Believe me...

Belief cannot be forced. It kinda sneaks up on you, happening organically.

Warning: belief is dangerous and seriously damages your capacity to think and learn. It can sometimes lead to death.

Once upon a time, you found yourself confused or oblivious or just plain dumb. What triggered this uncomfortable state? Maybe you:

• got savaged in a debate
• joined a new social group
• watched a video
• read an article
• or just had an epiphany

Regardless, you encountered something new which altered your perception of reality. Perhaps you found answers or solutions, easing this feeling of ignorance. Maybe you researched the topic or spoke about it with others. As you accumulated convincing information, you started to like this feeling of knowing stuff, developing a bias. Then, you discarded or ignored information opposing this bias and searched only for that which confirmed it. The more you accumulated supporting information, the stronger it became. It evolved into a belief.

Belief in anything is a bad idea. The most obvious example is religion. When you firmly believe you have found the truth, you stop looking, your curiosity recedes until all you see is that which confirms your truth. You avoid reading, watching or listening to opposing opinions with an open mind. You close your ears to any counter-opinions. Some get defensive and whinge about safe spaces when others dare to express different opinions.

I was brought up by a religious lunatic and brainwashed from an early age. Belief never came easy to me though. Even as a young kid, I battled with the logic of talking snakes and a human living in the belly of a whale, no matter how many times I was grounded for questioning the dogma. I feared that no amount of Sunday School was going to absolve me from the kicking Adele McKnee promised me for robbing her lollipop.

Anyway, as a young adult, going through tough times, a super-happy born-again Christian befriended me. She promised that Jesus would help me sort my shit and make me happy. I didn't believe her but I was all about quick fixes and thought it was worth a try. So, I gagged my inner cynic and went to church, really trying hard to believe.

My favourite church days involved people giving public testimonies – basically telling everyone what a shitty scumbag loser they used to be before Jesus got involved, really juicy stuff. Not very convincing, especially when I got to know them better and discovered they were still, pretty much, major arseholes. I never gave a testimony – partly because Jesus still hadn't fixed me – I still had a lot more sinning to do and aspired to have the testimony to end all testimonies.

So, I went along with the Christianity thing for nearly a year. I kept my side of the bargain but Jesus totally fucked up his end of the deal. The original life problems were still there, compounded by newer issues. My life now included an uncomfortably large quotient of Christians and many of them owned tambourines. I'd reached breaking point. I just couldn't bring myself to face another prayer circle, sing another sickly hymn or suffer through another Women Aglow dinner.

I felt a deep sense of shame as I recalled the times I'd gone to public events as a wannabe Christian, pretending to be fucking tranquil, toe-tapping to tuneless hymns and acting like it wasn't weird for people to 'talk in tongues'. I'd let myself down, ignored my logic and pissed all over my dignity.

I was young and desperate. I just wanted my problems to go away and I wanted to be happy. More importantly, I was lazy; I wanted these problems to be fixed by magic Jesus.

Happiness did come but it was up to me. I had to unfriend Jesus; most of his gang unfriended me as a consequence but I was okay with that. Regardless, I felt exponentially happier to get my Sunday mornings back. I loved not having to suck up to Jesus anymore. I no longer had to censor my own thoughts or listen to grovelling sycophants. I was no longer at war with my own logic and intellect. I was no longer locked in a self-imposed state of childishness, deferring to an imaginary daddy figure, an authority. I was free.

When most of these religions were formed, people had only a handful of so-called experts to consult. Knowledge wasn't as accessible. It was harder, and much more dangerous, for people to get alternative information. Now, we have no excuse.

I lived in a time before the internet and even before many had house phones. Our main sources of information were telly, newspapers and community leaders (clergy, doctors, teachers). We believed what they told us. They were the experts, right? If so inclined, they could make shit up and pretend it was real – no photos, videos or peer-reviewed journals. Easy.

Gossip is an organic form of information exchange and much more fun. This would gather momentum, morph, oscillate and grow. As more people added to the story, trending thoughts would stick and others would lose credibility and die. What came out the other end was usually a fair version of what actually happened. Usually. Gossip was a much slower version of today's internet, but with fewer checkable sources.

I never believed in God, but I did buy into a belief system that was equally dangerous...

At the height of my own personal bellend-edness, I believed in the virtues of vegetarianism and veganism. I practised this for 17 years and ended up with serious autoimmune and mental illnesses. The seeds of belief were planted after reading Vegetarian Society articles and watching PETA video nasties on YouTube. These were very persuasive and caused me to feel guilty about enjoying delicious animals in a way that resulted in their death and/or suffering. After brainwashing myself, I believed that veganism was the only true way to happiness, health and general good karma.

Only a complete psychopath would enjoy the torture and inhumane treatment of animals but extreme vegans – those responsible for a massive amount of propaganda – paint meat-eaters as complicit in this arrangement, whilst completely omitting the fact that industrial veg growers buy tonnes of actual shit from these torture dens to fertilise the soil upon which they grow their 'cruelty-free' vegetarian food (unless they're using poisonous, petroleum-derived chemical fertilisers).

Obviously, the vegan spectrum is vast and can contain rational, intelligent people. The vegan religion, however, indoctrinates kind, passionate, caring people and morphs some of them into hateful, raging automatons spewing the party political line. The vegan propaganda machine teaches us to place our own needs below that of animals whilst simultaneously pretending the diet will benefit human health. Some devotees begin to despise humanity so much that they elect for unnecessary vasectomies or sterilisation operations. Some vegans even force their carnivorous pets to eat a vegan diet. Some become hardcore terrorists, attacking doctors and scientists. These are well-meaning people doing bad things because of a belief system.

With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion. Steven Weinberg

Many vegans are malnourished, suffering a myriad of health problems. Who's being kind to them? Does anyone really want to sacrifice their own life for the sake of animals which have been part of the natural food chain since the beginning? What about those at the very extreme end of the vegan spectrum? – Breatharians. These people believe they can live on sunlight without eating food. Naturally, some have died as a result of this belief. Those spreading breatharian propaganda, and making a fat wedge of money from it, have been seen shopping for food in supermarkets or sneaking out of fast food restaurants.

Quick question...

Do you believe war is ever just or that the pharmaceutical industry exists to improve health or that the food industry cares about our nutrition or that kids are learning actual facts in school or that the money in your bank account exists or that the food pyramid is the healthiest way to eat or that the man who kicks a hole in your head actually loves you or that a 400-year-old man built a massive ark and stuffed it with every species of animal or … ?

Belief kills curiosity. When you absolutely know you're right, you close your mind to alternatives. New information just doesn't go in; you block it. If you're incapable of openly appraising new information, you stop evolving, stop learning, and cocoon yourself against something that could help you step closer to a truth... whatever that is.

The best way to cure yourself from belief is to remain curious and open. No matter how plausible the information seems, investigate for yourself. Look at other sources, read what the opposition says, immerse yourself in all sides of the argument. Even if you get your info from a person you trust, are you sure their source was correct? Get curious about motives. Who would benefit by this being true? Are there any reasons for the source to fabricate something? Is anyone making tonnes of money from this information being believed? Could this information be hiding something juicier?

I believe (just kidding hehehe) – I think the best pathway to truth is to assume you are working with only a fraction of the information, possibly misinformation, and could actually be wrong. Open your mind, look into it, do a full investigation, find multiple credible sources. Why? Because...

Belief can kill you