How many of us have the will or ability to examine our own core beliefs and values?

Question

We invest a great deal in our worldview, in the conclusions we arrive at about the nature of life, its meaning and its purpose. Our identities are usually bound up in what we believe, or don't believe.

Regardless of how justified we may feel, how many of us can honestly examine those core aspects of ourselves without feeling that our very identities are being threatened?

Answer 1

I find it interesting that so many people will make their own choices about petty things like clothes and music, but will follow the will or choices of their families or friends regarding religion or politics, or what have you without question (or at least with too little).

Personally, I know we're constantly evolving and changing whether we want to or not, so we may as well have control of it instead of holding fast to beliefs that haven't held up to scrutiny. As I get new information, I adjust my world view to fit. Honestly, I haven't learned much that changes my core beliefs (and I've certainly put them to the test), so I must have picked good ones. When it comes to overall opinions and political positions, I do have to adjust constantly for new information, and I'll admit it when I'm wrong or running on hearsay.

Great question, by the way.

Answer 2

If you really want to learn the answer to this question, there are experiments that you can do in order to gather statistical data. Simply go around Yahoo Answers, and other forums on the Internet, asking questions like these:

"Is racism really bad? Or is diversity the really bad thing?"

"Isn't pretending that the races are the same going to lead to horrible trouble at some future time?"

"Doesn't race-mixing cause racial tension? If so, then wasn't racially integrating the schools the wrong thing to do?"

I'm sure you can think of more questions of about this same nature. The point is, if you're going to learn the extent to which people become addicted to their sacred cows, then you have to probe the cows that actually are the sacred ones, and not the "false flags" that are set up to divert and confuse honest researchers and to give dishonest researchers something "safe" to research while pretending to probe sacred cows.

In this world, at this time, the real sacred cow is the theory of racial equality. The divinity of Jesus might have been a sacred cow five hundred years ago, but he has been eclipsed as a sacred cow today by the theory of racial equality. He isn't the only former sacred cow to have been eclipsed, of course: I mention him for illustration.

Whether or not the theory of racial equality is true or false, you should focus a great deal of attention on the soundness of its believers' epistemology. How is it that they "learned" their belief that the races are equals? Did they do any tests of the matter - or, perchance, are they ignoring the results of tests, and trying to find excuses to rationalize away the results of tests, which are in conflict with the theory of racial equality? Why would anyone, who does not seem to be a habitual liar about most things, engage in such behavior?

You've heard of "mass hysteria" and "mass delusion." Might there be, also, a form of "mass Stockholm syndrome" by which people generally become enamored of lies that lead them to ruin in the long run because the false beliefs protect them from immediate harm?

So your question isn't speculative. You have a practical focus and a workable avenue for your inquiry. If you want your question answered, then it is time for you to get to work asking Sensitive Questions and examining the sheep when they line up to baa.

And, while you're asking those questions, there is one more. It's a question that people have been asking for centuries, and it has acquired a name. It's the "Jewish Question."

"Is there anything special about Jews that would motivate informed and reasonable non-Jews to exclude them from their societies and, most especially, from positions of influence in their societies?"

Remember: although you want the truth, you're at least as interested in the epistemology behind the answers as you are with which answer is correct.

Answer 3

I have spent the better part of my life examining myself and my belief system and am very self aware . I seek the truth in all thing's objectively, I have discovered through my self awareness and direct confrontation that most people refuse to or are unable to face their own truth's . It has become verry dis-heartening to observe such willing ignorance. I have lost my faith in humanity forever. Most people will never trouble themselve's with gaining any kind of self knowledge and are afraid of their own truth's.

Answer 4

do not you imagine that is a touch patronising fact to signify that non secular human beings do not learn what they suspect, or question what human beings say? only because they disagree with you, it doesn't advise they don't imagine. I actually do not comprehend any non secular human being who ought to assert that they have got by no skill examined or puzzled their beliefs, interior a similar way that i imagine each and every non-non secular human being has puzzled their beliefs at one element or yet another. i'm 100 p.c. confident that God has given us mind to apply it. although, this is now to not say we ought to continuously matter entirely on chilly mind. it is also a mistake to imagine that non secular establishments refuse to allow using intelligence, or doubt. that is actual that many carry particular issues as doctrine, and deviation as heresy, yet all conception structures have particular tenets which outline them.

Answer 5

I do. I re-examine them on a regualr basis.
As to threatening our identities, it as to, everytime you change a core belief, you change how you view yourself too. That doesn't mean it's a bad thing, just a change.

Answer 6

I believe a lot of us would prefer not to know ourselves that well!@

Answer 7

i do it all the time.

Is what I am doing fair and honest? Do I treat people decently because I have to or i want to?

Answer 8

all have ability, few have will