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I agree with that, except, it wasn't something I made a conscious decision on, but it was very much an overnight thing. Thing that had made sense no longer did and things that did not, now did.
I also agree here, while I don't think we (I'll use we for myself and may other's here, but not everyone clearly) can control our feelings or beliefs, we can control how we act on them. I get angry at my wife or my kids, and I think you can choose not to actively dwell on them, or to go do something else with that time and energy.
I do think otherwise, yes, because I was in that position, and that didn't stop my belief set changing and then I stayed in that network for years after with no sign of it switching back. I visited pretty much every church I could get my hands on (well except Catholic, back in those days in Northern Ireland, that would still have been an issue), from Quakers to The brethren, from Methodist to Pentecostals. I devoured Christian apologetics, talked to my parents (both Sunday School teachers), to vicars and deacons. None of it made a difference to my belief set. Things i had believed now appeared silly and superstitious. Arguments that made sense now had holes big enough to drive lorries through. And I don't think I am alone in that. When I moved to America I dated an ex-Jehovah's witness who recounted similar struggles to the extent she was shunned by her family after leaving the church, and how she had struggled and prayed and fought to, in her words "stay in the light" and that was within an insular community where she was immersed even more than I was back in the day.
I would agree that media consumption and social desirability can have an impact on my beliefs of what is true, but I have not been able to observe it happening in real time, I have just seen it happen in other's so it seems arrogant to assume it doesn't happen to me.
To an extent I think most people's mind is changed for them. Not by an outside force but by their own inner workings. for example I had an online argument a long time ago, where I argued point A and someone else argued B. Some weeks later I realized B to be true and no longer A. I didn't choose to change my mind, but presumably below the level of conscious thought my mind was still churning away on that argument and was convinced. I can certainly choose my actions, by managing my emotional state, but that doesn't mean I can control what emotions I feel in the first place.
Some of this I certainly agree with, and to be clear I am not advocating that people do not have responsibility for their beliefs still. The sub-conscious is still part of us, and who we are as a person, no-one else can be responsible for our actions based upon our beliefs whether or not we chose what to believe consciously or not. IRA bombers still chose to kill people even if they didn't consciously choose their belief system.
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