Believe Nothing (but understand as much as you can)
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0:00 - 0:03- How you coping, kid?
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0:03 - 0:04- It's weird.
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0:04 - 0:11Just when I think I've got a handle on things something holy unbelievable presents itself.
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0:11 - 0:14Sometimes I wish I'd just stayed at home.
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0:14 - 0:16- You sound like the Man.
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0:16 - 0:17- What was He like?
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0:17 - 0:20- He likes to listen to when people talk.
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0:20 - 0:22Christ loves to sit around the fire
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0:22 - 0:24and listen to me and the other guys.
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0:24 - 0:26Ya'know whenever we´re going on about an unimportant shit
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0:26 - 0:28he always had a smile on his face.
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0:28 - 0:31If there's only real beef with mankind,
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0:31 - 0:34it's the shit that gets carried out into his name,
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0:34 - 0:37wars, bigotry, televangelist.
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0:37 - 0:41The big one though, is the fractioning of all the religions.
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0:41 - 0:44He said mankind got it all wrong by taking a good idea
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0:44 - 0:46and building a believe structure on it.
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0:47 - 0:49- You´re saying having believes is a bad thing?
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0:49 - 0:54- I just think it's better to have ideas. I mean you can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier.
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0:54 - 0:57People died for it. People kill for it.
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1:02 - 1:05Don’t believe what’s in the papers. Don’t believe what’s on TV.
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1:05 - 1:08Don’t believe what’s on the internet. Don’t believe activists.
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1:08 - 1:12Don’t believe special interest groups. Don’t believe corporations. Don’t believe scientists.
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1:12 - 1:15Don’t believe priests. Don’t believe your friends. Don’t believe banks.
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1:15 - 1:19Don’t believe me. Don’t even believe your own senses.
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1:19 - 1:22"You're saying having believes is a bad thing?"
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1:22 - 1:26There is no way to know the truth about anything for sure, ever.
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1:26 - 1:30So instead of wasting time choosing and believing this or that,
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1:30 - 1:33believe nothing, but understand as much as you can.
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1:33 - 1:39Understandings are only approximations. They are ever-changing and evolving.
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1:39 - 1:43New facts and new informations can sometimes turn your understandings over on their head.
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1:43 - 1:46If you are wrong about something and you get corrected
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1:46 - 1:50you don’t have to feel stupid or ignorant for ‘believing’ something that was wrong,
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1:50 - 1:54instead you can rejoice at your new knowledge and updated understandings.
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1:54 - 1:59Understandings have no emotional attachment and therefore allow us to align ourselves
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1:59 - 2:02with new realities as soon as they become evident,
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2:02 - 2:06freeing us from the lag time and emotional upheaval
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2:06 - 2:10involved in deconstructing a deeply held belief.
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2:10 - 2:13To say that we understand something is likely true,
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2:13 - 2:15rather than saying we ‘believe’ it,
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2:15 - 2:17places us into a new paradigm where the
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2:17 - 2:21false dichotomy of ‘true’ and ‘not true’ is not recognized.
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2:21 - 2:26Because the real essence of what I’m promoting here is the removal of absolutist thinking.
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2:26 - 2:30The end of black and white, of good and evil, of true and false.
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2:30 - 2:32These ideas are useful sometimes for a discussion
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2:32 - 2:38but ultimately lead to confusion because they don’t have any real-life substance.
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2:38 - 2:42Not a single person or a single thing is all good or completely bad,
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2:42 - 2:44it’s all shades of grey.
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2:44 - 2:48So when presented with an idea the question is not "Is this idea true?’",
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2:48 - 2:52it’s "How much information do we have to support this idea right now?"
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2:52 - 2:58The more information we have the more confident we can be that this idea is true.
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2:58 - 3:02Thinking like this, truth then becomes a never-quite-attainable,
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3:02 - 3:06quite imaginary, abstraction. It’s like infinity:
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3:06 - 3:11You can keep counting and you’ll keep getting further ahead but you’ll never reach infinity.
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3:11 - 3:12The best that we can do
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3:12 - 3:16is continuously approximate the truth with ever growing certainty,
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3:16 - 3:22but realizing that certainty in and of itself is also an unattainable abstraction.
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3:22 - 3:27That doesn’t mean that we can’t get close, there are many things we can be nearly certain of,
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3:27 - 3:29but we can’t be afraid of questioning everything,
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3:29 - 3:35from our most superficial, to our most basic assumptions, if we want to keep making progress.
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3:35 - 3:39We must also keep in mind that valid questioning can never come from belief,
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3:39 - 3:44but only from reasoned evidence, resulting in an updated understanding.
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3:44 - 3:48"I just think it's better to have ideas. I mean, you can change an idea."
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3:48 - 3:52Hm, I'm gonna make that my motto ... or mantra ... or something.
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3:52 - 3:56So understand what’s in the news, understand who writes the news
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3:56 - 3:58and why they write the news and who they write it for.
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3:58 - 4:03Understand what your friends say, and try to understand where they might have gotten that information from.
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4:03 - 4:07And what biases they might be projecting on to that information.
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4:07 - 4:10Understand that activists usually have very good intentions
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4:10 - 4:13and are often saying something important, but understand their passion,
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4:13 - 4:16and the fact that passions can sometimes lead people astray,
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4:16 - 4:19including lying for their causes.
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4:19 - 4:21Same thing for priests and politicians.
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4:21 - 4:26Understand that you can find supporting evidence for almost any position you want,
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4:26 - 4:31if you look for it and our greatest tool for weighting the value and accuracy of any evidence,
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4:31 - 4:36of approximating certainty with understandings, is science.
