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I’m sure everyone has read someone’s post on this community or read a comment that made you stop and think, “I don’t believe you.” If you haven’t, either you don’t read the threads very closely or you work very hard not to think critically about anything you read here, because there have been some very outrageous claims made here over the years. (But that’s an entirely different discussion.) I want to know what people think when they come across one of these statements that they just can’t believe.

Do you:

A) Think the person is lying.
B) Think the person is knowingly role playing
C) Think the person believes that they are multiple but is probably unintentionally role playing or some other form of imagination
D) Think the system is lying about the experiences
E) Think the system is knowingly or unintentionally role playing the experiences
F) Think the system is adhering to the community’s cultural norms/trying to fit in
G) Think the system probably honestly believes their claims even though another explanation seems more logical to you
H) Think the system probably started out making things up but has since convinced themselves that their claims are true
I) Worry that you might be making things up too or that someone else might think you are
J) Think something else entirely – please share

Also, do your thoughts change depending on why you can’t believe the statement? For example, is there a difference between someone claiming to do/be something that you think is impossible and someone contradicting themselves or claiming that something happened in real life that could not have happened?

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"Lalala, everyone means exactly what they say all the time because thinking anything else would be judgemental."

obviously that's just silly.. just because someone prefers not to automatically jump to the conclusion that everyone is lying, doesn't mean that a person is believing the entire world to be telling the truth all the time..

Well, it varies according to the specific instance. Some people, I think are probably deliberately lying, and in a non-RPG community I don't see any difference between "lying" and "knowingly roleplaying". I don't see any way to determine the difference between belief and imagination (if such a difference even exists in any but an abstract semantic sense) and I don't see how the arbitrary standards of so-called "objective reality" can be applied to another person's subjective inner experience.

I find it very annoying when individuals within a 'system' present themselves as speaking for everybody else in it, because I think that's dishonest - if they expect to be considered and treated as individuals, they need to act as individuals, which means speaking only for themselves. It's particularly dishonest (as well as rude) when people 'switch' in the middle of a dialogue without disclosing the fact that they've done so - if I'm talking to someone, I'm talking to that person, not to their assorted Kin. I tend to doubt the actual multiplicity of people who do that - I think it's mostly a passive-aggressive ruse for avoiding taking responsibility for one's words.

A whole lot of people, not just multiples, believe things I think are not logical. I used to argue with them about it, but I've mostly given that up, because there just isn't any point in it: irrational or unverifiable beliefs are generally impervious to logic. This is because people rely on such beliefs for their emotional security, and aren't about to give up that security just because it's illusory.

I don't understand how people can start out by knowingly making something up, then 'convince themselves' that it's true. I realize that people do this, but I don't *get* how it works - do they somehow block their memory of having made it up, or what? People who do this seem highly untrustworthy to me, because if they've blocked or changed their memory about one thing without knowing they've done it, who's to say they won't do the same about other things?

I don't worry that I'm 'making things up', but I do subject my beliefs to critical examination, i.e. "Why do I think this is true? How would I be able to tell if it's not?". There are a whole bunch of things for which I have no way of determining whether or not they're true, and even though I may act as if I think they're true out of custom or convenience, I don't forget the fact that I really don't know.

I assume that most people don't believe anything that conflicts with their established belief-systems, whether their belief-systems are rational or not. Therefore I assume that people who believe it's not possible for more than one person to share a single body will believe I'm lying and/or delusional if I tell them about my 'brothers'. The obvious solution is to just not tell them.

This is probably going to get me blasted, but under the heading of "think something else entirely", I think that children, people dependent on psychoactive drugs, and people with mental or emotional problems severe enough to require long-term professional care or State support aren't 'reliable reporters'. This doesn't mean I automatically disbelieve everything such people say about their experience, but it's certainly a factor I take into consideration.

I don't see the difference between "claiming something I think is impossible" and "claiming something that [I think] could not have happened in real life". I've personally experienced enough things that I didn't think possible until I experienced them to make me wary of anybody's opinions (including my own) about what is or is not possible.

However, just because something may be possible doesn't mean it's probable, and as Carl Sagan said, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Since there's no way to prove anything online, I neither believe nor disbelieve most of what people say here.

I think anybody who *hasn't* at some point has issues with belief on this community probably is *too* open minded.

