Welcome to Gaia! ::

So I just watched Derren Brown's Messiah video. It's really something else.

What do skeptics have to say to the fact that many of us, despite our world view, are constantly sold ideas without even questioning them? The skeptic can be hypnotized, the Atheist can have a religious dream and the Christian can be convinced that he is wrong.

Do we have the ability to keep changing our outlooks to match whatever pressures we feel or is it true, as I would hope, that one's world view is the sum of their knowledge and their perceptions; not something they can elect to believe, but something that is the undeniable result of coalesced facts?

What kind of skeptic doesn't question everything?

I don't mean immediately. For the sake of expediency, it's usually safe not to question things immediately, but those of us who accept things because it's "science" or "statistics" need to try harder.

I'm constantly questioning my beliefs. I'm almost always returning to the same conclusions. It's like a motorcycle. Maintain it every day and it should stay in top shape. You may find out, later, that there's a better intake valve on the market and then you can go buy that and replace it, but you won't know that the intake valve is there unless you question whether or not the one you have is the best.

I have exactly the same skeptical attitude toward gravity and God, but gravity has a ******** lot more evidence behind it than God. All ideas and concepts are given equal opportunity, but obviously the ones with evidence and proof are given considerably more weight.

As for whether we can change our beliefs... Look at it this way.

You have an apple. You plant it in the soil. This apple is the framework and the basis from which your perspective of the world. The apple immediately becomes an apple tree, and you have no shovel. It cannot be removed by your own will.

Then a hurricane blows along and rips the apple tree out of the ground. The hurricane is the stimulus that causes you to change your perspective. After it passes and whatever confusion you had is gone, you plant a Baromet seed. The seed immediately sprouts into a tree. It is fundamentally different from the apple tree because, even though you're observing the same world, and it's absorbing the same nutrients from the same ground, its structure is different from that of an apple. It has a thinner trunk. It has thicker bark. It doesn't grow apple fruits; it grows sheep.

It is entirely possible to change your beliefs, but it is very impossible to choose them. I actually think I would have more difficulty truly believing in God, as opposed to just going through the motions of Christianity, than I would digging a fully grown apple tree out of the ground without a shovel.