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When You've Been Wrong

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
Have you ever been wrong before?

Especially when it comes to your political or religious ideas, what have you been wrong about? How did you find out?

Do you expect you're wrong about anything you believe now? Or will discover you're wrong again the future?
 

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
Have you ever been wrong before?

Especially when it comes to your political or religious ideas, what have you been wrong about? How did you find out?

Do you expect you're wrong about anything you believe now? Or will discover you're wrong again the future?
I am always discovering that I have wrong view in many aspects of my life. I do not hold a perfect belief,so yes I discover new aspects of my faith every day.
 
Have you ever been wrong before?

All of us are wrong about countless beliefs we hold. We see/hear so many things that we can't judge the truth of and many of these remain in our minds consciously or under the surface.

Especially now with so such low quality info on the internet, we get suckered more than ever, especially into believing that which we find emotionally satisfying.

We also misremember ideas and event. Sometimes I've been near certain that X happened, only to find out later that this was a false memory.

Especially when it comes to your political or religious ideas, what have you been wrong about? How did you find out?

I used to think that I was highly rational, and that secular humanism was the 'common sense' result of getting rid of silly biases like religion, rather than being based on numerous culturally contingent axioms grounded in myth.

I found out by reading historical, philosophical and scientific texts and becoming more and being more sceptical of those who proclaimed their own rationality when I started to realise a lot of the standard anti-religious tropes are completely (or at least significantly) fictitious. I then thought of how I had accepted these as self-evident fact and would have defended them as "the truth" and seen any attempts to argue otherwise as "apologetics" and dismissed them out of hand.

Much of these illusions are maintained by a self-reinforcing thought bubble of like minded people, and because "we are all rational, sceptical evidence focused people" how could we all be so wrong?

Over time, the doubt started to creep in and I became more open minded.

Once the emotional block was removed, the science is pretty clear we have only limited capability to be rational, and the history/philosophy pretty clearly showed that my beliefs were indeed a culturally contingent ideology rather than "the common sense result of discarding myths".

Do you expect you're wrong about anything you believe now? Or will discover you're wrong again the future?

Of course. It's not uncommon for me to find out I'm wrong about something, I wouldn't be learning if that were not the case.

I change my mind quite a lot.

I also no doubt have ideological blind spots like I did when i was a Secular Humanist that inhibit attitude change. Some of these will come out in the wash sooner or later too.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
Have you ever been wrong before?
Especially when it comes to your political or religious ideas, what have you been wrong about? How did you find out?
Do you expect you're wrong about anything you believe now? Or will discover you're wrong again the future?
I was a theist.
I changed my views when I analyzed my beliefs.
At the moment, I do not think I am wrong. But I am open to change in my beliefs if some new findings come up.
(This is wrt the relationship between existence and non-existence. My belief is that they are just two phases of physical energy)
 

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
All of us are wrong about countless beliefs we hold. We see/hear so many things that we can't judge the truth of and many of these remain in our minds consciously or under the surface.

Especially now with so such low quality info on the internet, we get suckered more than ever, especially into believing that which we find emotionally satisfying.

We also misremember ideas and event. Sometimes I've been near certain that X happened, only to find out later that this was a false memory.



I used to think that I was highly rational, and that secular humanism was the 'common sense' result of getting rid of silly biases like religion, rather than being based on numerous culturally contingent axioms grounded in myth.

I found out by reading historical, philosophical and scientific texts and becoming more and being more sceptical of those who proclaimed their own rationality when I started to realise a lot of the standard anti-religious tropes are completely (or at least significantly) fictitious. I then thought of how I had accepted these as self-evident fact and would have defended them as "the truth" and seen any attempts to argue otherwise as "apologetics" and dismissed them out of hand.

Much of these illusions are maintained by a self-reinforcing thought bubble of like minded people, and because "we are all rational, sceptical evidence focused people" how could we all be so wrong?

Over time, the doubt started to creep in and I became more open minded.

Once the emotional block was removed, the science is pretty clear we have only limited capability to be rational, and the history/philosophy pretty clearly showed that my beliefs were indeed a culturally contingent ideology rather than "the common sense result of discarding myths".



Of course. It's not uncommon for me to find out I'm wrong about something, I wouldn't be learning if that were not the case.

I change my mind quite a lot.

I also no doubt have ideological blind spots like I did when i was a Secular Humanist that inhibit attitude change. Some of these will come out in the wash sooner or later too.
And you call yourself, “Augustus the Unreasonable “?

You don’t sound like it.
 

RestlessSoul

Well-Known Member
The more tightly we cling to a belief, the more rigid our certainty in it, the more likely it is to fail us. And what is a false belief, if not one which fails to serve?

in other words, the harder I try to be right, the more likely I am to be wrong
 
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blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Have you ever been wrong before?
Now that's a question whose answer may tend to incriminate me.
Do you expect you're wrong about anything you believe now? Or will discover you're wrong again the future?
Yes, I accept that there are no absolute statements about reality. Science and technology are constantly coming up with new angles on what's possible, and how best to achieve it, and how to improve on those achievements ─ Moore's Law is just one example.

