Belief is Boss, Rationalize is the Muscle

For most if not all of what you Believe, you must Rationalize. Because we humans are so good at believing, most are experts at rationalizing. So good we can rationalize just about anything.

Here's an interesting common example. "How could somebody possibly believe something so outrageous? They must be stupid." After living most of 4 decades in a cult, and my whole life in society, I can vouch that intelligence has very little to do with belief. But what ground has the comment covered?

The person who made it cannot understand something, the other person's belief, so they come up with a rationalization. The commenter's own belief must be defended, so a conclusion is reached with no evidence whatsoever. No consideration is given to the possibility that their own belief could be incorrect. That's how powerful Belief is, so he hires his best man, Rationalize.

For instance, the person making the comment could believe the Bible. If so they believe a donkey talked, people were raised from the dead, Moses parted the Red Sea simply by raising his staff, people were healed from leprosy, the sun stayed up for 3 days straight, Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt, the Nile River was turned to blood....yet they are astounded at someone else's belief, so they must rationalize. At the same time there are very many intelligent people who believe these things, and I don't say they're wrong. But they must rationalize because nobody on this entire planet has ever experienced any of the above. 7.5 billion living data points.

Think how MANY things you have to believe if you are a Democrat or Republican. haha I don't even want to go there!

If you want to see the power of Rationalization, the Milgram Experiment is classic. Milgram tested 40 men between 20-50 years of age. The Nazi's defense at Nuremberg was they were just following orders, so he wanted to see how far people would really go.

Milgram: "The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation."

"Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority."

Please read that last sentence again.  

12 minutes, just ask yourself, what did these people Believe, and what did they Rationalize? One hint: The authority figure is in a white lab coat, which helps instill belief. When the test is repeated without the lab coat the results go down. But in the original experiment 65% administered the final, massive 450-volt shock, while all 40 participants gave shocks of at least 300 volts.  Ultimately the men tested were told the other person was an actor, otherwise imagine the guilt they might carry around when nobody was ever really punished.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOUEC5YXV8U