I mean, I think we all know Ia ccept some pretty far out stuff, but that shouldn't remove anybody's ability to wonder about these things.

I also think every situation is different. different letters (from your examples) for different cases.

There are very definite cultural norms within this specific livejournal community and within the multiplicity online community in general. There's a separate set of cultural norms for multiples in the DID-sufferer-support communities both on and off-line.

Nothing brought on this post. Just curious.

I don't see the difference between "claiming something I think is impossible" and "claiming something that [I think] could not have happened in real life". I've personally experienced enough things that I didn't think possible until I experienced them to make me wary of anybody's opinions (including my own) about what is or is not possible.

Well, you claim to genetically be elven but since I don't believe in elves I think that's impossible. Now, I don't think you're lying and I respect your belief even if I personally find it a bit nutty. So, it would be valid for me to say that I read your statements about being an elf and think, G) Think the system probably honestly believes their claims even though another explanation seems more logical to you. It would also be valid for me to say that I read your statements about being an elf and don't think anything about believing or disbelieving you because I'm reading it in terms of your subjective experiences and beliefs.

Not too long ago, a member of this community claimed something that could not have happened in real life. They claimed that they contacted the governing body of their professional organisation over a weekend to verify the ethical nature of their comments to this community. There is no possibility that this could have taken place because they wouldn't have been able to contact the organization at that time and the organization wouldn't have been able to respond that rapidly. Now, this one is a very clear case where the member had to either be lying or delusional. It's less clear when you run into a multiple that says that they're physically pregnant but when the guys use the body they're not pregnant anymore. Obviously, this can't physically happen but it's possible that the multiple in question might believe that it's true.

That's the difference between the two scenarios.

I've read several things on this community that I don't necessarily believe-- things that seem unlikely at best to me, and/or that contradict my own spiritual beliefs, and/or resemble the behavior of people I've known in the past who were deliberately making a play for attention. I tend to assume more of them are sincerely misguided than making a deliberate attempt to lie and manipulate others.

Usually I don't address it for two reasons, if they seem to be sincere,
a) if they're just doing something like roleplaying or naming different parts of their personality or experimenting with a new identity, I figure their ability to keep up the act consistently, if these aren't real people, will give out after awhile.

b) if they're deliberately acting or making a play for attention, I figure someone will call them on it eventually. (OTOH, maybe I'm overly optimistic in assuming frauds will always be spotted by someone.)

c) if it has to do with someone believing certain things in a religious/spiritual sense that I don't, I don't want to address that at all, unless they try to push their belief system on me or insist it applies to everybody.

On the other hand, I might also encourage them to work within the context of a belief system I don't subscribe to, if it seems to be working for or helpful to them.

For example, is there a difference between someone claiming to do/be something that you think is impossible and someone contradicting themselves or claiming that something happened in real life that could not have happened?

In the first instance I'd be more likely to see them as sincerely misguided; if someone repeatedly contradicts themselves in their claims I am more likely to suspect that someone is trying to pull something over on me (partly because I've been led on by a few people in the past, and all the discrepancies in their stories started to add up after awhile).

Erm, I've also known some very whacked academically slanted systems that read the entirety of Astraea's page and proceeded to attempt to fit their system around whatever was said there, and everyone and everything that deviated from their personal interpretation of the page was "wrong". (no offense to Astraea, but you got some creepy fangirls out there)

*blink* Wowo, I missed this? Were any of these people ever on the community?

Whether or not I believe it to be literal or factual is not relevant, if I can work with what amounts to a personal mythology. (A lot of my own multiplicity is something that I parse as 'personal mythology that works for resolving situations, who cares whether it's factual?'.)

That's closer to what I meant when I said I sometimes encouraged people to work within the context of beliefs I don't necessarily subscribe to. Rather, I tend to assume that they're being honest about having subjectively experienced it this way, regardless of its literal truth. The one thing I caution people against is talking about their subjective experiences too openly, not because I believe there is anything inherently shameful about it, but because this is the kind of thing that can get you locked away (or called names at best).

I've also come across people who come across to me strongly as trying to fit cultural norms. I find this moderately aggravating, but not something I worry about greatly.

