends.  

Open your eyes.  Get a little Zen, get a little innocent.  Ignore the voices and try to understand what you see in the simplest terms of who gains & who loses.

& since you asked about morality I'll give you this story.

~~~

Three men were living in a valley with two women.

The Alpha male had both women. The Beta males had nothing.

One day the Betas teamed up & killed the Alpha male.

Now both Betas wanted both women. But they agreed to settle for one apiece to keep the team together & avoid fighting each other.

~~~~

And that my friend is morality.

Answer 7

Based on personal experience. learning to predict the outcome of my actions.

Answer 8

you have to be willing to look at your beliefs in a harsh light, see which of them are really true based on solid evidence and which you're only wanting to be true. for example, it's a common belief that all people are equal, and most people, wanting to be open minded accept this without question. however, if you look around you, you'll notice obvious ways in which we differ, from our income to our appearance to our lifestyle to our personalities and so on. you should come to your own conclusion about what these things mean rather than falling back on a cliche answer that "they don't matter, we're all equal anyway" or something to that effect. learn to think critically about EVERYTHING, including what I've just said. this'll help you your entire life. best of luck.

Answer 9

I dismissed all the philosophies of men and all the cafe' jargon for what is right and what is wrong.

I took sage advice from myself one terrifying night, and started to think of everyone else and stopped thinking of myself. I started to serve others, regardless of how I felt and it was tough, it was aimless and I went looking for a guide, a pilot if you will; perhaps a carpenter to build a rudder and wheel for my sailing through this life.

I searched for years in the New Age and in the eastern cultures and they all wanted more money, more gifts, more suspension of belief, more trust in the humanity of them. I did not like it. There was no help there but more confusion and no answers. No rudder, no pilot, no guide, no steering wheel and no sails to move me along.

Through all of this I kept in touch with Christianity and then I did something strange to many I know and my family. I stopped keeping in touch with Christianity and "touched Christianity" instead. I opened the door to the knock and found a guide, a pilot, a carpenter who built a whole ship rudder and steering wheel as well.

In that embracing of the Christ I found that He wanted a lot of thinking from me as well as faith. It is hard. It is hard to keep a faith in this world so small now that it is literally a "global village" finally.

A massive amount of information bombards us everyday now and it is difficult to get through the sea of misinformation and keep on the track of the true compass.

But I do, I do it with the Bible and I study more than just that. I've grown tired of men and women telling me that it has obviously been changed over the centuries by the fanatics and the liars and the hypocrites of religion. So I persued the evidence they put forward and found that they are quoting a common myth about the veracity of the Bible. It has not changed and there is an abundance of proof here and now in this world that what the bible stated twenty one hundred years ago is the same as what we have now.

What the fishermen, and the lawyer, and the doctor wrote nineteen hundred and sixty years ago is still the same in the New Testament now as it was then. We just have too, too much evidence to refute the "myth" that the words have been changed over the millenniums. Too much historical as well as physical proof. Heck we even have proof of Kind David and King David's lineage from archeaology digs. The evidence even proves that the lineage is the same as it is written in Chronicles as well as the book of Kings!! It is literally carved in stone!

We have known of this proof since nineteen ninety-three, but the faithful have always known it.

I clarify my thinking by the study and the proof of the bible. The morals and the teachings are very succinct but you do have to make it a daily study. You have to. Otherwise any one can take you away into a fanatical religion based on Christianity and in the end you will find that you are not a Christian at all, just a man calling himself a Christian with Christian like living. You have to know what the Christ wants of you. You have to study and learn the moral compass He is trying to teach you.

In studying the Bible you will find a consistant love and a consistant law, and a consistant code of ethics, and a consistand God.

It has been decades since I started this journey and in the time I have had it I have found great answers. There is no confusion in my life. I know who I am, I know what I am, I know where I am, and I know why I am. I know where I am going and I know why I am going there. I just don't know when.

But I do know ... Life is far greater than I ever thought it was. It is far more magnificent than anyone could have ever told me. Life is ... well you go read the God inspired words and draw your own conclusions.

EDIT: I was in my third year of College when all this started. I'm in my fifties now, and I don't see an end to this study I have taken on. Then again I don't see an end to my life either, and that is because of what I have learned.