I recently started watching the Netflix docuseries on QAnon. It's fascinating for multiple reasons, if depressing. One of the things that struck me about it is the way that Q believers will pour over every word typed by Q, trying to find ways to interpret them/find their secret meaning, contorting themselves into pretzels to find ways that Q's words are somehow accurate and rationalizing all the times they aren't.
There is a similar mentality at work here, it seems to me, as there is with Biblical fundamentalists who obsess over every word of the Bible and try to find ways the Bible is accurate, even if obliquely, and rationalize the times it isn't. Every new headline in the news is taken as confirmation of their unshakeable belief in the accuracy of their source of information. And like Q, the source is juuuust accurate enough here and there to keep people hooked and convince them that the times the source is clearly wrong must have some alternate explanation, or a hidden meaning, or the problem is with our interpretation of it, etc.
This is the problem of motivated reasoning. Once you start with a conclusion before you even look at new evidence, your mind has an extraordinary ability to find ways to preserve your paradigm, even when presented with contradictory information, and even when rationalizing that information requires totally implausible and conspiratorial explanations.
In summary, it is no surprise to me that many Christian fundamentalists are devotees of Q, and vice versa.
Agree? Disagree? Further thoughts?
There is a similar mentality at work here, it seems to me, as there is with Biblical fundamentalists who obsess over every word of the Bible and try to find ways the Bible is accurate, even if obliquely, and rationalize the times it isn't. Every new headline in the news is taken as confirmation of their unshakeable belief in the accuracy of their source of information. And like Q, the source is juuuust accurate enough here and there to keep people hooked and convince them that the times the source is clearly wrong must have some alternate explanation, or a hidden meaning, or the problem is with our interpretation of it, etc.
This is the problem of motivated reasoning. Once you start with a conclusion before you even look at new evidence, your mind has an extraordinary ability to find ways to preserve your paradigm, even when presented with contradictory information, and even when rationalizing that information requires totally implausible and conspiratorial explanations.
In summary, it is no surprise to me that many Christian fundamentalists are devotees of Q, and vice versa.
Agree? Disagree? Further thoughts?