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4:36 - 4:38But understand that scientists are human
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4:38 - 4:41and they are not infallible and they are often wrong.
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4:41 - 4:45Especially when financial interests pressure researchers to find
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4:45 - 4:49the results they want, and research is severely limited in any field
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4:49 - 4:54from which a profit cannot be made, or a field that may infringe on someone elses profit.
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4:54 - 4:58Understand that our senses and memories can play tricks on us, and others
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4:58 - 5:02and our minds tend to mold our perceptions of experiences
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5:02 - 5:06to previously held notions, without us even realising it!
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5:06 - 5:10Maybe you disagree, maybe you have different understandings.
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5:10 - 5:13That´s good, that´s fine. Just don´t believe any of them.
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5:13 - 5:15But some wonder that without believe,
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5:15 - 5:22can these changing understandings be ‘good’ enough to direct us in our behavior?
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5:22 - 5:25If I don’t believe that killing someone is wrong,
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5:25 - 5:27they wonder, why don’t I just go out
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5:27 - 5:29and have a blast slaughtering as many people as I can?
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5:29 - 5:32Well it´s because I value human life.
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5:32 - 5:34And this is a value I’ve cultivated
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5:34 - 5:37based on the understanding that I am a human life,
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5:37 - 5:42and I understand and see and feel the beauty of other human lifes.
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5:42 - 5:47I see myself in them, and to do them harm is to harm myself, is to harm everyone.
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5:47 - 5:52No need to believe anything to see that. At least that’s how I understand it.
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5:52 - 5:55And I also understand that the less harm there is going around,
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5:55 - 5:56the better off we’ll all be.
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5:56 - 5:59So yeah, I think understandings can actually offer a
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5:59 - 6:02much more concrete direction for our species,
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6:02 - 6:04because as with any new frontier,
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6:04 - 6:08you must draw the map as you discover the landscape.
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6:08 - 6:11Only a fool believes that he knows what its path
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6:11 - 6:13to the next mountain before he’s crossed it.
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6:14 - 6:17Another thing that I have come to understand is:
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6:17 - 6:20"If it’s true that we’re all from the center of a star,
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6:20 - 6:22every atom in each of us from the center of a star,
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6:22 - 6:25then we’re all the same thing, that even a coke machine
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6:25 - 6:27or a cigarette butt in the street of Buffalo
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6:27 - 6:29are made out of atoms that came from a star.
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6:29 - 6:32They’ve all been recycled thousands of times as have you and I.
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6:32 - 6:37And therefore, it’s only me out there, so what is there to be afraid of?
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6:37 - 6:40What is there that needs solace-seeking? Nothing.
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6:40 - 6:43There’s nothing to be afraid of, because it’s all us.
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6:43 - 6:46The trouble is, we’ve been separated by being born
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6:46 - 6:48and given a name and an identity and being individuated.
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6:48 - 6:51We've been separated from the oneness, and that’s what religion exploit,
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6:51 - 6:55that people have this yearning to be part of the overhaul one again.
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6:55 - 6:57So they exploit that. They call it god.
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6:57 - 7:00They say he has rules, and I think it’s cruel.
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7:00 - 7:03I think you can do it absent religion.
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7:03 - 7:07Shouldn't we consider in every nation major changes
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7:07 - 7:09in the traditional ways of doing things,
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7:09 - 7:12a fundamental restructuring of economic,
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7:12 - 7:15political, social and religious institutions?
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7:15 - 7:21We've reached the point where there can be no more special interests or special cases;
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7:21 - 7:27Fundamental changes in society are sometimes labeled impractical
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7:27 - 7:30or contrary to human nature.
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7:30 - 7:35As if nuclear war were practical or as if there's only one human nature.
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7:35 - 7:39But fundamental changes can clearly be made,
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7:39 - 7:41we're surrounded by them.
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7:41 - 7:47The old appeals to racial sexual religious chauvinism
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7:47 - 7:52and to rabid nationalist fervour are beginning not to work.
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7:52 - 7:54A new consciousness is developing
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7:54 - 7:58which sees the Earth as a single organism
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7:58 - 8:04and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed.
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8:04 - 8:07We are one planet.
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8:09 - 8:13One of the great revelations of the age of space exploration
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8:13 - 8:16is the image of the Earth finite and lonely,
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8:16 - 8:18somehow vulnerable,
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8:18 - 8:25bearing the entire human species through the oceans of space and time.
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8:26 - 8:29Understanding that we depend on our enviroment, our planet
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8:29 - 8:33and each other for survival, and also understanding
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8:33 - 8:36that our approximations of reality are likely
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8:36 - 8:39to keep on their path of continual evolution
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8:39 - 8:42have currently lead me to the conclusion to support
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8:42 - 8:44the Zeitgeist Movement and the Venus Project.
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8:44 - 8:47These two aspects that have just been described are
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8:47 - 8:50central to the movement's tenants.
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8:50 - 8:54And I suggest, anyone who got anything out of this video
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8:54 - 8:58or enjoyed it in any way - go and check out
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8:58 - 9:03these ideas with an open mind and:
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9:03 - 9:07come to your own understandings!
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9:14 - 9:20"Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being" -Mahatma Gandhi-
- Title:
- Believe Nothing (but understand as much as you can)
- Description:
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Reality is ever changing, and so too should our notions of reality be ever-changing. Hey. Hit subscribe.
song: pretty lights - try to rememberhttp://www.theinfinityes.com
http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com
http://www.thevenusproject.com
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http://www.youtube.com/theinfinityes - Video Language:
- English
- Duration:
- 09:22
Kaife Amin edited English subtitles for Believe Nothing (but understand as much as you can) |