Everybody believes, even if they don't have a theology. If we are to become wise, we need to sharpen our beliefs and the beliefs of the people we influence. To do that, we need to understand why and how people believe.
The Nelson Mandela effect is an experience where people are clearly wrong about facts that they strongly believe. It is a good case-study to understand how reluctantly people are willing to give up clearly false notions.
The concept of cognitive dissonance is a psychological process that describes how people hold on to false beliefs and how they can give them up. It can explain why an abused spouse stays, why some marriages fail badly, and we are the last to know what people think about us.
If we want to change the world, we may need to understand people better than they understand themselves.
"Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary." -- Blaise Pascal
"Nothing is as approved as mediocrity, the majority has established it and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way" -- Blaise Pascal
Have you met people who are deluded by something that is clear to everyone else? (For example, the wrong romantic partner?)
One of these biases tries to make the world simpler than it is and the other tries to make it more complicated. Why would people do either?
Do you have a minority opinion? What can you use to help decide if you are right?
Do you have a Christian responsibility to question your beliefs?