Fact and Belief EDITORIAL

LIVINGSTON, January 20, 2008 – Beliefs are funny things and we all should take a good look at them from time to time.

Recently an exercise fanatic told me, “Many Americans become diabetics because their pancreas has worked so hard from years of refined sugar consumption that it quits producing insulin and for lack of a better term, your pancreas is used up, worn out.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. Adult onset Type II Diabetes is caused by insulin resistance, not because of a lack of insulin, according to medical research. It is not caused by people wearing out their pancreases by consuming excess quantities of refined sugar.

• This belief by my exercise fanatic friend illustrates the best qualities of beliefs.
• Beliefs don’t have to be true. You can believe anything.
• Beliefs don’t have to have any basis in fact whatsoever.
• Beliefs are easy. You don’t have to do any work, research or study to believe them.
• Beliefs, even though untrue, are convenient because they give us a framework for our thinking.
• Beliefs, particularly ones that are untrue, give us an easy scapegoat to blame for just about any problem they address. They lay blame on a person or group who must be responsible for the difficulty in the first place.

In the case of my exercise fanatic friend his belief concerning the cause of Type II Diabetes lays the blame conveniently on people who suffer from the condition. They did it to themselves by consuming too much refined sugar over the years.

So we have a belief and a convenient scapegoat all tied up so nicely in one neat, complete package.

Blind or uninformed belief can be quite dangerous particularly in the wrong hands. If you want to go through life in ignorant bliss, so be it. It is when beliefs, not based in fact, begin to influence public policy that suddenly we are all in trouble.

Blind belief in the wrong hands is a very dangerous thing.

There is a widely held belief on the subject of immigration, that Hispanic illegal immigrants from Mexico are the root cause of all of the ills in American Society today.

This widely held belief is not based in fact and assumes that our society would be better off if all illegal immigrants from Mexico were gotten rid of. That’s not true either.

This belief about Hispanic immigrants has prompted some in our government to propose building a huge wall at great expense stretching from Brownsville to Arizona. Others, want to round up all the Hispanic immigrants, some 12 million of them, and transport them back to Mexico, creating a mass Exodus from the US that makes the biblical account of the Jews fleeing Egypt seem like a weekend vacation in the dessert.

When beliefs, not based in fact, begin to influence public policy, then we’re all in trouble and will never provide real solutions to the problems we all face as Americans.

Hitler had beliefs, not based in fact, that led to WW II and the holocaust.

This is what can happen when blind belief replaces, research, study and intellectual scrutiny.

Bill Gates has been quoted as saying, “Information is the currency of the future.” I believe him because those with information have the facts and can make better, more informed decisions about their lives, their businesses and their world.

by Allen Youngblood