Do we accept as fact something we are told?
Often, we do IF we respect the people who tell us.
This is true of Buddhists, Wiccans, Jews, Muslims, Communists and even Christians.
Inside your family there are beliefs accepted by respectable parents, grandparents and sibling. Some of those beliefs are, of course, errors.
Once you reach an age of autonomy and accountability your personal character reveals an astounding fact:
you are either an intellectually honest thinker or you are not .
Intellectual honesty compels us to follow facts and dismiss errors even when they CLASH with dearly held beliefs.
ARE YOU WILLING TO BE WRONG?
How do you get there?
How often will you follow facts to conclude you hold ERROR in high esteem?
For a Muslim child there is only Allah and Muhammed. How could there be any other?
For a Communist there is only radical Socialism with fascist authority. How could there be any other?
It takes a deep-seated respect for FACTS to create curiousity and skepticism worthy of honest investigation of our DEEPLY HELD BELIEFS.
We have to step OUTSIDE of our beliefs, family, leaders and system to take an honest first step.
The air is always different on the OTHER side of a conviction.
IT HURTS to be wrong and it is disastrous to be dead wrong!
At a certain point in my life I had to face the indisputable FACT that I had spent 20 years worshipping a tribal God and serving crackpot cult nonsense as though it were THE TRUTH.
How could I trust THE SAME BRAIN to allow me to make a NEW selection when my previous convictions were in such error?
I had to REBUILD my brain from scratch!
I needed a new toolbox.
I studied semantics, rhetoric, logic, history, fallacies and the great minds of the past to REBOOT my thinking mechanism.
That took another 20 years.
Then, I rooted out all my basic concepts and REdefined my core definitions.
With a new toolbox I investigated anew.
Ever try to use Metric Tools on American made cars?
Try using Metric religious tools on a REALITY-based life.
I would suggest you think about your own toolbox and how you came to possess it.
How is your brain--that led you into Jehovah's Witnesses--any different?
How could it be?
Did you jump right back into another religious belief which you now defend as strenuously?
Your thinking TOOLS are hard won. It takes considerable effort to reshape the neural pathways in the brain.
Your map of your world is an VIRTUAL reality and not reality itself.
How can you more closely align virtual with actual?
Where did you get your toolbox? Your MIND is your toolbox.
Ask yourself how many products are sold to the public largely on PERSONAL TESTIMONY?
A talking head says it is great and that is what passes for fact.
Do you have a favorite talking head you get your facts from?
Do you watch one news station only?
Do you root for only one sports team?
Do you adhere solely to one political persuasion?
Binary choices are often a SYMPTOM of black and white reasoning based---not on FACT--but, on knee-jerk bias.
What deep rooted BIAS do you now possess?
How can you find it and eliminate it?
Questions like this are a good start.