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the Hunt for Truth

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the Hunt for Truth

Tag Archives: Sociology

a sensible sermon from a soul saving surgeon

09 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by Hunt 4 Truth in Culture, Faith, Happiness, Inner peace, Lessons, Mindful, Religion, Spirituality

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Apologize, Ethics, Grace, Jeremy Statton, Listen, Resentment, Sociology, Values

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This is a reblog

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How to Choose to Not Be Offended
by Jeremy Statton

Has anyone ever offended you?

Reasons to find offense surround us… Bosses; Employees; Presidential candidates; Religions; Kentucky Wildcat fans.

Offense seems to be an obligation; its become a natural response to someone else. When we see things that we do not like, we feel we have no choice but to become upset… and express it adamantly.

We view our response as outside of our hands. We are only reacting to others.

Like most thing, however, offense is really an issue of the self. It has nothing to do with the person who is offending you and everything to do with you.

Yes, some people say and do things that may seem ridiculous to you. But have you ever thought about how you say and do things that are ridiculous to others.

The issue of being offended has to do with how we choose to respond.

In the same way that we choose to be offended, we can also choose to not be offended, which has several advantages.

  • We can listen to and understand others better.
  • We increase our opportunities to learn.
  • We can more easily resolve conflict.
  • We grow our ability to influence the world around us.

Once you choose to respond in offense, your ability to make a difference will be negligible. But if you choose to not be offended, then you have taken the first step towards influence.

Here are a five ways to help you change how you respond.

1. Find value in every person. You have to believe that every person in the world has intrinsic value, and then look for it. Understand that their perspective is unique to them, and that is is beneficial. Seek what is helpful instead of being focused on what you find offensive. Always be asking what they can teach you. Search for what you can learn. You will be amazed at what you find.

2. Learn to listen. Most of us don’t. We listen to people that we agree with because we already like what they are saying. but we rarely listen to anyone else. The only way to understand another person is to hear what they have to say. To listen with the goal of understanding, not arguing. If someone is offending you, then it is a good time to stop talking and start listening. If nothing else, you are less likely to say something you would regret.

3. Try something new. Like strange food, the reason we don’t like something different is only because we haven’t tried it. Ignorance leads to fear. Fear leads to being offended. Start with something simple like food or a cultural experience. If you feel courageous enough, switch to CNN or Fox News, depending on your
political persuasion. Develop a spirit of courage and adventure. The only way to understand a different perspective is to try it.

4. Apologize. One of the main reasons we are so easily offended is pride. The most humbling thing you can do is apologize when you are wrong. We are all wrong at some point. When it is your turn, do something beneficial about it. Apologize. It will force you to humble yourself and will speak volumes to the other person. Today, find someone you have offended and apologize to them.

5. Be a friend. Don’t feel that is it your obligation to change people. Being a friend is about loving them where they are. Friends encourage and help. They find what a person needs and then seek to help meet those needs. No strings attached. The people who are in the best position to influence us, are these true friends.

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Being offended is really a selfish way to treat people. It is a response focused not on the other person, but only on ourselves. It is about what we want them to be. It is about our desire to change them.

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The only person in this world that you can change is you. The only way to remove offense from your life is to choose to respond differently.

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Are you easily offended? What have you found that helps you choose otherwise?

Help all of us choose better by sharing your ideas in the comments.

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Jeremy StattonAbout Jeremy Statton
at Living Better Stories 

Jeremy is a writer and an orthopedic surgeon. When not ridding the world of pain, he helps you live a better story.

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There is a brokenness in the world, and we are all part
of it. Rebel? Addict? Fallen? Depraved? Guilty?
Have a read of Jeremy’s e-book, Grace Is for sinners.

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Choose to Not Be Offended…

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Thanks for visiting.

New post Eric

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Advertisement

mirroring compassion

09 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by Hunt 4 Truth in Consciousness, Culture, Happiness, Health, I can improve today, Inner peace, Lecture, Lessons, Memory, Philosophy, Science, Self-improvement, Spirituality

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

altruism and identity, Brain Chemistry, Brain Function, communication, Conscious Awareness, consciousness, Davidson, Evolution, mirror neurons, neural systems, Neurological, Neurology, Neuroplasticity, neurotransmitters, norepinephrine, Philosophical, philosophy, Psychiatry, Psychological, psychology, Richard J. Davidson, social dynamics, Sociology

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BrainA study by researchers at the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that adults can be trained to be more compassionate. The report, recently published online in the Journal Psychological Science, is the first to investigate whether training adults in compassion can result in greater altruistic behavior and related changes in neural systems underlying compassion.

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Check back frequently.
I love learning with you.

New post Eric

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Jan 9, 2014 .

Who is smarter?

26 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by Hunt 4 Truth in Culture, Humor, Lessons, News update, Science, Strange

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Animal Rights, Animal Welfare, intelligence, Maciej Henneberg, Sociology

reblogged from
Phys.org

Humans are not smarter than animals
just different, experts say

Humans have been deceiving themselves for thousands of years that they’re smarter than the rest of the animal kingdom, despite growing evidence to the contrary, according to University of Adelaide experts in evolutionary biology. 

