January 20, 2022
It’s often said you should respect someone’s beliefs.
Sounds all well and good, but what if someone’s beliefs are completely, objectively, and verifiably wrong? Should we still respect that person’s beliefs?
I got to thinking about this question because many Evangelical Christians today express the desire to have their beliefs respected. Most don’t do this in a malicious or angry way. For the most part, these Christians are minding their own business and just want to connect with like-minded people on social media without someone popping in to shit all over their beliefs.
But is ignoring these conversations when you see them and moving on with your day the same thing as respecting their beliefs? Or is there more to it than that? Let’s explore.
As I’ve said before, my opinion of the best way to rapidly improve your life is to align it with the objective Truth as much as possible, even the Truths that are inconvenient or emotionally difficult to accept. The sooner that is done, the more efficiently you can operate in reality.
But what is the relationship between beliefs and objective Truth?
The Truth is “that which is.” No more and no less. It does not care about your or my beliefs. I can believe all day that if I step off a roof, I’ll hover in the air. Truth does not care that I believe that. I’ll still fall and injure myself.
Therefore, a belief is something that is either separate from Truth, or is a partial bit of a larger Truth, or it’s a Truth that you have not yet verified, therefore you believe it to be True and do not yet know.
Truth never changes. Truth is “that which is” so it cannot change. Beliefs change all the time. Most often, beliefs change when someone uncovers new information that leads them one step closer to the Truth. Aligning your beliefs closer to Truth is a good thing—even when the Truth is inconvenient or difficult to accept. The most obvious example of this is when someone who was a fundamentalist Christian for their entire life uncovers new information that helps them understand that God does not exist. That Truth is very much difficult and uncomfortable to accept at first, but it cannot be denied that aligning your beliefs with Truth in this situation will vastly improve the quality of your life.
It seems to me that it can be difficult to respect someone’s beliefs when they believe something that we ourselves once believed, but have since stopped believing. We very quickly want to correct that person, maybe send them some books or videos or links to the information that helped bring us closer to the Truth. Then we get upset when that person declines all of these things. But as I’ve written before, there are only a select few people who you can help in situations such as these. People need to be ready to change their beliefs before they actually do. They cannot have their beliefs changed for them. If that happened, then it would be meaningless. A change of belief means growth. Growth cannot be forced upon someone. It must be chosen.
So in a way, a person’s beliefs are an indication of where they are in their overall life journey. Therefore, when it’s said that we should respect someone’s beliefs, that means we should respect the current state of their overall life journey—not whatever specific beliefs they have.
When we don’t respect someone’s beliefs, it kind of implies a little bit of “you should know this by now.” Well, we might not know this person’s past. Maybe they should and maybe they shouldn’t know it by now. Maybe they are choosing ignorance in regards to that matter. But choosing ignorance is still a part of their journey (and your journey, if you’re currently choosing ignorance about something). Because once again, someone must be ready to accept new information to change their beliefs. That ignorance is like a shield. And usually that ignorance will cause them some problems in their life, since living separate from the Truth causes your life to be more difficult. Only after they’re fed up with these recurring problems will they finally seek out some new information to make a change.
An obvious example of this is a Deconverted Man who’s been out of the Church for five years shitting on a fundamentalist Christian because of his fundamentalist beliefs. But the Deconverted Man used to believe all the same things the fundamentalist Christian currently believes. No one really knows if that fundamentalist Christian will become a Deconverted Man in the future. Given the way things are going these days, he probably will. But it isn’t for the Deconverted Man to force that upon the fundamentalist Christian at this time. The Christian is on his own journey. His beliefs are an indication of where he’s at. When you hear what we believes, it’s probably best to just nod, have a little internal laugh about how you used to be at that exact same spot in life, and then just move on.
A painful faith deconstruction is a harsh lesson about changing your beliefs. Changing your beliefs when presented with new information is an important life skill that everyone should master. If you went through the process of changing your belief about God, then I’m pretty sure you could also change your belief about pretty much anything when presented with new information that would compel you to do so.