For many centuries, humans believed that the world was flat. It took great courage and conviction to travel around the globe ensuring that one did not to fall off the edge at the end of the world.
Belief is the acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists, based on trust, faith or confidence in someone or something.
At this point, the word “ignorance” comes to mind. In fact knowledge (the opposite of ignorance) is based on facts, information, and skills. Generally speaking, all of these are acquired by a person through his or her life experiences and education – through the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject – as well as through parents, environment and upbringing.
When Scandinavian parents needed a convenient explanation for how babies arrived, they repeated the story of a stork delivering new bundles of joy down the chimney chute. Hans Christian Andersen wove this folklore into his 1838 fairy tale “The Storks.” Therefore, for many children it seems, right to believe that any younger siblings should be delivered by a Stork. It is also a great belief, for many children across the world that their Christmas presents will be delivered by Santa Claus (Saint Nicholas or Father Christmas).
[Of course, we all know, now, that babies are delivered by Amazon and with the use of drones]
As adults, we have also our own convictions and we fuel our perceived knowledge with statements made by the media, politicians and friends – to name a few. As we grow old, we also, sometimes, request more evidence.
People generally form belief systems based on evidence, tradition, authority, association, and revelation.
There are also many statements/views expressed internationally by personalities like Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Bill Gates, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, and many more. Add to that, the fact that the cache of our beliefs is also shaped by the presence significant people in our lives and by our local environment.
[It is easy to laugh at others but we don’t see what makes others laugh at us]
We tend to prefer “our own” selection of popular personalities and accept almost anything these people say at face value. We do not question the celebrities that we admire and, often, our ignorance is such that our beliefs are based on trust and nothing more – no matter how wrong that source may be.
[Very often, it is not just a matter of questioning what celebrities are saying, it is just that we do not listen and in some cases, we do not want to listen/understand. Full stop]
Statements made by these people – even by our friends – often carry no truth. Even so, we believe these statements and often defend them blindly. We stand by the opinions of people we know or admire because we want them to be right – because we want to validate our admiration and association with them – even when there is no evidence to support anything these people have said.
As much as we laugh and joke about other people on something like the three monkeys – see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil – we very often fail to recognize that our behaviour is just like those three monkeys.
We hold onto our comfortable beliefs, because the truth comes with the potential to change us: it invades our territory and threatens the stability of our plans for life, alters our egos and hurts our feelings; the truth reminds us that almost everything we do is dangerous – based on assumptions and typical emotional patterns – and insecure. The anxiety of uncertainty is pitched against the effort of detection; that is to say that we are all too scared or too lazy – sometimes both – to discover the truth. Instead, we create fantasies to satisfy the needs of our own egos.
This kind of behaviour brings us to a “disconfirmation bias”, which makes us critical of those things that are contrary to our beliefs. In fact, while we “hear no evil” we actually become critical of the truth, objecting to a reality that will disprove our beliefs – making our celebrities and friends look like “deceivers” – and make us look foolish, insecure or otherwise weak.
As part of a “comfort zone”, our belief systems shape our reasoning and behaviour. What we believe creates our reality, and contributes to this behavioural predisposition. Many find it difficult to reason about what they consider to be false beliefs. Our own knowledge of an event’s outcome can compromise our ability to reason about another person’s belief on an event.
People do not, in reality, take inductive reasoning to logical conclusions. They prefer to acknowledge false information without going further, without considering how strong the feeling of their false belief is.
It is much simpler to adopt a false belief than it is look or listen for the truth.
Max Procaccini 