“For millennia, all kinds of authorities – from religion to eminent scholars – have been repeating the same idea ad nauseam, that humans are exceptional by virtue that they are the smartest in the animal kingdom,” says Dr Arthur Saniotis, Visiting Research Fellow with the University’s School of Medical Sciences.

“However, science tells us that animals can have cognitive faculties that are superior to human beings.”

He says the belief that humans have superior intelligence harks back to the Agricultural Revolution some 10,000 years ago when people began producing cereals and domesticating animals.  This gained momentum with the development of organized religion, which viewed human beings as the top species in creation.

Gingho - a rescue dog by my son has a nice home and family now.“The belief of human cognitive superiority became entrenched in human philosophy and sciences.  Even Aristotle, probably the most influential of all thinkers, argued that humans were superior to other animals due to our exclusive ability to reason,” Dr Saniotis says.

While animal rights began to rise in prominence during the 19th century, the drive of the Industrial Revolution forestalled any gains made in the awareness of other animals.

Professor Maciej Henneberg, a professor of anthropological and comparative anatomy from the School of Medical Sciences, says animals often possess different abilities that are misunderstood by humans.

“The fact that they may not understand us, while we do not understand them, does not mean our ‘intelligences’ are at different levels, they are just of different kinds.  When a foreigner tries to communicate with us using an imperfect, broken, version of our language, our impression is that they are not very intelligent.  But the reality is quite different,” Professor Henneberg says.

VIDEO PROGRAM source: Paul Dejillas
How does our brain differ with that of animals? How does an adult brain differ with that of an infant or toddler? What’s in our brain that makes us humans? What makes us humans smarter than animals? How does our brain really work?

“Animals offer different kinds of intelligences which have been under-rated due to humans’ fixation on language and technology.  These include social and kinesthetic intelligence.  Some mammals, like gibbons, can produce a large number of varied sounds – over 20 different sounds with clearly different meanings that allow these arboreal primates to communicate across tropical forest canopy.  The fact that they do not build houses is irrelevant to the gibbons.

“Many quadrupeds leave complex olfactory marks in their environment, and some, like koalas, have special pectoral glands for scent marking.  Humans, with their limited sense of smell, can’t even gauge the complexity of messages contained in olfactory markings, which may be as rich in information as the visual world,” he says.

Professor Henneberg says domestic pets also give us close insight into mental abilities of mammals and birds.  “They can even communicate to us their demands and make us do things they want. 

VIDEO PROGRM
Although most people wouldn’t typically associate extreme intelligence with animals, that is a bit of a misconception. While they are obviously not able to match the computational and meta cognitive power of the human brain there are certain things some animals specialize in for which their minds are uniquely adapted. In some ways you could say they are smarter (or more functional) than even humans at performing these tasks.

Basics about 25 intelligent animals species:

The animal world is much more complex than we give it credit for,” Henneberg says.

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Need help or want to collaborate with me? Just e-mail me at thehunt4truth@yahoo.com

Thanks for visiting.

New post Eric

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Explore further: Are animals as smart, or as dumb, as we think they are?

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Related articles
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experiment in Empathy

01 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by Hunt 4 Truth in Consciousness, Culture, I can improve today, Inner peace, Lecture, Mindful, News update, Peace, Science, Self-improvement

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

B4Peace, communication, critical thinking, Education, empathy, individuation, Iraq, open mind, Penn State, Pennsylvania State University, psychology, Sam Richards, Social Sciences, Sociology, soldier, Terrorism, War

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Put yourself in a pair of somebody’s boots in Iraq — how does if feel?

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Program Description
Sam Richards encourages students to engage more fully with the world and to think for themselves — something he claims that he did not do until his third year in college.Gingho Because of his passion for challenging students to open their minds, an interviewer recently referred to him as “an alarm clock for eighteen-year-olds.” Every semester, 725 students register for his Race and Ethnic Relations course, one of the most popular classes at Penn State. In this lecture, he challenges students to visualize the world differently — for the perspectives of insurgents living in Iraq. THIS IS NOT ABOUT TAKING SIDES — its a thought experiment.

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I see you — you see me… empathy?

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Thanks for visiting.

New post Eric

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Inner Peace

Inner Peace Award - I would have a no-awards blog but this award changed me. Thanks Suz. I'm glad I changed.

November 2013

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Hunt 4 Truth

For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." https://hunt4truth.wordpress.com/ Absolute Truth is whole, complete and perfect. Absolute Truth is just beyond words, mental concepts, and form; Non-being, yet in everything and yet beyond thought forms. Prayer and meditation fashion in our hearts further honesty, openness, and willingness and thus, we may glimpse guidance and truth to rightly think and act. Any glimpse of truth is not Absolute Truth. It may be sufficient until we renew our commitment to serve God. Life is thus best navigated during mindfulness of prayer and meditation by an inner peace. "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." Romans 1:20

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