Well I think you need to give your average human a bit more credit then that. We all seek these answers in our own ways throughout our entire lives, and whether or not we look for these answers ourselves or by asking others of their own opinions, I wouldn't call either lazy, as we are always trying to understand.... we understand by not just trying to figure things out for ourselves, but we interpret what others have experienced and adapt it to our own lives, since we don't live each other's lives as you say.
To me, it sounds like you are expressing that people will seek some "expert" or "Guru" for answers and just suck in what they have to say without question..... but we always are asking questions in order to seek what makes sense to us.
For example, you can goto all the religions in the world and listen to what each one has to say, and chances are you're not going to believe all of them, if any of them at all, due to your own personal existing beliefs and understanding..... if it doesn't make sense to you to wait until you are married to have sex for the sake of not sinning and you decide to go against that practice, then that is your choice and your interpretation of the value of what someone has explained to you, based on your personal life.
As another example would be my own personal beliefs of our purpose of existence and the afterlife/death. My understanding/belief is derrived from many practices and beliefs from many cultures and religions, as well as scientific understanding of it all. I took what made perfect sense in each sect and then merged them all together in a manner in which each part I took out of them support one another and yet, don't contradict one another.... thereby to me, this is a more logical explination compared to the common beliefs around the world.
^ Now the above follows along what you are explaining by seeking the answers yourself from within, which I did.... but my understanding of this whole thing has foundation from previous explinations and beliefs held by many others throughout the world and time in which I interpreted to make sense for myself.
And as proof of my belief being unique compared to the more common/popular beliefs, would be just the fact that when I sit down to explain my belief to someone of one of the original concepts, they're usually pretty pissed off that I soiled their belief by merging it with other one's they don't agree with..... not to mention I also came about some interesting explinations of some things in which some religious beliefs or scientific theories do not explain as of yet.
I guess what I am saying is that without all of the explinations and teachings from all the people we've encountered over our lifetimes.... you and I wouldn't have come to the conclusions we both have today, regardless if that conflict or match up. That's because if you didn't learn the exact things and when through the exact same experiences you have through your life, chances are your conclusions today would be very different and you might believe something else..... it's all based on those who brought us up and what we found interesting in which guided us along the path we are currently taking, and which also brought us to this current level of individual understanding.
I have on several occasions went through what some would classify as a "Spiritual Journey" which some situations included external stimulus of certains areas of my brain, and others included just myself looking at where I stand today compared to everyone else.
Although the most stimulated and vivid experience I had which brought me to the conclusions of existence today was due to an intense LSD experience a few years back. I haven't done that stuff in quite some time now, but what I learned from that and a few other experiences are still with me today, and in fact I think I picked up a few neat little tricks due to it that I can use throughout my life now.
A mirror can tell more then just your looks, it can tell you the history of your life. Your relaxed facial expression can usually determine how much level of stress is in your life, due to lines, lowered eyebrows, facial expressions, etc. Scars also bring back memories of when they occured and how.
A mirror in my view, reflects the past and present but can not tell you of the future.
Yeah although I seem like a jerk on the forums, I'm actually one of the more generous, funny and friendly people most would meet (Probably because I vent on forums
) But that reflection towards other people and who I truly am has also gotten me screwed over countless times from people who love to take generosity and twist it to their advantage in life, regardless of what effect that would have on myself or others. After a while, I decided to fog up my mirror, if you will.I didn't look for a ready answer when it came to me originally, it just shot into my brain.... or err.... through my body as well and beyond. The thing is, you can not hold previous beliefs without any value, because these people (not all) might have taken some considderable amount of time to do what you are suggesting and have come to the answers you are talking about.... those concepts are much closer then you might think to the actual truth.... the only problem is that most of the more popular beliefs have formed into religions. The problem with that is that religions were formed around concepts of actual truth (believe it or not) but those truths have been clouded due to adding more concepts, rules, morals, sins, ways of living your life, etc.... that were never there from the original concepts. This is a virus in all religions, as every religon holds a wee bit of actual truth, much like science..... the problem is the additional rules and dictations of how you're supposed to live your life which has not only lost the truths, but also made the other religions and sciences conflict with one another, as they don't believe in most of the additional crap added to their beliefs..... and vice versa.
When the answer does come face to face with you, it's so simple.... yet so complex.... it just boggles the mind and it'll fill you with a bit of glee because of where it hits you, and to actually know that there is a structure in place for our existence..... perhaps not a plan, or a destiny..... but there are a set of rules in which our existince follows that we are not aware of, and the rules and sins in relgions have nothing to do with it. You will see just how close humanity has come to understanding it, yet have been so skewed from its actual explinations due to exactly what you're talking about ~ Influenced Concepts from others ~ That we haven't yet come that close to fully understanding it, let alone explaining it to the rest of the world.
But if I can stumble apon it, I'm pretty sure many others around the world have, or about to start figuring it out.
Not exactly.... see I already know what they are going to tell me isn't 100% right, nor is whatever I expalin to you 100% right.... human communication isn't quite where it needs to be to do this properly. But once again, I take what they have to explain to me, attempt to relate it to what I already believe in, if it makes sense then I may find a way to fill in a gap that I might be missing in my collective understanding..... but if it just sounds like mumbo jumbo or some preachy crap or just doesn't relate to anything to what I am following, then it's tossed and I move on.
But I never considder what anybody has to say or their concepts as complete nonsense.... case in point is our current communications. I am reading what you have to say and interpreting it to my current concepts, and perhaps you might be taking a fraction of what I am saying into your own..... that's what humans do.
Once apon a time we didn't know how to fly.... then after humans worked together, we came up with the propeller powered airplane... shortly after that, someone added on top of that concept and curved the propellers for better thrust and energy consumption..... and it went on from there..... we improve our species by improving on past understandings, both in the physical and the mental.
Once apon a time we thought the earth was flat, and someone eventually thought it was round because they began to think for themselves..... but their thinking was based on original concepts and understandings in which they didn't agree with.
Perhaps some of the above might have explained my positioning better for you.
