How Do You Explain To People What They Do Not Want To Understand?

How do you explain to people, what they do not want to understand?
The wise might say you don't.
But is it wise, to sit back and watch your world being destroyed, because people don't want to understand, how they're destroying it?

What people think they know, about gods or a god,
was invented to convince stupid people,
that hurting each other, and destroying their world was a stupid thing, to do.
Well, gods or no gods, hurting each other and destroying our world,
IS a stupid thing to do.

That gods or a god, might also happen to exist, is another matter entirely,
about which, nothing human, knows anything.

 

People admire decisiveness, particularly in Western Culture. The flavor of agnosticism which is a running theme in your posts may not be appealing or perhaps accessible to some people. Then the truism you posit in a decidedly manner regarding humans not being able to know anything about god(s) directly after is kind of redundant.

 

Sometimes I wish I could explain to people that I don't need their justification and personal explanations to live my own damn life.

 

Sometimes when we are sure we are right about something that we find important it may seem so unfortunate others don't agree that every excuse to get the message across to them is valid. But how often in reality does this lack of understanding actually threatens to destroy the world?
When others don't seem to want to understand (usually it is more of a refusal to agree or consider your stance, not a plain urge to misunderstand captain obvious in the house) it is indeed the most wise to stop trying to explain. After all, we are talking about a situation where there is a sincere lack of interest, right? To answer your question even more satisfactory I would say it depends on the details of the situation and subject. There is rarely a simple and absolute answer that fits all situations.

edit: spelling

 

I think you're right there.

It's relatively easy to explain some things to people. For example it would be easy enough to explain to someone with no scientific knowledge the way water evaporates and later falls as rain. Or how an internal combustion engine works. That is if they are prepared to listen.

Much harder to explain philosophical concepts, especially if the person to whom the explanation is being made has already got some other idea of things fixed in their mind. But even there it depends upon many factors. How did the person come to have fixed views? Do they have the intelligence to understand what is being proposed? And so on.

There are people you can explain just about anything to and they'll give it unbiased consideration, but maybe they are only a very small portion of people in general.

IMO ego often gets in the way of understanding. People want to think they're right, and thus close themselves to anything that might not be in line with their existing notions.

 

So if you came up with a cure for stupid, how many would take the cure? How would you get them to take it? Would Christians take the cure? How about Muslims? Atheists? Republicans? Democrats?

 

^
Would you take it? If not, maybe it simply depends on who's perceiving who as stupid (as opposed to who actually is stupid)

 

^administer it to everyone just to be on the safe side.

 

On some things, like religion and politics, it seems hopeless. I face the frustration in a red state in the Buckle of the Bible Belt that contradicting the prevailing brand of far right wing Republican or religious fundamentalism is taken as an assault on Truth, apple pie and everything normal people hold dear. I operate like the early Christians, meeting underground in "catacombs" and the homes of fellow progressives. I could move, but otherwise this is such a nice place to live, and my wife, God bless her, is a devout Republican Baptist. Internet forums like this are actually the best outlet I've found to express my views and get input back from people with a diversity of opinions.

But it is scary. To me it's quite obvious that Donald Trump and Ben Carson would be disasters in the Oval office, but most Republcans seem to think otherwise--for now, at least. Relativism among the rational is part of the problem. Some of my friends think all views are equally valid; I may think Trump is bad news but that's just my opinion. I actually think it's clear that the bullying, bravado, emptiness of clarity on policies, etc., spell disaster. All I can do is speak out and vote.

 

I can certainly empathize with that. I think probably you wouldn't have any such problems in the UK as a progressive Christian per se, but anyone who holds views different from that of the dominant 'culture' is to an extent facing a similar situation. People like me for instance, who support human rights and environmental issues are branded as 'luvvies' by the popular media (a badge of honour you might think) and portrayed as woolly-minded individuals who live in a kind of dreamland and don't face the hard economic choices etc etc...

Holding any kind of spiritual position is seen as somewhat marginal too, but other than in the case of Islam, mostly regarded as a kind of eccentricity.

 

Horse. Water.

"When knowledge is desired, a teacher will appear." Castenada.

 

You lie to them and fill their minds with simple things they can understand, subliminally inserting your own beliefs into their minds at the same time.

Life is a struggle for position. You move one piece at a time, one increment at a time. If you can't do something big to change everything, do something small to change one thing.

 

A lot of people here consider me a con hater, because I rail on the far right wing nut jobs so much. I do that because they are so much more dangerous than the left wing nut jobs. The GOP is refusing to let NBC do any more republican debates because they can't stand having to answer tough questions, and have labeled NBC the "LAME STREAM MEDIA". If a con gets the White House, we may only have FOX NEWS as a source of information. That scares the shit out of me because it's such a real possibility.

I don't like Hillary either, way too feminist...but if she gets to be POTUS, I doubt she will have all men neutered. And Bernie is not going to be able to do shit as president, because the "establishment". in congress will out number him 500 to one, even though he is the only one with common sense out of all the candidates.