Urk. Yes, I've seen several examples of this-- for example, I once recall someone asking how they could 'get more people in their system.' I asked them why they thought that any certain minimum number was required. The answer was along the lines of 'because we made a place inside and we need more people to fill it up with.' Apparently the belief has cropped up somewhere along the line that having more people somehow makes you more 'real,' and/or that you're required to have a 'place inside.'

One of us tends to think that people are either lying or stupid. They're stupid because either they're not smart enough to figure out that something they believe isn't literally real or they're dumb for continuing to believe in something that isn't literally real. Although if he's pushed, he'll admit that experiences can still be important even if they're not real. It's a bit hypocritical.

I tend to assume that there's some explanation, usually a combination of E/H or G, for why someone would say something that I can't believe. Even when I think someone is making things up, I generally leave the possibility open that they might genuinely believe it. Although, I do sometimes think that people are silly or guillible for believing the things they do.

In general, the average conclusion in this system seems to be F, G, or J, and a complete avoidance of A-C. I know at least one or two in here who'll admit they've rolled their eyes and decided D from a few posts, but none of us ever conclude that a statement we find unlikely means a system isn't multiple.

Regardless of what, we don't say anything. I mean, there are members of this community who've said publically that they don't believe we're a system at all. So really, not only would calling someone else's bluff look amazingly funny to those members, even on something far smaller, but we're also just really not inclined to put someone else in that position without something other than LJ comments at stake.

I've also personally noticed a lot of inverse-F, which would be where people are apparently not believed solely because they don't fit the community norms, and a lot of All or Nothing logic, where if a system seems to be lying about one thing, they're concluded to be lying about everything, including their multiplicity itself.

Truth is, this comm is anything BUT over-tolerant. A whole lot of members seem to think otherwise, though, and I wish I knew why. Otherwise, why's there a post about "people with crazy beliefs" just about every two weeks or so? Granted, your post is not like, say, the kind of thing that

jadedmosaic posted-- you're actually asking people for their input on things --but does it really matter if someone says something in a post or comment that makes you stop and think, "I don't believe you"? That happens in every community. It happens on

religiousdebate as often as breathing. I'll bet it even happens in

baaaaabyanimals over whether or not pictures are photoshopped. ("That kitty and monkey are SOOOOO photoshopped! There should be reflected light from the monkey on the kitty's fur!!!")

What I'm saying is it's an LJ thing. Maybe even an internet thing. But I'd rather not pay that much attention to it, in lieu of other topics that I'd rather see.

This isn't a post about crazy beliefs. People can say very mundane things and someone else won't believe them. Like you said, it happens in every community. In other communities though, people's responses to disbelief are much more clear cut. You either believe the pictures are photoshopped or you don't. Here, there are so many different ways you can react just because of the subjective nature of the experiences being described.

This isn't a post about crazy beliefs. People can say very mundane things and someone else won't believe them

That's true. I hadn't thought of it that way, as most of the comments I've seen showing disbelief about something in this community where in response to some statement about identity or religion (like "James is a minor character from X book" or "We believe that physical reality is just an illusion of the mind").

The more mundane a claim it is, the more likely I am to think it's true, even if it seems unlikely. Most people when they lie at least try to make up something more interesting than mundane...

I just want to add something in here that I probably should have said in my first reply... A lot of the things talked about on this community I had heard about or talked to other multiples who had experienced them (from their point of view) long before I ever got online almost 10 years ago. I think the internet just allows for people with similar beliefs and experiences to gather en masse and discuss...

People have made statements of disbelief about a lot of things in this community. People have argued about whether kids really speak lilspeak or if kids in systems are really kids. People have said they don't believe in SRA or in polyfragmented multiples. People have said they don't believe anyone can be multiple without splitting from abuse. A lot of people don't believe in the dissociative definition of multiplicity. People don't believe in spirits, soulbonds, otherkin, astral travelling, ect. People have aregued that you can't create new people. I think someone's even said they don't believe that people can be different genders from the body. I'm pretty sure most of them resulted in the person who didn't believe being yelled at.

Thinking about it, they were all about a general phenomenon/belief. I can't recall any scenario where someone said that they disbelieve a specific person's statement about a phenomenon. I think perhaps if it was more permisable for people to question someone directly you'd have fewer posts making broad dismissing statements about X phenomenon.

