(May 8, 2013 at 2:11 pm)Harris Wrote: It is very easy to criticise or blame any ideology simply based on first impressions that we have about it. We don’t want to put efforts to learn the truth behind the scenes because we feel lazy. Laziness is another form of pleasure. It is this laziness that keeps us away from our learning process. This laziness also causes hatred, jealousy, vice, etc., when we see others as well-being compare to us. A lazy man don’t want to work but want to have everything and this attitude provoke him to use dangerous shortcuts for the satisfaction of pleasure requirements.
I think it is fear, moreso than laziness, that will keep a person from stepping outside of his or her comfort zone. I think that above all, we crave comfort, in every possible way. Not knowing the truth of a matter does not provide comfort, and so we will seek answers. Or, if answers are not forthcoming, we may accept any explanation. And if we need to suppress our ability to reason in order to be convinced, we may do so.
I was reading a book on psychology, and one thing that researchers found was that we will seek out information that reinforces what we believe, while we will avoid information that challenges it. There are areas where we will not follow that script (example- theists who come here to challenge and be challenged) but in most of our life, we will cling securely to the things we believe and we will protect those views and beliefs far more actively than we may think. I believe we do this because it comforts us.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould