Spiders, snakes, enclosed spaces, heights…I’m sure deep down inside all of us are scared of sth. it could be an irrational fear/phobia or something more common like the fear of losing someone close, the fear of sheer embarrassment or even the fear of sth inexplicable to us, like homosexuality or the question of our own existence.
I’ve been reading the book of Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre compiled by Walter Kaufmann, and one of the writers mentioned, a Dane by the name Søren Kierkegaard, raised an interesting issue about faith and belief. he argues that there are no rational or logical explanations why someone would want to believe in God. another existentialist, E.M. Cioran, contends that the idea of a God (at least based on the Christian doctrine) itself is absurd. how could Jesus Christ be the son of God, a divine and supposedly perfect being when he was also a human who had to go through many suffering and torment? why would the son of God need to eat, sleep, rest and defecate like the rest of us if he was believed to be an all powerful and supreme being?
what I noticed is that both writers seem to suggestively imply in their writings that the reason ppl have faith, is because they need to. according to them, there are no scientifically profound reasons why you should believe in an omnipotent and omniscient being who creates us all. in the end, it’s all blind faith. no concrete proof or evidence whatsoever. like an agnostic friend of mine would say “there is no proof or evidence that God exists. then again, there is also no proof that He doesn’t”. so why do some of us still believe in God anyway? it’s because of fear (pls note this is Cioran & Kierkegaard’s ideas, not mine). and then, it struck me. it came to my realization that what could possibly be our greatest fear is actually the fear of being wrong.
Cioran believes that we fear of death and the nothingness after it, hence why ppl create belief in the after-life and the idea of a Creator that rules us all. Kierkegaard on the other hand asserts that ppl probably believe in God because they want to believe He is real regardless of all of the supposedly illogical reasoning behind it. they want to believe in God because they’re afraid that they might be judged and punished as mentioned by all of the prophets, messiahs and messengers if they don’t. as you can see, the similarity between the two theories offered by both men is that they relate us back to our fear of having a false preconception of an idea.
let’s forget abt Kierkegaard and Cioran with their seemingly blasphemous ideas for awhile. consider this example. let’s say you found out a seemingly “nice friend” of yours (let’s think of her as an ultra soft-spoken, polite, headscarf-wearing girl shall we?) happens to be a horny person with what appears to be an insatiable sexual crave. and then you also see several other female friends and even other girls/women with the same intense sexual libido despite their passive appearances or “clean-looking” images. and so, from these actual experiences you deduce a conclusion that ALL women are horny. never mind the fact that your claim is based purely on anecdotal evidence, you will still instinctively believe that your claim is true despite being a complete generalization based on a limited observation, am I not correct? in other words, no matter how illogical the reasoning may be, once we have perceived sth as true, it is very hard for us to completely disregard and reject it (see the connection and similarity with Kierkegaard’s theory abt faith and the belief in God?).
perhaps it's part of our human nature, that we refuse to believe that there will be times when our opinions and perceptions could possibly be incorrect. basically, we're afraid that others would find out that our beliefs are wrong and that we have actually wasted part of our lives believing in lies. it's a miserable and humiliating feeling. it's like that embarrassing moment where you said ‘pronounciation’ instead of ‘pronunciation’ during a conversation w/ a friend. an even better example would be like your discovery that Santa or the Easter Bunny doesn't exist at the age of 14 and you're friends laughing at you abt it. when we learn something (from reading books or going through an experience) we actually gain a 'preconceived idea' of what is true. and often, when someone else starts challenging that 'truth', the feeling of insecurity, for the fear of being wrong makes us do whatever it takes to convince that person, and more importantly ourselves that we are right. call it a bad case of denial. I'm sure all of us have gone through this kind of experience. then again, it is kinda ironic that the fear for being wrong could actually make your belief stronger. and personally I don't think this is wrong at all. we all need sth to believe in. what good is it to have faith and beliefs but to renounce them later just because someone else managed to prove that they ‘might’ not be true?
maybe this is the real problem faced by heretics and apostates. the overwhelming fear for being wrong makes them doubt and question their own beliefs and principles. I’m not saying you shouldn’t change if you find out that you could be wrong abt sth, but at least give it some deep thought and find out why would it be a mistaken belief in the first place. only then you decide to stick to that belief or just abandon it. in his book, Meditations on First Philosophy, Renè Descartes mentioned how he too doubted the existence of a God/Creator at first. but instead of ditching his beliefs completely, he renounced all of them in the beginning and but slowly, bit by bit, he built back from the very foundation of his own beliefs until the point that he was truly convinced that there truly exists an omnipotent and omniscient being.
sometimes the fear of being wrong poses a problem when one becomes too insecure abt one’s own beliefs. there are ppl who force feed others to accept their opinions because they do not want to be considered as outcasts with a mistaken/unpopular belief. some of these ppl are actually arrogant oafs who think they're so smart, parading around with their irritating “know-it-all attitude”. they seem to think they know EVERYTHING and they will try as hard as they can to shove their opinions down your throat and convince you to agree with them even though you’ve decided not to. apparently, when faced with an idea/opinion which contradicts theirs, they will suddenly feel threatened and take action to reaffirm their own beliefs by making sure that you have the same perceptions/perspectives as they do. it makes me wanna think that these ppl are imbeciles who just can’t be stand to be criticized of their beliefs at all.
I’ve of heard ppl who claim that I’m just an mcp wannabe. hmmm…by definition, chauvinism is a behavior expressive of an attitude of feeling superior towards members of the opposite sex. now I’ve certainly expressed that kind of behavior before, and unlike most guys, my behavior can be considered chronic/too extreme, so if I’m not an mcp then I really don’t know what I am. and here comes the interesting part. these ppl are always coming up w/ various theories, arguing and assuming that I’m just a wannabe who wants to be “labeled” in society. they think that at this age, it’s only natural for me to “seek an identity” so I could be recognized and accepted by others. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. what a joke. considering the nature of their argument, these ppl must've taken psychology classes or at least read some of the materials before. well, I’m not gonna argue here whether they’re right or wrong, but I can’t help myself from thinking that these ppl are probably coming up w/ these theories to reaffirm their beliefs abt their initial perception of me. they’ve learned it in class/ from reading, they observe how I behave and they come up w/ a conclusion of what is “probably true” based on their limited knowledge. since they've read materials with professional opinions and did some observation, they couldn’t be wrong abt me could they?
when you take my theory of the fear into application in this case, it fits the description nicely. ppl ALWAYS have a negative perception of what kind of person I am, and when confronted and proven that they are most probably wrong, they blatantly refuse to accept it. “but hey, I learned in from my psychology class so it has to be true”. reality check: most of the things we learn in school or everywhere are THEORIES. a theory by definition is a PROBABLE ASSUMPTION, a speculation one might say. it’s most likely to be true, but until proven that it is the “absolute truth”, it is no different than Darwin’s claim that humans evolved from apes. bear in mind that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution might possibly be true (at least to the scientific community) but then again, we don’t know that for sure now do we?
it's obvious that each and every one of us have different views and perspectives abt many things of life, hence it is only reasonable that what one person perceives as "true" might not be applicable to others. frankly speaking, I believe that every person should stick to their own truths. your friends and family can convince you to have faith in sth, but whether you adhere to it or not is entirely up to you. the fear of being wrong works in two ways, you could either fear that you're wrong and build a stronger belief in yourself and deny it or you accept the "new truth" because you realized you were actually mistaken with your beliefs. I have my own opinions and thoughts, I have my own brand of justice, I have my own perspective of what is considered to be moral and what are the things I consider as funny. I don't need to give the slightest care whether ppl agree w/ me or not and I sure as hell don't expect them to make me adhere to their own versions of the truth. it's nothing but an utter waste of time.
the truth is sometimes subjective. that is why we're forever afraid with the possibility that we could be wrong. we all know that there has to be one “absolute truth” but being the mortal beings with limited capabilities that we are, it’s only understandable that we do not know this "absolute truth". well I guess to a certain extent, both Cioran and Kierkegaard were right. in the end, we are all self-opinionated creatures who will only believe what we choose to believe in. for me, I'm a man of principles. no matter how the times change, nothing abt my truth ever will. in the words of Hajime Saitou ...."a man who cannot uphold his own beliefs is pathetic, dead or alive"...
