[quote]Gumpshmee wrote:
How is it possible to know one’s religion is the true one when there are in fact a number of competing ideologies all claiming the same thing? Simple. You were exposed to yours.
If you were brought up Islam those beliefs would be true for you at least for a time, because the mechanisms of the mind that dictate our social conformity are for the most part dominant over our reasoning capacity. The very act of “learning” is social conformity.
From the perspective of evolution it makes much more sense to go with the flow than to question it, and confirmation bias let’s you interpret anything as “evidence”. People change or abandon faith more often than not when they feel it facilitates an integration into a group which is more beneficial to survival. This notion usually comes from the broader suite of beliefs one can have outside of religion.
Where societies are allowed to cross pollinate people are exposed to a broader suite of memes where each is thrown into greater doubt and they are allowed to compete at least partially on the virtue of their merits.
However, many will continue to “defer” to their group’s narratives and beliefs and spend their mental energy on confirmation bias for as long as they perceive their group to be fit, rather than engage in and profit from doubt.
There is this tendency for people to adopt political and metaphysical narratives and ideas rather than to leave the slate blank. I think this is also an evolutionary adaption to enable “reactionary” thinking which triggers quick and unified group responses in times of danger, rather than bouts of deliberation.
However, the majority of our problem scenarios can’t be resolved by thinking from one’s “common sense” or list of things “known”. One first has to have the humility to say that they do not understand how policy will affect society simply because the data set is enormous. Then we can use a system of trial and error to discover what works rather than defering to the “god complex” right at the beginning. The same can be said of the Economy, Child development, the human body, and all of our knowledge gaps.
It is unnecessary to have proxies for the unknown. In fact it’s much more comfortable to simply not know. So much living can be done with so little belief. A lot of people have got it in their heads that stuff has to have meaning beyond their evolutionary drives, but meaning is something we have created and continually recreate. In the end that means a lot more variety for one thing.
I’ll concede that the universe is miraculous. What makes energy energetic for example? A: It does that from nothing. I will not claim to know the name of the person responsible because he will more than likely be made up.[/quote]
hmmm, which question do you want answered. There’s a lot of different things to address here. I tell you what, if you change that horrendous avatar, I all answer everything. If you keep it, pick the question you want answered the most. 
I don’t know why, but I find that avatar really horrible and annoying.