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.




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