Fight battles that make a difference

intellect comic

LinkedIn has an infinite amount of half-truths, lies, and outright BS. Fight battles that make a difference in your life.

It irritates me when I see something online that isn’t factually true. We have this amazing ability to verify facts, yet for many people, it just confirms their ignorance. Therefore it isn’t facts that are in question, but people’s willingness to be wrong and be uncomfortable.

No one likes to be wrong. No one likes to hear something that threatens their sense of self or their view of the world. People are defensive about their beliefs since they think that is the only way the world can be. If their beliefs are wrong, then they have been wrong, and thinking is not valued and is mostly avoided by the majority of people.

Rather than think, people have shown they will die. Therefore if we are going to make progress as a society we have to make it as comfortable as possible being wrong. We have to show people that it’s okay to make mistakes and that learning from a mistake takes a stronger person than ignoring reality.

Let’s take an example from my life. I used to believe that God protected me when I was involved In religion. I could therefore fly in a plane without any problems because with that logic nothing could happen to me. Now I don’t know that God is protecting me, so getting on a plane makes me anxious and claustrophobic. Just the idea that an all-powerful being cared about me transformed all my fears. Now I have plenty of fears, but I don’t pretend to know something I don’t.

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You can’t argue with someone who wants to believe what they want to believe. What an atheist offers someone who is a believer is uncertainty and who wants that? Therefore you must be wise in the battles your choose. Only speak to those who have grown past the need for a daddy to protect them. Speak to adults who are willing to be wrong, and willing to not be perfect and humble. Good luck finding these people.