Tag: critical thinking

I have a divided mentality

On the one hand is my romantic, imagination driven mind.  Its filled with elves, and monsters and heroes and gods and evil doers and magic.  I want that world to be real.  I want all the possibilities of that world.  Because in that world is so much more color and soul and life.  But this world isn’t real.  It just exists in my imagination.

On the other hand is my logical, critical mind.  I look for evidence, I assume the simplest answer to the mystery is probably the correct one, that science, not magic will solve problems.  That miracles are just nature unrevealed. I live this life out loud.  This mind that makes my decisions and scoffs at myths and magic.  But I find this world sad because its all too predictable.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t hate everything about logic or a critical view of the world.  I’m naturally curious and I love that I can know at least partly the why and how of most things that cross my mind.

But in this real world, I will never see a fairy.  I will never see a werewolf.  I will never find a unicorn.  I will never converse with gods.  And I will never wish upon a star and get eternal life, or super strength or any other sundry of things.

But in my imagination, those thing are real.  And in my daydreams I live and play among the myths and the magic.  I like that world better.

Ideas vs Beliefs

Dogma has a line that I made me think quite a bit and eventually I adopted it as a sort of motto.  At the point I saw the film I was already disenchanted with all forms of organized religion.  And this line, really struck me.

“I think it’s better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier.”

As my own thoughts on spirituality continued to form, the line became more and more true to me.  Belief is something you defend.  Its part of what defines you. And people will staunchly defend a belief against all logic and evidence.  And I’m not talking about just religions.  Lots of things – Politics, Conspiracies, Morals, music, food…

I try to avoid making my opinions into beliefs.  It keeps me from refusing to accept new evidence.  Ideas are matters for development, they demand that you reconsider and change them as new information is gathered.  Beliefs are set in stone and have to be chiseled to be changed.