Of course not, because
as believers they have a vested interest in it all being real. So then basically wishful thinking, but wishful thinking that they are heavily invested in.
... to which he replied that the only reason I found them so unconvincing was because I was not yet convinced myself. Whoa! That revealed to me that truth has absolutely nothing to do with creationism (despite their purported worship of a god who is Truth Incarnate), but rather sounding convincing is their only touchstone.
Indeed we have seen here time and again that facts and reality are not convincing to creationists, that they operate on a different paradigm for finding "TRVTH" ... one based on beliefs strongly held. We have also seen that cognitive dissonance interferes as they reject the evidence or the messengers of it.
An interesting article that I ran across on the web:
quote:
Facts don’t change people’s minds. Here’s what does.
If you had asked me this question-How do you change a mind?-two years ago, I would have given you a different answer.
As a former scientist, I would have cautioned you to rely on objective facts and statistics. Develop a strong case for your side, back it up with hard, cold, irrefutable data, and voila!
Drowning the other person with facts, I assumed, was the best way to prove that global warming is real, the war on drugs has failed, or the current business strategy adopted by your risk-averse boss with zero imagination is not working.
Since then, I’ve discovered a significant problem with this approach.
It doesn’t work.
The mind doesn’t follow the facts. Facts, as John Adams put it, are stubborn things, but our minds are even more stubborn. Doubt isn’t always resolved in the face of facts for even the most enlightened among us, however credible and convincing those facts might be.
As a result of the well-documented confirmation bias, we tend to undervalue evidence that contradicts our beliefs and overvalue evidence that confirms them. We filter out inconvenient truths and arguments on the opposing side. As a result, our opinions solidify, and it becomes increasingly harder to disrupt established patterns of thinking.
Sound familiar?
So what does work?
quote:
Give the mind an out
We’re reluctant to acknowledge mistakes. To avoid admitting we were wrong, we’ll twist ourselves into positions that even seasoned yogis can’t hold.
The key is to trick the mind by giving it an excuse. Convince your own mind (or your friend) that your prior decision or prior belief was the right one given what you knew, but now that the underlying facts have changed, so should the mind.
But instead of giving the mind an out, we often go for a punch to the gut. We belittle the other person (“I told you so”). We ostracize (“Basket of deplorables”). We ridicule (“What an idiot”).
... and that is also familiar, frequently seen behavior here, a reaction to frustration that facts don't convince the believers.
So give their minds an out: offer an opening for an alternate/updated belief -- when you first came to this belief you were younger, less informed than you are now, and your beliefs need to grow with your new knowledge.
You are not your beliefs. Your beliefs came/come from other people that may be wrong/uninformed, and should be treated with the same skepticism that you apply to this new information: if
they are at fault for providing misleading information, then modifying your belief is not admitting that you are wrong.
Bishop Usher's age calculation as a case in point. It seemed valid at the time and "worked" based on the knowledge then available to the Bishop, but times have changed,the bible does not mention/talk about age of the universe, age of the earth, etc. --
THAT is a purely human interpretation and it used some
rather extraordinary assumptions that would not be made today.
Enjoy
™ Version 4.2
