Study:Strongly held incorrect beliefs often cannot be changed by disputing facts

[Ksa]

Final thought: People believe all sorts of illogical stuff,by doing this they have benefits on psychological level,it makes them feel good,find comfort in difficult times,put some meaning in their lives (It never fascinates me enough that meaning is keeping us from all killing ourselves). Fine if your sky daddy is keeping you from killing yourself and giving you comfort well let it be then,but do not impose your emotional states on the rest of us.

No. I begin my talk saying no, not because I am close minded, but to protect others from your suicidal sayings so that they can discard your argument as quickly as possible before it does any damage.

Your purpose on this Earth is to eat, drink, fuck and raise children. If you do not derive strong pleasure from either one of these activities, you are profoundly ill and are in need of immediate psychiatric attention.

When you have sex, masturbate, drink or eat tasty food, you should piss yourself in pleasure and be amazed by your existence in this world. It should be a rush, like, your limbs go weak and you go like, "yes! this is it!". If you cannot feel a rush from any of these activities, seek medical help immediately. Go to a psychiatrist and tell him/her what you feel.

Serotonin has a strong time component. If you have low serotonin, life will seem like Hell and most of all, you will feel like things won't ever change. That's the purpose of serotonin, to provide a time component to your feelings, but make no mistake, a small adjustment to it by an SSRI and your life will change dramatically. Do not base your reasoning on the way your serotonin makes you feel.

[Silver]

It has nothing to do with willpower it's to do with instinct. Challenging the 5,000 daily decisions you make is grossly inefficient. Which is why you don't challenge most of those decisions. What we're talking about - pre-held beliefs - are what you base your future decisions on, thus why it's difficult to change them, because you rely upon them to make the "correct" decisions; thus you believe they are correct.

That does not excuse ignorance. Ignorantly held beliefs can be changed, we all know that, because many atheists were once genuine theists who adhered to ignorant beliefs.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

It has nothing to do with willpower it's to do with instinct. Challenging the 5,000 daily decisions you make is grossly inefficient. Which is why you don't challenge most of those decisions. What we're talking about - pre-held beliefs - are what you base your future decisions on, thus why it's difficult to change them, because you rely upon them to make the "correct" decisions; thus you believe they are correct.

I agree with what you're saying about decision-making and the inertia which resists us to modify the decisions we make, but that's not really the point of the article, which is that people will hold onto cherished beliefs in the face of daunting evidence to the contrary.

Take your example about margarine. You've made the decision to choose a particular brand. You like the value, the taste, the packaging, everything about it. You feel no need and see no reason to change.

Now along comes Brian Buzzkill Boru. I point out to you that your cherished margarine contains 10% rendered human fat. I take you to the factory where the margarine is made. The managing director explains to you that, yes, the margarine you've chosen is 10% human fat. He explains the process (how and where they harvest the human beings, what is done with the byproducts, how they disguise the taste), shows you his manifests and bills of lading for shipments of humans to be made into margaine, etc. Finally, the takes you on a tour of the facilities and shows you human fat being harvested directly from bodies, the rendering process, the manufacture, etc etc.

At this point, you look him in the eye and state, 'I don't believe you' and continue to buy margarine with people parts in it.

So, it isn't about making and staying with decisions - it is about continuing to hold beliefs that are demonstrably wrong in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The scientific term for this behavior is 'thick as a plank'.

Boru

[Angrboda]

I suspect you're assuming that people consciously "choose" to hang onto their beliefs in the face of counter-evidence. Most biases operate at the subconscious level, so it's entirely possible that people who are persevering in their beliefs have no control over the process.

[Ryantology]

One need only argue with one of our theists for a couple of posts to know that's true.

Anyone familiar with me knows I can be very recalcitrant, but both my political and religious opinions are nearly complete opposites over what they used to be. This wasn't accomplished by directly arguing with a person whose viewpoints were different, but by observing other people have the debate without me and seeing one side continuously describe reality better than the other.

You'll never change empty minds by engaging them directly, but someone else's mind might be changed by watching.

[Ksa]

One need only argue with one of our theists for a couple of posts to know that's true.

Anyone familiar with me knows I can be very recalcitrant, but both my political and religious opinions are nearly complete opposites over what they used to be. This wasn't accomplished by directly arguing with a person whose viewpoints were different, but by observing other people have the debate without me and seeing one side continuously describe reality better than the other.

You'll never change empty minds by engaging them directly, but someone else's mind might be changed by watching.

If you're taking about Zakir Naik, let me tell you a few words about that grease-ball cock sucker: Zakir Naik tells about 1 lie every minute and 1 scientifically incorrect statement every other minute. The debates were held in an Islamic setup and only poorly prepared christian pastors were brought forth purposefully. I know Ahmed Deedat debated a famous pastor but he didn't win the debate because the Qur'an was right, he won it because the Bible was wrong. Very different scenarios. Qur'an in one word is mitigation. The book is not written in a revelation style, it's written in "mitigate the mistakes" style. Ambiguous statements that mean 1,000 things each.

The Qur'an was written on the flaws of the Bible. It's like having a faulty instructions manual for a TV and I write another manual that's not about how the TV works, but about what's wrong in the other manual. Lets cut the crap, it doesn't exactly talk about how to use ammonia to fertilize the Earth, no insight on how to make antibiotics or anything useful to save human lives, no insights on the DNA molecule and it claims the Earth is the center of the universe. It also claims God made the Earth in 6 days. It also claims the light of the moon is its own light. That the sun rotates around the Earth (not around its own axis like that piece of shit states)

The concept of creator...is idiotic. Creation is an ongoing process, this post I make is also creation, because it didn't exist before, and now it does. Things evolve constantly, new animal species, new plants. Who is making them? If creation would have stopped on the 6th day, we would not notice it today. Creation is a process, not an awareness. It's like arylation or dealkylation in chemistry. It's, a process that is not aware and that is ongoing.

[Ryantology]

I have no idea who Zakir Naik is (well, now I do), though he does sound suitably odious.

The sort of debates I referred to were mostly just regular people debating religion/atheism in various port-a-potties around the internet.

[Anomalocaris]

If strongly held incorrect beliefs could be change by presentation of facts to the contrary, there would be no creationists, UFO nuts, pyramidologists, etc etc.

Boru

I think that would depend much more on 1) who the believer is, and 2) for what inner mental purpose did he embark upon the acquisition of the belief in the first place, than 1) what the belief is or 2) how strongly the belief is held.

This whole thing in turn hinges upon the convenient, commonly held, but by no means demonstrable assumption that a person really has control over what he conceive to be conscious mental processes.