Belief

We all have a certain willingness/weakness to believe things that are not supported by facts or evidence. Perhaps it's our fear of the unknown or our need for stability and certainty. So these beliefs become part of our frame of reference and provide security about the world and society we live in. We seldom challenge or change these beliefs and almost automatically resist any attempt by others who might prompt us to consider a different point of view or explanation. This can be referred to as cognitive dissonance, and simply means we have developed different coping mechanisms when presented with facts that impeach and deny our strongly held positions.

Reinforcement of our beliefs is critical to our sense of self and our commitment to act on our beliefs. We go to the same church as others who believe similarly. We have and continue to look for a community of friends and acquaintances who think the way we do on key issues. But we also claim to have friends who believe differently, so as to prove a high degree of open mindedness. We mostly read things that support our opinions. We prefer media that reflect what we believe and we seldom ask those who differ with us why they think the way they do, or how they arrived at their point of view.

We tend to label beliefs as conservative and liberal or secular and religious, even though those words have very little to do with why we believe what we do. Humans have always preferred binary choices and clearly defined terms for our differences. We like yes/no answers much better than essays.

To protect our beliefs systems we often elevate them to the status of spiritual. This makes it much more difficult to discuss the nature of one's beliefs and the possibility of being in error. Faith based beliefs have always been the most sacrosanct. Political, social, economic, etc. beliefs are typically up for constant debate and offer the opportunity for change. While people still fiercely defend their position on these other topics, there is usually room for honest disagreement, compromise and mutual respect. At least there used to be.

As individuals each of us has the autonomy to determine what we believe and why. However, many people and things stand in the way of our willingness to perform this self assessment. Who or what has influence over us? 

For one, so-called social media "Influencers" have actually manage to carve out a position of authority and expertise that they often lack. Our own laziness and sense of being overwhelmed by the information with which we are constantly bombarded often lead us to let someone else do the "research" and then just tell us what to believe. Whether it's the efficacy of a product or the validity of a political position, our belief systems may well be crowded with ideas and opinions for which we have made little or no effort to establish on our own.

Other powerful impacts on our decisions about what to believe include: religious affiliation, political movements, celebrity endorsements, family tradition, peer pressure, work environment, and many more. No wonder we resist having to examine our own beliefs. It's just too damn confusing and potentially mind numbing. We've pretty much written and talked our way into a position of "belief bias", which proclaims that "a belief is valid if that's what I believe". Any contradictory facts or evidence someone else might provide is irrelevant, and now, probably some AI falsehood.

To be clear, once we remove our own judgment and ability to gather and parse information in order to determine our own beliefs, we have given away our most important human ability. That is, to determine for ourselves what facts and information represent reality and what evidence supports our decisions to live the way we want, for ourselves, our family, our community, our country and our world. It's not that we shouldn't rely on others for guidance in our understanding of things, but our due diligence must include the vetting of those who would have us believe things based solely on our perception of their authority or expertise.

Finally, we should be really skeptical and downright petrified that our world might be moving in a direction where everyone believed and thought the same way. That's an authoritarian nightmare you can read about in Orwell, Huxley and others. The collision of different beliefs, opinions and points of view is what keeps the conversation alive about the nature of our time here and how we perceive our responsibilities to ourselves and each other. It's not just about "what" we believe, but how we arrived here and where we could be going.