BTW: I've also known some RL nutcases who think that they can shake houses and bust lightbulbs by meditating. I mean, the woman was large, so maybe she got herself in a trance and started running around the house, but I strongly doubt that someone could do that. In that case, it's best to nod and agree and then run in the other direction ASAP.

Ah, yeah... When the whole 'toasters' thing comes up, it's not like I haven't had any 'strange experiences' personally, but a lot of the time, people seem more willing to believe that something happened due to their great mental powers or some aspect of being multiple, than that it happened due to an 'mundane' reason. My personal experience is that while a certain percentage of stuff is 'inexplicable,' most reports of such things tend to have mundane explanations. And some people will get very upset if you don't affirm them in this, or suggest an alternate interpretation, which suggests to me that what they're looking for is some kind of ego-stroking; someone to tell them they're powerful and special.

Of course, yeah, community standards are also a part of it. We've been in some places where it seemed to be so taken for granted that multiples all had 'weird experiences,' or more of them than most people, that some of us ended up feeling compelled to stretch our interpretations of certain thngs to make it look like something psychic or spiritual was going on. When we weren't at all sure it was.

We've been accused of being 'intolerant' of people who self-report a lot of toaster stuff. It's not so much that I lack tolerance for it as that a) there's a difference between saying "I can't explain this" and bragging, and b) I believe overemphasizing it is potentially destructive to people who have never had any such experiences, and might worry that they need them in order to be a 'real multiple.'

TGM

Thinking about it, they were all about a general phenomenon/belief. I can't recall any scenario where someone said that they disbelieve a specific person's statement about a phenomenon. I think perhaps if it was more permisable for people to question someone directly you'd have fewer posts making broad dismissing statements about X phenomenon.

The problem with specific statements is that they can be taken as attacks. If someone says to someone else, "I don't believe the kids in your system are really kids, they just think they are," it's not exactly a pleasant thing to hear. Take out the "I don't believe" part, as most comments do for brevity, and you have a statement that many systems would adamantly argue against and consider insulting. (Generalized statements aren't really better, though, as people tend to write those with a few specific examples in mind that they just aren't sharing.)

I believe it really does just boil down to disbelief in expressed identity or religion. Kids in systems, SRA or polyfragmented, non-abuse origins, dissociative multiples, spirits, soulbonds, otherkin, astral travelling, the creation of new people, the possibility of fragments or shards that aren't whole individuals, non-sentient system-members, and all sorts of issues that people believe in or don't believe in-- these are all matters that involve either a system or individual member's identity (as a kid, as survivors of abuse, as a spirit, as otherkin, etc.) or spiritual belief (in spirits, in astral travel, in YHWH, in the Goddess, in Yog Sogoth, in no gods at all, in Heaven or Hell, in the existance of other earths, in the existence of only this earth, in science as the only plausible method for finding objective truth, etc.). This is why the arguments can get so volatile: it touches on the most sensitive and highly prized facets of many system's lives (and many singlet's lives, too, for that matter).

I don't see a point in believing in facts. Facts don't care whether or not I put my trust in them, they just are, and if I'm wrong about them, they bite me on the ass. No amount of belief that they are or are not the case will make the slighest bit of difference. :}

well said!

Well said!

...

Can someone please explain to me this odd sense of 'believe' that does not mean "I think x is objectively true"? Because seriously, that's the only way I've ever heard 'believe' used off the Internet.

I would define it more as "I trust this to be the case", or "I think this is so". If there is certainty, I wouldn't use 'belief', because 'belief' is something that is done in cases of insufficient fact (or insufficient memory of fact). Dictionary I look at has "accept as true or real", "credit with veracity", and "to expect or suppose", all of which I would consider provisional. If something is known as a certainty or a fact, why say one believes it to be so? Just say it is so.

I'm also reminded of a Terry Pratchett quote. "Witches don't believe in gods. It would be like believing in the postman."

This is exactly how I feel. So many things that happen mentally/internally are metaphors for broad or distant concepts.

Roleplaying can be a means of consciously creating inner personality aspects. I created my thoughtforms through roleplaying, and I've had them around for fifteen years (with some changes in active roster).

