Conservatives Align with Liberal Values After Meditation

I don't participate in much political discussion. But I thought I should make an exception and bring this to the awareness of those who do.

“There’s great overlap between religious beliefs and political orientations,” says one of the study authors, Jordan Peterson of University of Toronto’s department of psychology. “We found that religious individuals tend to be more conservative and spiritual people tend to be more liberal.

“Inducing a spiritual experience through a guided meditation exercise led both liberals and conservatives to endorse more liberal political attitudes.”

After meditation, conservatives lean left

"Balance is an integral part of our shared reality and these studies highlight the importance of trying things outside of one's comfort zone. We cannot integrate unfamiliar values into our lives by consistently remaining on one side - whether religious or spiritual, or conservative or liberal. By encouraging others to regularly try new things perhaps we can help regain balance in our world."

www.realitysandwich.com...

reply to post by BlueMule



This is almost like the story I just read... after visiting the Proctologist to have their head removed... Liberals tend to lean right

reply to post by BlueMule


Thanks for posting this! S/F

The middle way works the best, in politics as well as religion. Thinking with an open-mind about things can not do any harm. Zealous thinking can, and does, do harm.

Originally posted by OptimusSubprime
reply to post by BlueMule

 

This is almost like the story I just read... after visiting the Proctologist to have their head removed... Liberals tend to lean right

Interesting.

Because in my experience....after visiting an optician, Conservatives tend to lean left.

S&F. Thanks so much for posting this!

I find this study fascinating because it confirms a lot of what we are seeing happen in the church today. There has been a large uptick in mystical practices being accepted into major denominations within the Christian church with yoga, labyrinth walking, centering prayer etc being practiced. Subsequently, there has also been more of a leaning toward liberal theology within the church and a less literal reading of the Bible.

~OkieDokie

Originally posted by BritofTexas

Originally posted by OptimusSubprime
reply to post by BlueMule

 

This is almost like the story I just read... after visiting the Proctologist to have their head removed... Liberals tend to lean right

Interesting.

Because in my experience....after visiting an optician, Conservatives tend to lean left.

oh yeah... well... I know you are, but what am I? I'm not a card carrying member of either side... I think they are both ignorant ideologies designed to enslave one's mind in a pointless and neverending distraction argument contained within an imaginary paradigm.

What utter nonsense! If one is religious, i.e. one believes in God, or gods, or is involved with a religious organisation of any sort, one should be spiritual. There is no benifit to belief unless one is in touch with ones spiritual existence. The demarcation between the spiritual and the religious is so blurred as to be non-existent.

I am a Christian. I have a spiritual life. They are part and parcel of the same thing. One cannot exist without the other, not in any meaningful sense. Without the spiritual element, the religion would be nothing more than a club, an association. As it is, my beliefs and my spirituality are a tandem, a symbiosis.

reply to post by TrueBrit


You don't have to have a religious or political belief to meditate. There are scientifically proven evidence to suggest meditation effects neuro plasticity, the structure of the brain.

Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. In a study that will appear in the January 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers report the results of their study, the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain's grey matter.

www.sciencedaily.com...

Reply to post by wildtimes

The "middle ground" is not always the best. Not by a long. Fence sitting and compromise are responsible for great accomplishments like the Mason-Dixon line, civil unions, partial deregulation government backed monopolies for private companies, nonsense like magazine capacity restrictions, getting spending increases and tax cuts.in the same budget and plenty more.

Compromise, or the middle ground, just means nobody gets what they want.

Live and let live is what people should be doing. Not imposing ridiculous half measures onto each other in some futile and misguided attempt to recreate the world as they want it to be.


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reply to post by BlueMule

Conservatives Align with Liberal Values After Meditation

This probably carries the same value as polls these days where designer outcomes are meant to sway public opinion. Both sides practice this brand of thought manipulation as a means of trying to stir their particular pot of political stew into something that appears appetizing.

Meditation... otherwise known as rest and inward contemplation, is really good for the daily stresses of this, our modern 21st century life. Mix politics into it and all you get is another waste of time.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere

Compromise, or the middle ground, just means nobody gets what they want.

