Thou Shalt Think For Thyselves!

This isn't the blog where we'll go into details about climate change. This is a precursor. Allow me to introduce you to a concept called "Argument from Authority". It amuses me ironically to quote this direct from Wikipedia.

"Argument from authority or appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, where it is argued that a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is commonly regarded as authoritative. The most general structure of this argument is:

Source A says that p.
Source A is authoritative.
Therefore, p is true.

This is a fallacy because the truth or falsity of the claim is not necessarily related to the personal qualities of the claimant, and because the premises can be true, and the conclusion false (an authoritative claim can turn out to be false). It is also known as argumentum ad verecundiam (Latin: argument to respect) or ipse dixit (Latin: he himself said it). [1]

On the other hand, arguments from authority are an important part of informal logic. Since we cannot have expert knowledge of many subjects, we often rely on the judgments of those who do. There is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true. The fallacy only arises when it is claimed or implied that the authority is infallible in principle and can hence be exempted from criticism."

And as a reasonably intelligent seeming person (Apple in my eye) wrote regarding this applied to a different subject.
"And, the other way around -- that someone is automatically incorrect because they are not an authority."

All this will hopefully serve to remind you that you are your own person. A hilarious accident has bestowed you with life and a complex organ known as a brain enabling you to observe and question everything around you. When another person feeds you information you have to make the conscious decision on whether to believe them or not. This decision has to be independent from trust. Let's face it, it's trust in authority that left you believing in a certain fictional seasonal character (Santa) for years on end. Examine as much evidence as possible then draw your own conclusions and even then, you might still be wrong, but at least you tried.

I'll also throw in something else I know. Perception, as you are aware, is something I find fascinating. Perception is the mystical property that allows us all to see things differently. It's why we like different music and different films and have different values, principles and views. The police force is one body that is all too aware of the power of perception. When an incident occurs and the police take witness statements, the one thing they expect to find is inconsistencies. When witness statements match perfectly, someone's lying. This is because people see things very differently. It's why, after my robbery experience, I (A 20 something male face to face with the robber) described him as being only a bit taller than me, 5'10 or thereabouts, whereas my coworker, Linda (A 50 something woman standing some distance away) described him as being 6'3". Neither of us were lying and tbh, I don't know for sure how tall he turned out to be, but such a result is to be expected. In the heat of the moment, Linda made her judgement, partly in fear, seeing him tower over me. I made mine from my peripheral vision, my focus more on the knife swishing in front of me than the robber himself. It's up to the police to decide which report is the more accurate. Likely he was somewhere in between, around 6 foot.

This is why it's important to question other things in your life that you may have taken for granted based upon someone else's perception. If you were brought up Christian or Muslim or whatever, it's a good idea to take a step back and examine your faith. Discuss such matters with members of other religions and athiests. Maybe you'll decide your beliefs have changed, or maybe you'll come out of it more convinced than ever that you have made the correct decision. But until you do question it, you're just believing someone else's perception blindly. You're believing in Santa because your parents told you to.

And likewise you should rarely believe what you read in the papers or see on the news. They too get it wrong. If you pay careful enough attention you'll often see apologies for false information buried on page 33, completely discounting a previous day's headlines.

Aleister Crowley once said "Nothing is true and everything is permitted."

NOTHING is true. Question everything. And be prepared to change your mind as new facts come to light! You won't be alone. The Jews, for example, are often willing to reinterpret their holy texts as science reveals new information that could not have been known at the time of their writing. They accept that the holy texts are not fully accurate. That their God made the world but also gave them the power to figure out the finer workings of it for themselves and come to new understandings about his teachings, methods and intentions.

But let me not get all caught up in religious issues. It's simply an easy way of explaining my message. Think for yourselves. Leave the blind autonomy for the lesser creatures.