I have been hearing a lot of what seems like backwards mentality to me lately, like, “I am a Christian therefore I believe in…” instead of, “I believe in…therefore I am a Christian.” or, “I am an atheist; therefore I do not believe that a god exists.” Instead of, “I don’t believe that god exists, therefore I am an atheist.”
As soon as you slap a title down before your belief or non-belief, you are putting yourself in a uncompromising restrictive position where you look for things to believe in or not to believe in to support the title. This mentality more often then not misdirects one away from the very truth that one is seeking. This backwards mentality often creates confirmation bias, ignores convincing opposing evidence, and simply makes one less reasonable. Have you every tried conversing with someone of this type of mindset? They are often narrow, unmoving, and restrict themselves to the boundaries of a title rather then evidence.
Want a fresh start? Here are five tips to avoid this mentality:
- Do not let titles dictate your beliefs. Optimally, remove all labels and titles from yourself.
- Reexamine your beliefs and discard those beliefs you’ve acquired because of a title placement.
- Do not let your personal preferences, desires, craving for control, and hopes interfere with where the evidence takes you.
- Follow the evidence where ever it may lead you, without expectations.
- Accept that new evidences could and might present themselves again that will lead you elsewhere from where you are now.
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The best tips I’ve seen in a long time, because of their truth. In those sentences is the allowance to relax, observe, and remain open and curious. I can’t quite put the feeling into words, but if I were to choose one word it would be “expansive”, and that simply feels like relief. Excellent.
Pentad, thank you. I’m glad you found these tips useful. And I appreciate your thoughtful insight.
It was plain nice to see them written in point form, and simply formulated. If one begins with your mentioned title-form, then finding truth becomes impossible as a result of constraint. If I were to put a title on all of the avenues I have explored, it would be a confusing reality, and most likely end up something like “Jack (or Jill..lol) of all trades”. Any title is personally utterly unnecessary and value-less as a starting point in a search for truth. Yet, I perceive in my experience that people “seek” a variety of different things, and this most likely causes everyone to, “talk past each other”, engaged in personal missions, and not taking time to come to axiomatic agreement, and/or express what they are seeking.
Nice list. Especially > “Follow the evidence where ever it may lead you, without expectations.” Some evidence – http://www.rps.psu.edu/sep98/missing.html
I am an evolutionist, therefore, that is just so true ;)
Let’s keep our mind open:-))!
.-= angelshair´s last blog ..Did you say New Zealand??!! =-.
There’s almost always a contradiction between what someone believes and how they behave. That’s why they say: Actions speak louder than words.
thak