So you think that everybody getting SOME of what they want is a bad idea? And everyone having ENOUGH to survive without suffering is a bad idea? How is it beneficial for some to have privilege and luxury while others are worked to death by low wages and dead-end jobs? -- or rather BECAUSE others are worked to death and not able to even THINK about getting into the 'investments' game?
Your suggestion would be the equivalent of a zero-sum game....only one side gets what they want.

I think it works better for both sides to get benefits from any deal-making, a NONzero-sum, where both parties benefit to some degree. That's what makes society work. "Live and let live" is not the same as "my way or the highway." Cooperation is the ONLY WAY humans can manage to survive - we are a social animal, we don't live in a vacuum of solitude and self-sufficiency.

Obviously there is a huge, and continuing disparity in quality of life and the benefits of living in society, both locally and globally. While I agree we should not interfere in the rest of the world's affairs, it's not even arguable that the wealthy are benefiting at the expense of the poor and working classes. It's a fact.

Originally posted by OkieDokie
S&F. Thanks so much for posting this!

I find this study fascinating because it confirms a lot of what we are seeing happen in the church today. There has been a large uptick in mystical practices being accepted into major denominations within the Christian church with yoga, labyrinth walking, centering prayer etc being practiced. Subsequently, there has also been more of a leaning toward liberal theology within the church and a less literal reading of the Bible.

~OkieDokie

The clay bricks of Babel were fired.
In the gospels, John the Baptist mentioned that the one following him would baptise with the Holy Spirit and fire. Fire is only mentioned when the vipers were present and when separating wheat from chaff.

Eastern meditation has sept into our nations as all of the things you mentioned. Three primary methods of opening what they deem the third eye is sodomy, altering one's consciousness and hallucinogenic drugs. Three things prevalent today.
Repeating altering of consciousness produces variations on the following beliefs;
1) God is in all, all is one, "oneness" - the one language which united the city and tower
2) that each of us is divine, a God
3) duality is an artificial construct, and therefore good and evil aren't really good and evil
4) thus the rejection of sin and the need for forgiveness
5) thus rejection of Jesus Christ as Saviour.

We are watching the firing method by which Babylon is being burned into the last tower - man in complete rebellion and rejection to their Creator, His Truth and His Salvation. Their Jesus Christ is a figment of imagination. They declare themselves "I am", "little gods" and await the day that they manifest as god. It is the false anointing, by which they are publically declaring all Christians who reject their "special anointings" and "miracles" as demon possessed and Antichrists. They are seeking reunification with mystical RCC.

The Pope's name means "earth worker/farmer bitter/rebellious mountain oil".

reply to post by woodwardjnr


I was not suggesting that meditation is not done, or cannot be done by people who have no religion. However, the OP states that wether one is "Religious OR spiritual, conservative or liberal" one may benifit. I am pointing out that the distinction between religious people and spiritual people is null and void, as one cannot truely be religious unless one happens to be spiritual.

Indeed, spirituality and religion seldom go hand in hand. Religion breeds out spirituality in favor of "group think" and destroys the link between man and God in order to make money off of it.

So basically saving souls vs saving the trees.

reply to post by TrueBrit


Not so. There is overlapping, but religion and spirituality have distinct meanings. I know a lot of religious people (at least they identify themselves with a "structured" religion but are not visibly spiritual and the reverse is also common, even I am a bit spiritual but do not identify myself with any "structured" religion, the closes on to my way of spirituality, faith or hope is more in line with pantheism).

Religion involves degrees of complexity that are not necessary in spirituality. Structured religions due to their requirement of obedience to a particular dogma are not very friendly to freethinkers. In fact they actively dislike and suppress any challenge to their particular view. They also tend to work like a tight group and work toward indoctrination (the base of cults), extend and absorb (taking mysticism from outside and weave it into their message) and generational membership. None of this is part of being spiritual...

Being spiritual also does not simply mean believing in the spirit (as believed in any religion), especially in the survivability of one's spirit after death, the spirit can have many interpretations...

reply to post by TrueBrit


Ok I understand your point.