So it's another election where I have to hold my nose and vote for the one that will do the least amount of damage.

There are a lot of far left wackos... the BLACK LIVES MATTER, the LGBT community, the hard drug users, the feminists, they're all special interest groups that are drawing a lot of attention to themselves. But they are not even close to as dangerous as the evangelical right wingers that try to force everybody to live up to their ideals. And the right wing war mongers are the worst. The evangelicals would love to see Armageddon, so that Jesus would come and save them from the left wing wackos. Can you imagine the look on their faces when Jesus tells them he's a liberal?

I bet there's gong to be some that say that I think I'm the only normal person in the world....well.....normal left the planet a long time ago. But if they ever did come up with a cure for stupid, I'd be first in line to take the cure....as long as the far right wasn't administering it. I ain't buying that.

 

A problem we all have is arrogantly assuming we're right because our impression of "right" makes us feel better. It allows us to take the moral high ground over anyone who doesn't agree with our position. What really sucks is living long enough to realize the "rightness" we felt for so much of our life was not right at all. By then it's too late to recover the associations we lost for being rigid and unwilling to compromise.

For example, there's a growing consensus that the science of climate warming/change has been "settled" and that anyone who doesn't agree must have mental problems or otherwise needs to be silenced lest they poison others with there heretical claims. There is no such thing in science as a matter being "settled". If you follow the scientific method as it should be followed you would question everything over and over. Sure, some science is consistent enough to seem like it has been settled. Such as the wave lengths of colored light or the effects of voltage on living tissue.

But to say that it must be accepted by all is sheer arrogance on par with most religious teachings. While I think that Christ was an amazing man and that it's incredible his words have survived so long, I will not accept them without question. He lived in a very different time. And knowing that every single book on this planet was written by a human and NOT a God, I have to accept that nothing at all is "settled". The planet has warmed and cooled for as long as it has existed. Have we contributed? Perhaps. But then, so too have the various volcanic eruptions and I can tell you from being in Malaysia that volcanic pollution really really sucks.

To the point of the thread though, assuming you're right above all else, is fanatical. If you aren't willing to give a dissenting opinion any quarter, your mind is just as closed as those you lament. It's nice to feel right about things, but useless to assume you can't fail. Arrogance will not win an argument. It will only keep it going. Live and let live, we can't all be right!

 

Actually, think you're a "Con" hater because you use the term "con" in such an obviously derogatory manner. If you heard me use terms like "Prog", "Lib" or even "Democrap" would you not say the same of me? This is why I don't choose to see either party as better than the other.

As far as I can see both parties in the US have had opportunities to fix a lot of shit and neither does. I point to the drug war as my prime example. I pray that Obama legalizes marijuana nationally as a parting shot while he's handing out various pardons and such. But I doubt he will do it because he's already said he was against it. Does that mean he supports the prison industrial complex? Sure seems like it.

As I have said before, there used to be a time when we had conservative democrats and liberal republicans mixed in with the hard core conservative republicans and liberal democrats. Now it has become so polarized it's as if we are forced to flip a coin and become fanatics. I demand the right to be a centrist, which has no party. So far! What will the democrats and republicans choose to call me for this? I'm sure both will come up with something childish and self serving.

 

arrogant assumption of arrogance is itself denial. truth is observation. i'm not even there.
also the reason i said stupid people, is because smart people don't need convincing, of what they can already see.
(i would have thought that kind of obvious, but i guess i must have been assuming)

 

So...themnax...are you all knowing?

Convincing other people to buy everything you believe would mean those people are easily led. I do not find that smart, do you? I really don't think "smart or stupid" has anything to do with trying to turn people to your beliefs. What people see is never the same...even if people see the exact same thing. Our life experiences, our upbringing, so many things affect how we see and interpret things.

 

Like you, CONservatives resent the term con, because it exposes their "con" artist ways. The cons have been creating the "polarizing" since Ronnie Raygun and the GOP started trying to make "liberal" a dirty word. But you know that, don't you.

The "con" artists have been preaching "fiscal responsibility" since Raygun. He promised to balance the budget in his first four years, but tripled the national debt. Shrub daddy doubled the national debt again in only four years. Shrub Jr. doubled it again, with a con congress. THAT IS A CON JOB!

I have been a registered INDEPENDENT since 1996. I voted for Ralph Nader four times. But throwing away my vote doesn't stop the most dangerous far right from taking power. So now I vote to keep them out.

You rail against the libs and cons, calling them childish and self serving...like somehow you're above the name calling. BWAH HA HA!

 

Making up names to insult is childish...makes any argument so less valid and it turns people off to even reading what you write. Silly, childish nonsense and should be done on the playground. If you are trying to talk politics and you do that? pppfffttt

 

Oh you're just oozing with love now!