When People Will Not Change Beliefs -
People may claim to believe in things that are clearly rubbish and
disproven. They may know fine well the beliefs are wrong and be too
stubborn to admit it.
Some people seem impervious though to facts and to evidence that
disprove their beliefs or at least show them to be unbelievable.
You may feel that they seem to be but there is no real proof that
anybody is. Unless you are one of those people you cannot be sure.
Sometimes we are part of a group and we need to believe what the group
believes for it helps us fit in the group and gain support and benefits
from it.
Life is harder and more anxious if you question everything you are told
all the time. Sometimes it is easier just to assume that what you are
told is the truth for it often is the truth. But in the days of
information communication technology there is no need for anybody to
take anything on faith.
We like to think we are right and that those who say they know we are
wrong are in fact themselves wrong. It makes us feel big and superior.
We tend to expose ourselves only to influences that seem to confirm what
we think or believe.
Our beliefs and opinions affect our behaviour. We are scared that new
beliefs and opinions may change us or provoke us to change. We are
afraid that if we change too much that we may face failure and ridicule
and rejection from others.
We feel ashamed if we strongly stand by beliefs and they turn out to be
wrong. That is why we can try to justify ourselves even to people who we
know we are wrong.
We twist our perception and the way we see things so that everything
seems to confirm what we believe or think already.
Denialism can prevent us changing our minds.
We have experienced the hideous results of governments going into denial
that there are problems with our climate and that their policies are to
blame.
Denialists, in regard to any subject, will be in a minority and they
will know they are in it. So how do they deal with the majority
disagreeing with them? They develop conspiracy theories to deal with it.
A conspiracy theory is a psychological trick for preventing others and
yourself from seeing what may be the truth. You make excuses for why
evidence contradicting you should be disregarded. You are only
interested in the evidence that suits you. That is why a conspiracy
theorist who thinks that the Vatican is run by Satanists will try to
explain away any evidence that it is not. He says the evidence is part
of the conspiracy and should be disregarded. He will pounce on the
evidence that he thinks fits his theory. There is a danger of the person
becoming so biased that they end up stuck forever in their nonsense.
If the Vatican is conspiring to serve Satan deliberately, then those who
are in this conspiracy will not play fair. You are accusing them of
being everything bad under the sun. If you think they are dangerous
liars then what you have to do is to make it harder for them to keep
telling their lies. You want to be a threat to them. You make demands of
them they cannot keep.
Denialists tend to think that as most people don't know how to reason
correctly or simply don't try enough they may use logical fallacies to
trick them to agree with their denialism. The end justifies the means.
Fake experts will be upheld as long as they seem to agree with one's
denialism.
If a denialist cannot get you to deny what he denies, he will get you to
doubt it.
Denialism is often dangerous. In major issues, it is very dangerous and
borders on hate speech. Hate speech does not have to command violence to
be pro-violence. It can manipulate people into violence without making
it obvious.
Religion likes to say that it cannot help its beliefs for they are so wise and beautiful and given by God. That is crafty and seeks to discourage critics.
Many think that our beliefs - say that homosexuality is
immoral and that atheists should get the plague and die and go to Hell - are not
voluntary and so should not be criticised. But even if we think a person who
wants a group slain is believing that involuntarily we will criticise. We
cherry-pick. A belief being not chosen does not mean nothing can be done about
it. The flu is not chosen either. If a belief is not chosen that is
all the more reason for challenging it.