Of all the beliefs you hold, the most dangerous...

[Undertoad]

...are the ones you *want* to believe in. Because they reaffirm how you believe the world works, and without that framework you become confused, or lost.

Those are the beliefs you will accept without testing. And strangely, those are the beliefs you hold that you are most likely wrong about.

(me too)

[jimhelm]

I heard that

[TheMercenary]

Where is the balance and how would you proceed? Do you propose that everyone should cast off all those beliefs the they believe to be the current truth? Why shouldn't everyone who thinks this way not just kill themselves right now? If everything they believe to be the truth about the way the world works is now assuemed by you and others to be false just be done with it already? That is total crap. You are basically casting aside years of experience for the idea that what people have learned and understand are now false. What utter Bullshit.

[Undertoad]

What beliefs have you held that you no longer do?

[Lamplighter]

OK, I'll play...

I believe people are basically good and that I can start from a position of trust for others to do good.

But, some people are so fanatical in their beliefs there's just no talking to them.
Sometimes this scares the behesus out of me because I know the damage they could do... lots of examples of this.

... And strangely, those are the beliefs you hold that you are most likely wrong about.

But contrary to UT's last idea, I do not agree that my beliefs are most likely to be wrong. I'm still hangin' in there.

[Pico and ME]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

What beliefs have you held that you no longer do?

I used to think I knew what people were thinking when they were thinking about me. (usually negative)

I finally dropped that belief when I realized they mostly weren't thinking about me at all.

[casimendocina]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

What beliefs have you held that you no longer do?

That those who claim to be friends/allies will always do the right thing by those in their circle.

So, obviously it's a bit more complicated than that and perception and circumstances are big factors in deciding what is the right thing to do in any situation and as the layers of any individual or situation are peeled back over time, decisions can change and sometimes you have to put yourself first, but why someone would cultivate trust and respect over a long period of time and then wantonly squander it is beyond me.

[xoxoxoBruce]

How you think the world works.

How you believe the world should work.

How the world works.

Every once in a blue moon, these three paths converge for a brief moment in time. Oh what a sweet spot that is.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

What beliefs have you held that you no longer do?

That people are mostly good. I am a pessimistic cynic.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by jimhelm

I heard that

I had to chuck 2 majors over the last few years, it is tough but not as tough as defending the indefensible.

[Trilby]

I used to believe that people were horrible and only wanted to manipulate me. I don't believe that anymore but it took a life-change to come to that awareness. Working in health care (esp. in the US) makes normal people -and even empathetic people - lose their mojo. It's an inhumane, killing profession unless you're making HUGE money at it and even then you can lose your soul.

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

... Those are the beliefs you will accept without testing. And strangely, those are the beliefs you hold that you are most likely wrong about. ...

Isn't it a strange twist of fate that, while those are the beliefs you are least likely to be right about, some of them may be among the most conducive to survival of the species. Or, rather than fate, perhaps it's the best argument in support of self determination that we adopt beliefs like "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, ... " even though such beliefs are too young to have withstood the test of time (in terms of a species' lifespan).

Of all the beliefs you hold, the safest are the ones you *want* to believe in ... if you're a man or woman of vision.

[classicman]

Over the last 1 1/2 I have been almost completely reevaluating many of my core beliefs. Life has completely changed for me. I now live in a reality that is something I could not have ever imagined.
I used to think people were selfish, negative ... basically a$$holes. I have always had a relatively small number of close friends. They were people I have trusted my entire life. Most of the people I met through work, sports, clubs or whatever never seemed to develop into anything more than casual friendships.

The outpouring of love, assistance, offers, prayers, guidance and support really took me by surprise. It still does. So many people did so many things for me and my family, a relative stranger - just someone in the community. I still don't know what to think overall, but I know that my original belief was incorrect and there are a lot of good, no great people out there. Some of them are posters here as well. To them I'll just say Thank you, again.

[Undertoad]

I was really moved by an episode of This American Life (#214), where they told the story of David Paladino. His mom had a tryst with a black man in high school, and David was the unexpected result. But it wasn't a good story for mom, because she was a white cheerleader dating the white class president. Race relations were iffy at the time and place. So when her white boyfriend just assumed that the pending baby was his, it became so much more convenient for her, that she went along with it, and they married.

The baby comes out a little whitish - didn't look black - and so she was relieved, and continued to go with the story she wanted. Kid's a little dark but hey, it's possible that the family from Sicily were dark-skinned Italians. So the mom and the dad had an incredibly strong belief that this is their son together, and it goes on.

Now as the boy grows up, his racial traits come out more and more, and he's very obviously an interracial child. After days in the summer sun, this is a black kid. And everyone around them believes David is black. Almost every day there's somebody treating him as if he's black. It gets totally weird. In high school, college, it becomes annoying to him, so he starts stating his Italian heritage right up front to anyone who'll listen. Wearing shirts that say "Another Italian masterpiece", and such.

It takes him until age 27, when he has a confrontation with a homeless guy and his girlfriend, to blurt out almost by accident that he's not absolutely positive whether he has some color in him. And even then, with this weird uncomfortable notion now popping up in his head, it takes him 2 years to confront his mom. And his mom, finally, gives him the truth.

So here is a case where the evidence is everywhere. In the mirror! In every person he relates to, who asks him almost immediately about his race. In pale mom and dad and his two pale sisters. But David and his entire family find it so uncomfortable to unravel their adopted reality that they actually work really hard to maintain their belief, reinforcing it all along. To do otherwise would endanger the family structure, and they desperately don't want that to happen.

Do you have beliefs like this in your head? How would you ever know? Do you react with anger to the very idea that you might contain some fundamental falsehoods? Maybe I overstated the idea that these beliefs could be "dangerous", because they are, after all, what we want, what we depend on, and no actual harm going through life believing you're Italian.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Italian? I'd be denying that to the grave.