Got My Belief! Now Dig in and Fight or Flight

A post was recently added to the Theosophy Network on Facebook. It went something like:
1. what are the teachings of Theosophy.
A: generic, depends on individual etc.
2. how do you know they are true.
A. each person decides... . BTW: What do you believe in so we can answer your questions better? (That last was ignored by the poster)
3. What happens after death?
A. depends on one's religions etc.
.
. continues
.
....

after about a month of this, we were finally left with a long post consisting of a "Statement" about the person's private belief system. basically another case of "the Bible is the only True scripture and says so": quote, quote, quote, (a long post)
(Note: At that point - the person left)

Other times, the Answer/Diatribe is Islamic, Buddhist, Blavatskyan etc.
The "Diatribe and Run" happens, independent of the religion.

So why do people start a conversation, trying to dig up dirt on a group, dump a bunch of statements and then "Run"?? A belief seems to be a consistent inate need by any individual. Even Atheism is a "Belief System." However - some get past the first answer and quit, quite happy to accept the first "Belief" and others do not. Some go beyond the "Easy" and pursue the Quest for Truth. Others just stop, and dig themselves into a trench for the War of Belief. It is almost a Paranoia of the "Search for Truth" mentality.

the Question I have is this: What is the deeper Psychological piece of mind, defect or not, which drives these two responses? the Explore, or Ignore - I'm right.

(It happens so frequently, one is left to believe it is not cultural, but psychological at nearly a genetic level).

2 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by PuzzleSolver on February 21, 2014 at 8:04am

why do people start a conversation, trying to dig up dirt on a group, dump a bunch of statements and then "Run"?

That's referred to in Psychology as Confirmation Bias, basically what some people do, not necessarily people seeking truths in religions or what-not, will seek out reasons to believe more of what they already believe or know (think they know)... if the answer is not in line with their belief system they will discard it and move on to something else that will again 'confirm' their original belief. This also works both ways, in things that they don't believe, and search for more reasons why they shouldn't believe it.

But again with things that are not easily provable it goes a even deeper than that. In my opinion... through the process of assimilation and accommodation as a person experiences life or things that they learn, they then interpret that information into what is easily (saliently) available to them by what has already been conditioned as their set belief (through religions or lack thereof etc.) It is pretty complicated! As religion or spirituality is something that also comes along with functional fixedness which here would only allow them to attach a one-way mentality to a belief system. Even more-so is the fact that Truth or spirituality and religions comes with emotions (most of the time) and that people use what's called the Self Reference Effect (which they put themselves in the position where they can better understand principles, beliefs or guidelines they can associate with) and they stay in this state constantly, seeking more to confirm/affirm. The deeper it goes the more elaborately encoded it becomes in their mind or train of thought. Then when they hit a snag in the road to question the belief, all that conditioning and emotional priming comes into play to veer them into another direction... Of course not to downplay any other reasons, but it is subjective I guess on a person's willingness or open mindedness to really seek out truth. Hopefully, the above doesn't sound like the definitive guide to why or how it works, but gives a basic premise of why it happens on a basic level through matter of opinion :)

▶ Reply

ModeratorPermalink Reply by John on February 21, 2014 at 9:15am

gads - psychology. Give it a name and you understand it. Or worse, just categorize it. (I'm playing a bit of a devil's advocate here..)

ok. What makes it happen to many people? Why does a person flip between the states - or never suffer it?

Scientists question everything. They actually *love* to find things unexplainable. So are they less prone to confirmation bias? Most theosophists would say they are the worst... hmmmmm