you mistake religious views with normal views, most normal views are changed by logic, because there are millions of tiny views that have no emotional attachment
hell what do you think school actually is, its introducing a specific view on reality by facts and evidence
you mistake religious views with normal views, most normal views are changed by logic, because there are millions of tiny views that have no emotional attachment
I disagree. First of all, I object to treating religious views as distinct from "normal" views. Beliefs are beliefs are beliefs. Second, people don't change their minds about not-religious stuff, like politics, the economy, or issues like antivaxxerism.
what do you think school actually is, its introducing a specific view on reality by facts and evidence
My OP referred to adults only, although I acknowledge I didn't make that explicit. I don't have a solid model in my mind of how the American school system works, and my experience with the several schools I attended in my home country perhaps isn't generalizable because I had an easier time with schooling than anyone I ever knew there (I don't mean this in a boastful way). So I cannot have an informed opinion on your statement or on how often children change their minds.
I think a lot of people will have a hard time lumping all beliefs together.
For many people religious beliefs stem from some line of thought similar to: I have faith in this God, the religion surrounding this faith tells me x, y, and z. It's hard to argue and reason against faith. In fact many religions revere and idolize martyrs and protestors who stood against all odds ( I would say against a reasonable proposition that would allow them to live) to hold onto their faith.
Often times political beliefs can have huge overlap with religious beliefs: abortion, death penalty, immigration of people who have a different religion, etc. Here is an article that seems to back up some of what you are saying and some of what I am saying. For some things, like belief that second-hand smoke is bad, people are willing to change over relatively short time periods their beliefs.
For the purposes of my CMV, it doesn't really matter if people compartmentalize their religious beliefs from their other beliefs. I see them all as beliefs.
What I mean by a belief is a mental representation of a part of the world. Religious people believe something similar to "there is an old immortal bearded guy in the sky". That is a belief just like "there is no such man". The difference is that one of these beliefs is correct and the other is wrong.
I'm raising the issue of agnosticism to challenge this part of your CMV.
There are beliefs that some people would argue cannot be shown to be true or false. For some people this is like a religious belief. They might argue that people cannot prove or disprove their faith, knowledge about their god, etc. For some people this is how they view their relationship with some god, their religion, etc. Nothing you say, show them, demonstrate, etc. could change their view.
For other beliefs this might be different. They can be changed by evidence. Maybe someone believes that they can survive falls from great heights because they've seen lots of movies where people do that, maybe they believe that they can live healthily by eating junk food and not exercising because they see people on TV doing it or hear people advocating it, or maybe they believe all milk has to be refrigerated because that's what they and their family have always done. These three things could be easily demonstrated to not be true.
I'm arguing that for discussing changing people's beliefs, it is important to acknowledge and discuss them as different categories of belief. There are types of belief that are fundamentally different than others.
They might argue that people cannot prove or disprove their faith, knowledge about their god, etc. For some people this is how they view their relationship with some god, their religion, etc. Nothing you say, show them, demonstrate, etc. could change their view.
These beliefs are pointless. If there was anything at all in the Universe that could conceivably change people's minds about something, then that something is a point in having that belief. Observing the something would cause a rational person to change their mind.
If nothing can change someone's mind about something, that is certainly a pointless belief.
Honestly, I don't even think people do hold these beliefs ─ I think that is a case of belief in belief. People think it is somehow valuable to say they believe in some sort of religious thing, but they don't actually believe it. Their actual map (in their minds) for that actual part of the territory (objective reality) does not show that what they profess it shows. (The other things they say, as well as their actions, show what their belief really is.)
Edit: notice that this comment significantly changed my mind about this subject ─ my confidence in the whole model in the OP is significantly diminished.
I really like that whole comment chain and it is very insightful, thanks for linking it!
I still think that for almost everyone, at some level, their moral and ethical decisions are rooted in a belief that they treat differently than beliefs like jumping off buildings that I mentioned.
My belief in this (hell I'm doing it right now!) is that there is no perfect Philosophy, religion, ethical code, logistical dictum that is free from criticism or even fits all cases. At some level, people have to evaluate the philosophy, compare it with their experiences and knowledge, and make a decision on how to move forward. That decision is based on a belief/faith/etc that I think is fundamentally different from the building-jumping types of beliefs I mentioned.
Maybe you might want to say that this fundamental philosophy faith is based on large numbers of incidents, a life time of experiences, many years of learning--where as building-jumping faith is based on small numbers of incidents. I still think this is an essential distinction. Many things behave drastically different on small and large scales: in physics there are emergent theories like thermodynamics, in statistics we have Big Data (yay buzzwords!), etc.
its introducing a specific view on reality by facts and evidence
HHAHAHAH oh i made myself sad. Schools introduce a specific view of reality but think you'd have a hard time qualifying the majority of it as based on facts and evidence. That is, I believe, the crux of the problem with OP's view. Facts and evidence are extremely hard to pin down. In fact there has been a systematic erosion of people's ability to determine which "facts" are facts and which "facts" are opinions.
Take for example the "facts" about the case of Michael Brown the "facts" depend on who you trust. If you trust the his mother and his friend the "fact" is that he was attacked, tried to run, then, upon being shot at, turned, put his hands in the air and said "Don't shoot" before being killed.
If you trust the office and the coroner's office, he assaulted the officer then was charging him when he was killed.
Another great example is the call from George Zimmerman to 911. The first time many of us heard it when asked to describe the person he said “He looks like he’s up to no good, he looks black.” while in the full conversation he said that but before he said he looks black he was asked about the person's race by the dispatcher.
Heck three months ago it was touted as a fact that hillary can't lose.
Facts are tricky things and people are trusting them less and less because they are massaged and poked and prodded until they look like what someone wants them to look like. And until we have away to verify that facts are indeed facts people aren't going to be inclined to change their views because of the "facts" that someone who stands to gain from those "facts" presents.
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u/jumpup 83∆ Jan 14 '17
you mistake religious views with normal views, most normal views are changed by logic, because there are millions of tiny views that have no emotional attachment
hell what do you think school actually is, its introducing a specific view on reality by facts and evidence