Control Beliefs saturate all your thinking so be sure you base them
on carefully assessed solid evidence
You have met Charlie. If you start off believing he is shifty and bad that will
affect how you interpret what he does and says. You will think you have
wonderful evidence that he is indeed shifty and bad. If you start off liking him
you will take a different interpretation of the evidence and see him as likeable
and decent. Your beliefs affect how you see things.
A control belief controls and co-ordinates how you look at the evidence and how
you interpret it. Jack the Ripper authors always start with who they believe the
Ripper to be and then they interpret the evidence to fit their belief.
A control belief can be conscious or unconscious. You may not be aware of how
you treat something as probably true.
If your control belief is that the Mormon Faith is the true faith, you will end
up explaining the evidence against it away. This technique is so unscientific
and misleading and arrogant. It is the reason why so many religious people still
support their faith after finding evidence or even proof that it is wrong.
It only takes a tiny number of wrong beliefs or assumptions for one to end up
being totally ridiculous. Catholics for example believed that priests were
saintly. So they concluded that children accusing them of molesting them were
lying or the devil was playing tricks. A simple and single belief led to huge
disaster and ignorance. The casualties cannot be counted and never will be.
In court, if you are accused of murder and one witness says you were at the
murder site and another says you were not, the control belief that the jury has
will determine which witness they believe. It is really the control belief that
has the only say ultimately.
A default control belief is the one that you start with. It is the best belief
to start off with. We have to avoid excessive bias. We have to be as fair as we
can be. We have to be fair to ourselves and to the evidence. Suppose we have
adopted no beliefs in relation to an issue. We may have to select one of them
automatically. We have to pick one of them. It can't just be any old one. It has
to be the one that is going to take the least rationalisation. The default is
always the position you should assume or the opinion you should have until it is
proven wrong or improbable.
Do not argue, "The burden of proof is not on me to show that my
control beliefs are desirable or right. The burden of proof is on those who
contradict my control beliefs." Sorry in light of the rule that evidence
should do the teaching and talking and be allowed to form beliefs,
if you say "x is true" or "x is untrue" or even "there is no way to
know if x is true or not" you take on the duty to show why your
claim is persuasive. The burden is on you for you are making a claim
and only applies to another who lets you know they believe you are
wrong. Also a control belief is always communicated to others
even if not verbally. So you cannot say, "I never told John
that I hold that all truth comes from God." You didn't need
to. You can show a truth claim. You don't have to
vocalise.
The correct default positions enable us to make ourselves honest people. If we
are not honest with ourselves we must not and cannot ask others to trust us.
Religious believers spew hatred towards atheists and agnostics and many
scientists because they are jealous that these people exercise an honesty that
they don't have.
CONTROL FEELINGS
Not only do we have control beliefs we have control feelings. Feelings also
colour how we interpret the data we get. For example, the lover will not believe
his beloved girlfriend smothered her grandmother to death to take her life
savings because his feelings kick in and stop him seeing the evidence properly.
The control feeling we must have is how great it would be to be more rational.
Otherwise we are just slaves to feelings. Our emotions are wired into us. If you
feel angry you can't just turn it off with a button. You have to manipulate your
inner programming to feel better. Just like you press the right buttons on a
computer so you do it with yourself.
CONTROL FAITHS
Belief is a head exercise where you tend to agree with something. A faith
position is when you honour somebody else by believing what they say. It's a
heart job for it is about connecting to another person as a person.
WHAT IS EXPECTED OF US?
Control beliefs need to be forged with responsibility. That means no lying, no
half-truths, no silence that lets lies thrive and no conditioning or
indoctrinating. In religious terms, leaving the religion as well as joining it
are equally celebrated.
Lastly
Control beliefs would be fine if they were correct. But believing something does
not make it true or good. Error risks unwittingly harming and making life hard
for others and yourself. We must take care to follow default beliefs or beliefs
that are well supported. We need to be open to correction and new light.