So far my materialism hasn't encountered any major challenge. Serious psi research came and went, OOBEs can now be done in the lab, and no one returns from them, or from NDEs with new remote information about reality. A handful of reincarnation stories appear well out of the ordinary, but they all lack impartial reports about essential aspects, and no testable hypothesis exists that I'm aware of to explain how they could be possible.

(I confess it would be very stimulating, a very large buzz, to be shown by satisfactory demonstration that I was wrong about this.)
 
And you call yourself, “Augustus the unreasonable “?

You don’t sound like it.

I added that as a joke after someone got angry at me and called me unreasonable for making the most bland, inoffensive, middle of the road comment (I said, based purely on the OP, there was insufficient evidence to draw any definitive conclusions regarding the claim that Republicans were, in general, more likely to be 'sheeple' than Dems):D
 

lewisnotmiller

Grand Hat
Staff member
Premium Member
Have you ever been wrong before?

Always. I try to be less wrong than the last time I was wrong, but I sometimes miss the mark.

Especially when it comes to your political or religious ideas, what have you been wrong about? How did you find out?

I was raised Church of England, and am now an atheist. At least one of those positions is not just wrong, but fundamentally flawed.
But in general terms one of the advantages of age is that you get to see more 'stuff' attempted. With political or social movements, you get to see the outcomes of actions.

For me, this has made me less ideological overall, and more pragmatic. Am I feeding the hungry via communism or via free market forces? I mean...let's just work out an effective way to feed them, huh? We can concentrate on fun things like sourcing and transportation, and worry less about 19th century philosophy.

I'm overstating that, to be clear. I like a good philosophical argument as much as the next SJW. But my personal growth has definitely been towards a more pragmatic and practical consideration of the world than in my formative years.

That has slid me to a centrist position in general terms, although I retain pretty strong views on some specific things, and in some ways I'm harder and more entrenched on those than ever.

I think learning that you are often wrong, and that so is everyone else makes you more supportive of freedom where that doesn't impinge on others.

Do you expect you're wrong about anything you believe now? Or will discover you're wrong again the future?

I certainly hope so. Imagine putting in all this effort to think, only to discover there is nothing to learn!!
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
Have you ever been wrong before?

Especially when it comes to your political or religious ideas, what have you been wrong about? How did you find out?

Do you expect you're wrong about anything you believe now? Or will discover you're wrong again the future?
Only on a daily basis. :rolleyes:
 

danieldemol

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Have you ever been wrong before?

Especially when it comes to your political or religious ideas, what have you been wrong about? How did you find out?

Do you expect you're wrong about anything you believe now? Or will discover you're wrong again the future?
I was wrong about creationism, wrong about homosexuality, wrong about Sons of God/Manifestations/Messengers etc.

I found out all of this through reasoned debate.

Hoping to learn more as time goes by.

In my opinion.
 

lewisnotmiller

Grand Hat
Staff member
Premium Member
Yes.

I was a Republican once.:eek: I voted in 1988. :oops:

Not now. But if something changes I'll notify the RF.

Oooh...I like 'the RF'.
Adding 'the' to the start is like some sorta fun retro name.

I'm taking it.
*claps happily*
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
I'm curious to know about a time that sticks out to you.
Scientifically, I rooted for MoND as an explanation for Dark Matter until the matter distribution in the Bullet cluster was measured.
Politically I didn't think Putin would attack Ukraine until about 5 days before.
In 2020 I thought Trump would be irrelevant (and/or in prison) half a year after the election.
I changed my self identification from atheist to Agnostic about three years ago but that was less an error of judgement and more one of the meaning of Agnosticism.
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Have you ever been wrong before?

Especially when it comes to your political or religious ideas, what have you been wrong about? How did you find out?

Do you expect you're wrong about anything you believe now? Or will discover you're wrong again the future?


Wrong? Woman here so never wrong :rolleyes:

Really though, I accept my error, learn and get on with life.

In 2009 i made a serious error of judgement which caused 6 months of abject misery until i was able to be dig out of the mess i got myself into.

I was wrong about my car that went in for service on Monday, i though I'll have it back in a few hours but no. They found a problem that requires parts shipped from the main agent in Paris. Hopefully they'll arrive today and have the car back tonight.

Will i be wrong again? Sure i will, that's life.
 

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
Have you ever been wrong before?

Especially when it comes to your political or religious ideas, what have you been wrong about? How did you find out?

Do you expect you're wrong about anything you believe now? Or will discover you're wrong again the future?
Many many times.
I got sucked into some very toxic spaces a few years back. I ignored legitimate criticism of my views and my stubbornness set in very deeply. Regret it to this day.
But it did provide me with some good teachable moments and I think it’s important to be humbled every so often. It keeps us honest, imo
 
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