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Thread: Question Your Beliefs ---- Please

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    Question Your Beliefs ---- Please

    I used to believe that there was a Father Xmas, who came down the chimney.
    I used to believe in Tarzan, Superman, Batman and the Tooth Fairy.
    I had little regard for trees, and chopped them at will.
    I had little regard for other creatures, holding many in contempt, like the hyena, and hating others, like the snake.
    I had no appreciation of the incredible social cohesion that is practiced by bees, ants and other creatures such as whales and elephant herds.
    I was unaware of gays and lesbians, and when I found out, I was highly condemnatory.
    I saw Black folk as being inferior to White folk.

    Since then I have learned that animals are not dumb. I now know that they have attributes and gifts that are beyond my understanding. How does a weaver bird, whose brain is only as big as a pea, manage to weave a nest of such complexity, using only its beak, that I could never manage with my big brain and prehensile hands? How does it know to build it nest high if impending rains are going to inundate the area?
    How did our dog know that my son had a steel pin in his right thigh and signify this by always giving that thigh a sympathetic lick?
    How does a dog know when a person will suffer an epileptic fit within the following five minutes?

    The list is endless. I am now humbled in my ignorance of creatures that I once despised as dumb.
    So I have changed. I have changed as a human being. I now realize that I am but one tiny entity in a greater scheme of things of which I have only miniscule understanding.
    More importantly, I realize that the knowledge I have has been imparted to me by my parent(s), teachers, peers … who themselves have but a miniscule understanding of the greater scheme of things.

    Every day this is proved as the folly of man is exposed time and time again. We hunted the wild dog, as a pest, to the brink of extermination. We were forced to realize that this was a big mistake. We destroyed tropical forests, only to learn that they were the lungs of the planet. We used to kill one twin at birth. We would also kill a baby if its top teeth emerged first as we believed that child was a witch/wizard.
    We executed one of the greatest minds, Socrates, for disputing our belief that the earth was flat and that the Sun revolved around it. We persecuted Aristotle for the same reason.

    The list of our ignorance is endless, and I am humbled at its magnitude.
    The people that exported over 130, 000 children from Britain to Australia did not do so because they were wicked. The colonialist that invaded, conquered and subjugated did not do so because they were wicked. The terrible wars were waged on belief, on righteous flawed belief. The suicide bomber who kills and maims even woman and children, does so on belief.

    All these were/are ordinary folk, like you and me, simply act out the norms, values and beliefs of their time, as handed down to them by those that came before them.
    What they failed to do was question those norms, values and beliefs. They failed to realize that “belief” is not “knowledge”. They confused and conflated the two.
    Now, are you doing the same? Are you confusing and conflating belief and knowledge? Are you distinguishing belief and knowledge?
    Probably not. It is likely that you are comfortable in your ethnicity as a Black, White, German, Jew, Shona, Afrikaner, Ndebele … over which you had no control … and simply accept the norms, values and beliefs of the grouping that you find yourself in. It is likely that you are also committed to a religion that was handed down to you by your parents or teachers.

    So if you were born into the Yaohnanen tribe on the southern island of Tanna in Vanuatu you would be convinced that Prince Philip, consort of Queen Elizabeth II, is the embodiment of a spirit that was born of the volcano of their island, the pale-skinned son of the mountain spirit.
    If you were born in Iran you would be a Moslem and believe in Allah.
    There are an estimated 4, 200 religions in the world, deriving support almost purely on account of where adherents were born. Quite obviously they cannot all be right.

    So, you really do need to take stock, review, examine and scrutinize what has been handed down to you, what you have inherited … what you believe.
    You need to do this as it may not be right. It might not be true. It might not be real. It might well be the product of opinion, supposition, superstition and imagination conceived by an uninformed mind in years gone by.
    You have a mind. You are a member of a species known as Homo sapiens, to distinguish your intellectual and cognitive ability from other creatures. You are not a sheep, that does not think for itself, but just follows whoever is leading.
    If you do not do this you are at real risk of behaving like our predecessors and committing very bad, even evil acts and omissions, that our successors will clearly see as the product of ignorance, including arrogant ignorance.

    Truth is the key to advancement and the welfare of this planet and its creatures.
    Yes, truth is elusive. Because it is elusive it is even more critical that it be established by reason, not belief.

    Reason is a discipline of the mind.
    Belief is a luxury of the heart.
    Reason is concerned with fact.
    Belief is concerned with supposition, even imagination.

    So please question your beliefs.
    They may well be even dangerous.
    Let us have the conversation!
    Blog: http://coginito.blogspot.com Cognito ergo sum

  2. Thank given for this post:

    Andromeda (05-Jul-18), Dave A (02-Jul-18), sneakie (31-Aug-18), Xplosiv (03-Jul-18)

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    This is very intereresting. Thanks.

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    Well said! Can I share this with others?

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    Quote Originally Posted by sneakie View Post
    Well said! Can I share this with others?
    Absolutely.
    Share everything I post.
    Let us have the conversation!
    Blog: http://coginito.blogspot.com Cognito ergo sum

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