I saw a post on Facebook that said: "If someone has to set aside reason and logic in order to believe something, then no amount of reason and logic is going to change their belief." I get what they said but do not totally agree with this, which is why I came up with the revision you see imaged here. The reason I don't agree with the above statement from Facebook is that "setting something aside" implies intentional action. But most peoples beliefs are not arrived at because they "set aside" logic and reason or anything else. There are many reasons people believe things that are in fact unbelievable when you look at the belief through the lens of logic and reason. Key among these are:
It is for this reason that although it sounds completely backwards and idiotic on the surface, if we want a more logic based world rather than one ruled by false and often damaging beliefs that we have to appeal to peoples emotions first. Or as I have often heard in sales training "Facts tell, stories sell" But as the title of this post suggests rationalists often seem to fear emotion, or at least appealing to emotion to help spread rational thinking. (And yes I'll admit that sounds backwards) I know some people have criticized Seth Andrews of The Thinking Atheist for making videos that are "too slick and emotional". But I feel that Seth gets it, that we must appeal to peoples emotions if we are to free people from harmful dogma and false beliefs. I saw evidence of this again this morning as I watched a video of Mark Lynas on his conversion to supporting GMOs. Mark is an author and frequent speaker around the world on climate change science and policy, earlier in his career he was an outspoken opponent of GMO's but as he looked at the science he found that he was wrong. But now there is a challenge, his opposition to GMO's appealed to peoples emotions and fears that was very effective, and the facts aren't much changing that. Emotions are very strong, people will do and believe completely stupid and illogical things because of emotions. If we are to create a world where people understand that, and can step back and take the time to evaluate things more rationally, we have to appeal to their emotions first! And no, this post is NOT a good example of doing that! LOL!
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