[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Ranger Butch Force

But why would they say that in the first place? At that point, to me from my me space, I would think that either A) they don't know you very well, B) they may, in their mind, think that it's ok to ask such a question to you for whatever reason or C) they are narrow minded in thinking that only white people can be smart, educated, and articulate which is obviously not true given that the US president is not white.

See, this is almost *precisely* what I am talking about. You gave three reasons NONE of which come down to "this person thinks that black people are intellectually inferior to whites, this belief is racist". To me, the simple explanation is that someone who thinks that in order for a black person to be well-read, educated, and articulate *something* must have intervened in their life to make them not like other black people. Such a belief is, in fact, racist at its core. So let me ask you this question, what is the problem with calling the question out for the racist statement it is?

I, too, have been in such a situation before and it was not pleasant. Because having the affair in the first place was wrong (I don't care what the reason was), I told all of them that I didn't want to hear it anymore and that they needed to figure out what they wanted to do with the situation. All three are good friends of mine, and still are to this day. Yes, I was concerned that one of my friends was going to be hurt in the end. It was not healthy for me to get in the middle of that.

Again what is wrong with saying "you don't fuck over friends"? What is wrong with having an saying there are things that are wrong and having an affair with the spouse of your best friend is on that list? What would be so terrible as to say "this is not acceptable"? Would *you* want people to take a neutral stance if the woman you loved fucked you over like that? I'm going to bet that if any of your friends said "well, whose to say whether it was right or wrong for her to do you like that" you would take a dim view of that statement and might even wonder where their moral compass got misplaced.

In this instance, I would have let the menstrual believe what they want to believe. Their mind is made up. But then, when what they believed in didn't happen, then maybe some people in that group would make up their own minds and say "Hey, you know in the end, that all sounded pretty silly that our menstrual cycles would get out of whack". Live and learn.

I'm curious, what relationship do you believe the beliefs in people's heads have with their behavior in the real world? What I'm driving at is that, in fact, the beliefs in people's heads actually matter because the beliefs in people's heads effects how they behave in the real world. I think that there is a fairly high degree of correlation between what someone believes about the world and how they behave. I know people who claim, quite legitimately I presume, that their belief in some kind of divine being is what makes them behave in a loving and civilized manner. They believe, with apparent sincerity, that if they were to lose that belief in a divine being they would undergo a profound shift in how they treat other people. I take them at their word because it seems to me that people are probably stating what they actually believe about themselves and the nature of the world.

Right now, in the United States of America, there are people who believe things that are manifestly untrue. Demonstrably, provably, untrue. The fact that these things are untrue makes absolutely no difference what-so-ever and their epistemic closure is so perfect that even though they are not in an entirely hermetically sealed environment they simply write off conflicting information as proof of a conspiracy of the so-called 'lame-stream media'. Next year, the electorate will go to the polls and about a *third* of the electorate in one of the two major parties will vote believing that cutting taxes *always* raises revenue (it doesn't), that cutting taxes is the most direct and efficient way to create jobs (it isn't), that there is a serious effort for Sharia law to be enacted in the USA (there isn't), that the President of the United States was born in Kenya (he wasn't) and that he is a Muslim (he isn't). I would think that given the last 11 years of American history and the kinds of tragically stupid decisions that were made at the highest levels, with massive popular support, based upon absolutely false information we would not have to question whether or not the beliefs of other human beings matter. Yes, they do!

Is there *anyone* here who believes that had their been strong majority opposition (upwards of 75%) to the invasion of Iraq that the Bush administration would have gone ahead and started such a war? Does anyone think that the 62% of Americans who supported the war at its start would have done so if they had not believed that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had direct involvement in the 9/11 attacks or that he had an *active* nuclear and biological weapons program and, quite possibly, one or more nuclear weapons? Because that is what people said that they believe and those were the reasons they gave for supporting the invasion of Iraq. Eight years after it was demonstrated, conclusively, that there was no active WMD program there are *still* a nontrivial number of the voting public who believe that Iraq had the Bomb and/or that it was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks. So what does it matter what beliefs people have in their heads? It matters quite a lot, actually.

What's more, the kind of behavior you describe is almost precisely *not* how people behave. Your description of people holding strong beliefs suddenly changing them on new evidence is exactly the opposite of what has been observed. When millennialist cult leaders predict an exact date for the end of the world and then the world obstinately continues to exist one would think that their followers would pack up and leave and stop believing. Instead, they believe *harder* and simply accept whatever explanation is necessary to keep the cognitive dissonance to a minimum.

People need to make up their own minds. Even if the proof is right in their face and they choose not to see it with their own eyes, that's their decision.

Let it be.

That's a nice sentiment until a plurality of people in your state vote to ensure that you cannot marry the woman you love because they believe that homosexuality is a sin, that marriage equality would spell the end of heterosexual marriage and that their divine being will be terribly upset and *therefore* they must vote against marriage equality and only vote for people who share that view. It's all fun and non-judgmental games until someone loses an eye.

If you don't see any relationship to how people believe and how they behave, then how do you propose effecting social change if we *don't* change people's beliefs about the real world?

Cheers
Aj