One of the most difficult things to change in life is deeply held - TopicsExpress



          

One of the most difficult things to change in life is deeply held beliefs, which individuals accept as truth. Once individuals are convinced that something is true, they often hold on to it and their first impulse is to defend it, and see those who do not share it as opponents. At the moment, the world’s Rhino population are at risk of extinction because Vietnamese and some other Indo-Asians believe that rhino horn has healing power and can cure any illness. Because of this belief, they have killed all rhinos in Vietnam and currently fuelling the Rhino poaching in South Africa, which has put serious pressure on the rhino population. Even though there is scientific evidence demonstrating that Rhino horn is made of keratin the same substance our nails are made of, the Vietnamese still believe that Rhino horn is the magical medicine and are prepared to pay thousands for a small piece of it. Many people are not good at remembering that something that is true today may change tomorrow with more knowledge and understanding. It also not commonly acknowledged that it takes special insight to re-examine what one holds as truth, something religion does not encourage because its exposes the falsity of some of its dogmas. Therefore, many people hold on to their religious beliefs in the name of faith, no matter how false, unjust, irrational or absurd. This is a state of mind Philosophers describe as pathological certainty and psychiatrists call overvalued ideas or delusion; depending on the degree of conviction with which the belief is held. Some people who tried to change deeply held false beliefs in history came to ruin because those who benefited from the false beliefs felt threatened. Jesus of Nazareth himself was an example. It is often forgotten that his grouse with Judaism was the way they held, understood, explained and practised certain dogmas, which was really due to differences in understanding and attitude to a common beliefs. His ‘sin’ was that he tried to point out what was wrong with the attitude of his opponents. Socrates suffered the same fate; he was accused of corrupting the youth of Athens because he was teaching them to think for themselves and allow reason to inform whatever they accepted as truth. This tells us something about the evolution of societies, the role of beliefs and the need to learn from history that what is commonly believed may not be true and that the majority is often wrong. Two of the greatest problems of Africa are religion and traditional mind-set that has no room for reason and empiricism. At the moment several injurious and false traditional and religious beliefs are still held in many African societies as true. This malady cut across social classes and educational attainment. They afflict the rich and poor, princes and paupers and the young and old. They stop enlightenment, divide societies and sow the seeds of intractable conflicts. They make people defend injustices and ignorance, and make enlightenment difficult. Plato examined part of these problems in the cave of ignorance, in his book the ‘Republic’, and today, we know more how beliefs can destroy reason and induce intolerance and bigotry, which sow the seeds of intractable conflicts in some minds.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 02:34:43 +0000

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