Well I think you're right, but I hope people have more brains to than to simply go along with what their friends think. I'm very anti-religious, but have close friends who are deeply religious. We just stay off the topic. I think people choose to hang with others who think the way they do most of the time. That doesn't prove anybody right, it just proves we like to congregate with those whose opinions are the same as ours.

[–] cameron_vale@lemm.ee -1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think it might speak against the idea. Because there is a strong probability that it is chosen, not because evidence/logic/etc leads to it, but because it is popular with one's friends. Not saying it's necessarily so, but there's a strong probability.

(Which would lead to "truth can only be gotten from antisocial weirdos". Which is kinda bleak I guess.)

But yes. I think that the 99% of people get their whole reality from consensus. No actual independent thinking except in the details. And there is also a vast hostility to the strange there. Maybe that's "tribalism".

[–] tygerprints@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's true where I live in mormon country, USA. People are told what to think by the church, and they also are instructed who to vote for by the church. The Mormons often say, " my church does my thinking for me." I guess it relieves people of the responsibility of having to make choices for themselves. That to me is much bleaker than truth being obtained from weirdos.

Which I think it correct. It takes a "weirdo" to be either crazy or brave enough to say anything that goes against the popular viewpoint. Most people can handle almost anything better than they can handle being unpopular or called weird.

[–] cameron_vale@lemm.ee -1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

It's funny. People I know who are religious. They may have a head full of scripture but dogmatism isn't as ubiquitous as you might think. And often behind that scriptural thinking is a proper humility. An understanding that these eyes and this brain are just a speck. A dot of illumination in a vast night. Fine modern scientific and/or theological theories notwithstanding.

The popular arrogance, otoh, is childish. Smug certainty that you have truth in hand. I find that hard to swallow.

Drugs and meditation are the best cure for it as far as I can tell.

I like meditation a lot.