by DavidG 18 Replies latest jw friends
Hi,
After gradually waking up to TTATT im finding myself with this question:
Since it is so easy to be indoctrinated with JW beliefs, are there other areas in my life where I'm also under influance of other false beliefs? From the culture i've grown up with, school etc?
Your comments on this please.
Probably, i have a question, were you raised in, or not?
From the culture i've grown up with, school etc?
Yes education never helped humanity endure and improve the human experience !
The GB were right about higher education its all a redundant waste of time.
Well at least until the GB men are taken to a hospital and medically treated to stay alive by those highly educated doctors and nurses.
I was born in, and in for nearly six decades. I found when I left it took a while to train my Bull***t Meter to work 100%. I was gullible, uneducated, naive, and ripe for any con-man that came along.
I decided that the best course was to learn Critical Thinking properly, and always, always examine the evidence. Not just look at what evidence is offered, but what evidence is out there for me to find. For and against.
This applies to matters in all walks of life, even simple Store purchases.
One can still be misled or duped, but the likelihood is very reduced by this attitude.
As to beliefs, I do not hold any, belief in the sense of trusting that something is true without satisfactory evidence, the evidence must be copper-bottomed and of a quality that would satisfy a Jury of sceptical experts in whatever field is under scrutiny.
Trusting that something is true based on emotion and no evidence is what got us misled by the JW Borg, never again for me.
are there other areas in my life where I'm also under influance of other false beliefs?
I think that is just part of life. Our life span is so limited that what we believe is the result of the knowledge available. People used to believe for thousands of years that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Millions died believing that. Then more information became available and we found out different.
I think we are all under undue influence in some way or another until we find out we are. Then we're not!
Yes, of course. Almost everyone is affected by cognitive dissonance at some level, because we become committed to decisions we make in life. The bigger the decision, the more committed we are to it, and the more prone to cognitive dissonance we become.
Proportionally speaking then, chances are anything you are committed to, is something less than your former commitment to WT, so you are probably not far from living in reality. The fact that you are even willing to ask this question so early in your development is a good sign.
d4g
Personally I think everything is influencing us all the time. The media is a big one. So is marketing which was mentioned above. The reason you wear the clothes you do and eat what you eat are largely pre-determined by the saturation level of marketing.
These are not necessarily harmful but since we cant control it we have to control our susceptibility to it.
Controlling the susceptibility factor is the real key I think. People are always going to try to influence us to think like them. It makes humans feel secure when they group together in thoughts and actions (the herd thing).
This is what I tell myself:
Just enjoy your life and roll with it. You have an internal compass - use it. If someone seems very adamant that things are a certain way just smile and move on.
Let yourself be attracted to those who have more questions than answers.
No one has the answers.
At best, each one has their educated opinion, form your own.
