Common Misconceptions About Common Misconceptions

[angersson]

An individual on the local pagan list (Northeast Mississippi) brought up the topic of common misconceptions about Paganism for discussion.  She mentioned Christians in particular as having negative misconceptions about us and then set forth to discuss the differences between Paganism, Wicca, and Witchcraft with the idea that this will "build

Comments

[grynner]

Over all, not bad. With one small point (a distinction I would make, but that could be argued otherwise):
If one believes something strongly enough, one will find that evidence to the contrary of one's belief only makes one believe more, not less.

I would say it's a matter of "following" rather than believing. The best examples pick on the highly conservative religious right types: They've been "raised" christian, all their friends are christian, ect, so of course, they are christian. They don't really think about it, let alone question it, they simply are.
If something then comes up that brings into question some aspect of their "faith", they typically over react and step closer (further into) fanaticism. Why? Because they typically think that if they are wrong about this one thing (pagan's being good or simply non-deluded by satan, some abortion issue, ect) then everything else they believe must be wrong as well, which would shatter their lives as they know it (as opposed to simply being mistaken on a single issue). So, instead they hold onto their "questioned beliefs" rabidly and move towards an overall fanaticism. (Look at a lot of the religious right on the Pro-Life or Anti-Death Penalty movements.)
Do they all (be they christian, muslim, or even pagan) do this? No. Do the one's who do even realize they're making a rather bad "Baby with the bathwater" kind of logical fallacy? Not usually. Typically the one's who trip like this do so because their beliefs are unexamined, and/or they don't necessarily have good critical thinking skills.
I've typically found that those who do Believe strongly (or have critically examined their beliefs) tend to either be fairly accepting of different viewpoints, or at least have better reasoned arguments other than "you're obviously being deluded by Satan and don't even realize you're going to burn in hell" type answers.

[angersson]

I shall take some time to think about the questionable sentence and see if I might not word it better. I know I'm missing some terminology from some earlier reading about how people reject facts because of their beliefs or their worldviews. There are at least two fairly technical terms used to describe this human phenomenon, and I can't think of either one of them right now.

I'm fairly certain this even happens to those of us who consider ourselves open minded.

Those who are fairly accepting of different viewpoints are not giving us problems in the tolerance department.

Those who have better reasoned arguments are going to require better reasoned arguments from us in return.

If you want to do me up a post on Grynner's Pagan Apologetics so that the NE Mississippi list can discuss that,I'm sure I'll be happy to pass that along.