I think the distinction is not so much "roleplaying vs. non-roleplaying" as "serious identification vs. entertainment", although there are grey areas between the two, as when someone creates a purely fictional character which then develops into a soulbond, identity-bond or similar autonomous entity (the terminology depends on the person(s) and their belief system).

Inner roleplaying has always been a part of my identity. I can recall doing it almost as soon as I could use language. I regard identity as a very fluid thing, more or less what a person believes, imagines and wills it to be.

As for finding other people's stories unbelievable: my opinion on this is that in subjective reality, as in dreams, anything is possible. Now, this does not mean that everything is equally true in intersubjective terms. Not all things "show up" in the shared, public world. So, a person can claim that an experience has more "objectivity", or intersubjective applicability, than it actually does.

I don't expect others to "believe in" my thoughtforms, necessarily. They aren't things that can be weighed and measured. They're a part of my life in the way that ideals, values, imagination, etc., can be a real and valid, if unobservable, part of a person's life.

Well... when you say you "don't believe in elves", what exactly does that mean? Because I don't believe in storybook elves either, any more than I believe in King Arthur as he's depicted in storybooks. However, there's a good deal of evidence that the stories of King Arthur do have a real historical basis, and there's also plenty of evidence (http://www.shelltown.net/~dangweth/elfsaga.html) that the stories of elves have a real historical basis.

My ancestry is northern Danish; as you'll note from the reference cited, it's not at all uncommon among Scandinavians (even in this modern era) to believe in elves, and to believe that some people are descended from elves. I've got all of what are traditionally considered to be the classic signs of such descent, so... *shrugs*.

Whatever 'elven ancestry' may mean on a genetic level, it definitely doesn't mean I don't have to live in the same world as everybody else. I'm not going to live a thousand years, nor is any grey ship coming to take me into the West, nor do I get any kind of "racial superiority points" which entitle me to anything I haven't earned by my own efforts. That last assumption is the one that usually rankles people the most, but it's bogus - 'different' doesn't mean better or worse; it just means different.

I have to wonder, if the Native Americans had all been assimilated or killed off before the age of modern record-keeping, would there now be people saying "I don't believe in Indians, so I think it's impossible that anyone is genetically Indian"? It seems likely.

"G) Think the system probably honestly believes their claims"

Ummm... just as a point of accuracy, 'the system' in this particular case doesn't believe anything at all. I have my opinions on the whole "elf thing"; I've stated my reasons for holding them, and I've provided verifiable documentation to support those reasons. However, Kír does not share those opinions - he maintains that he has no opinion on this subject, no interest in it, and no intention of being drawn into discussions about it. If Crist-Erui has any opinion about it (which is possible but doesn't seem too probable) he hasn't ever expressed it. We are three individuals; we don't necessarily agree on any given topic any more than three individuals with separate bodies might.

"There is no possibility that this could have taken place because they wouldn't have been able to contact the organization at that time and the organization wouldn't have been able to respond that rapidly."

I must have missed this, and since I don't know the details, I'm not in a position to judge whether or not you're correct. However, in this age of e-mail, it doesn't seem impossible or even improbable that a representative of an organization could receive and reply to a query over a weekend.

"Now, this one is a very clear case where the member had to either be lying or delusional. It's less clear when you run into a multiple that says that they're physically pregnant but when the guys use the body they're not pregnant anymore. Obviously, this can't physically happen but it's possible that the multiple in question might believe that it's true."

I'm not seeing the distinction between 'being delusional' and 'believing that something which physically can't happen does physically happen'. Pregnancy isn't a matter of opinion or definition, nor is there any difficulty about verifying it - either there's a fetus inside the womb or there isn't, and if there is, it's still there just the same no matter who is using the body.

I am of ancient Irish decent, from Druidic Celts. We have our stories of elven creatures, leprechauns, fairies, dragons and much more. As an adult I have done a lot of reading to find the basis of these legends and tales and have found many of them based in science and truth. Some are not. But, I personally feel that if I want to believe in fairies and dragons and it makes me feel something other than the hell I normally feel, then right on! It makes me happy to find a naturally growing circle of wild flowers and recognize it in my world as a fairy ring:) I have met two others (bodies) that would probably share a genetic ancestry with you...
I really like what you said about the American Indians... that was a really good point!:)

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Roleplaying as a Means of Creation.

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