andrewgprv
Second Class Citizen
http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-11/beliefs.html
"Because a basic tenet of both skeptical thinking and scientific inquiry is that beliefs can be wrong, it is often confusing and irritating to scientists and skeptics that so many people's beliefs do not change in the face of disconfirming evidence. How, we wonder, are people able to hold beliefs that contradict the data?"
This is a great article that I encourage everyone to read.
I defenatly agree with the author of this article. I myself have believed this for some time, because of my own experience. As I have mentioned on this forum before, I grew up mormon and my family and community was very religous (grew up in Salt Lake). In my teenage years I started to question the answers I had been spoon-fed since birth. And as the article states this did trigger a fight or flight response in me. For years I struggled between what I considered logicall answers and my known answers. I made about every excuse in the book for my religon but ulitmatly it did not stand up to my sceptical brain. However the whole process was life changing and very stressing. It was as if my entire perception of the world changed. Actually it did as the article explains, I had a map of reality in my head a map handed to me from my parents, by questioing this map and refusing to rely on it any longer I was left feeling vulnerable, lost and extrememly frightened. I think we all experience these feelings when our beliefs are challenged, we become defensive and scared.
"Because a basic tenet of both skeptical thinking and scientific inquiry is that beliefs can be wrong, it is often confusing and irritating to scientists and skeptics that so many people's beliefs do not change in the face of disconfirming evidence. How, we wonder, are people able to hold beliefs that contradict the data?"
This is a great article that I encourage everyone to read.
I defenatly agree with the author of this article. I myself have believed this for some time, because of my own experience. As I have mentioned on this forum before, I grew up mormon and my family and community was very religous (grew up in Salt Lake). In my teenage years I started to question the answers I had been spoon-fed since birth. And as the article states this did trigger a fight or flight response in me. For years I struggled between what I considered logicall answers and my known answers. I made about every excuse in the book for my religon but ulitmatly it did not stand up to my sceptical brain. However the whole process was life changing and very stressing. It was as if my entire perception of the world changed. Actually it did as the article explains, I had a map of reality in my head a map handed to me from my parents, by questioing this map and refusing to rely on it any longer I was left feeling vulnerable, lost and extrememly frightened. I think we all experience these feelings when our beliefs are challenged, we become defensive and scared.