>>38184The nuance is whe the already established beliefs came about and how they are influenced.
Again, this only holds true for a state of mind where concentration and focus is low, which is most of the time. Let me give an example...
Solve this in your head: 17 x 23 = ?
If you've actually tried to solve it you will have just entered a state of mind in which you were very resistant to accepting information that contains contradiction. But of course you have to first have enough background information to make the detection of a contradiction possible. And you will see the problem with upholding such an amount of concentration all the time.
The brain takes shortcuts to save energy, simple "look-ups" of associative data is very efficient im comparison to concentrated thinking.
In school you might have been forced to learn the results of 3 x 4, 5 x 5, 9 x 2, etc by heart so you don't have to enter the slow and costly mode of concentration to "solve" these problems. Compare the experience of answering "what is 2 x 8?" and "what is 19 x 41?".
In one case you could just answer, in the other you had to
solve the problem.
Now let's say you want to start a religious cult. The things you tell your desciples to learn by heart (eg. prayers) are "2 x 8"-type of lessons, not "18 x 33". If you would learn by heart that "8 x 7 = 58" because that's how it's printed in the table you are meant to learn then that's what your brain will present as an answer with very high confidence whenever you are asked. It's entirely possible for you to figure out that it's actually incorrect, but only if you put your concentration on it. Maybe you know that "8 x 8 = 64", but even with that it takes a bit of willed focus to discover that "64 - 8 =/= 58" so "8 x 7" can't be "58".
And this is where it turns to a game of chance. Of 1000 children that you've taught the wrong thing, a few will figure it out after a given amount of time.
Now replace the easy-to-check calculation with "Jesus is our saviour", "The earth was created 6000 years ago", "The earth is flat", "Saddam has weapons of mass destruction", "Human rights are more important than money", "Murder is a crime", "You have to believe in yourself", "Animals can't feel complex emotions like depression", "All life is sacred", "It's the fault of women that I don't have a girlfriend", "All men are rapists", "Capitalism works, even you have to admit that", "The EU is building on 2500 years of democratic history", "Vegans are all nutters", "Meat is murder", "It's only gay if balls are touching", "I'm not a nazi, but...", "Mohammed did not move, the mountain did", "George Lucas raped my childhood", "The corona virus was planted by americans to ruin chinese new-year festival", "We at Microsoft strongly believe in open source", "Sugar kills but if I drink coke zero I'll be okay", "I can make my own choice if I listen to my inner voice", "I wanted to improve my figure drawing but all I managed today were these two pages", "You have to believe in
something", "AI will never be able to create
true art", "Humans have a soul", "I could stop watching porn any day" and "I have a free will".
For each of these you will find people that are offended if you say that's bullshit and you will find people saying that it's bullshit. Chances are you read some of those and immediately agreed or had an answer why it's bogus, just like you might immediately know that "3 x 3 = 9" and your brain will feel no obligation to double check them.
All of these, including "3 x 3 = 9" and "8 x 7 = 58" can be considered stories. And with regard to truth all stories should be considered equal. You can think that 3 x 3 is definitely 9 because you can count it on your fingers, and that does indeed make that story more consistent than "Jesus turned water into wine", but it's still a story based on another stories about numbers. The struggle to put mathematical insight into axioms and re-build all of maths from the foundation of set theory a hundred years ago can be seen as an attempt to create the first consistent story in human history. It's still just a story and humans seem to be the only animal worried about what's true instead of just accepting what they experience.
Sorry for wall of text