Beliefs are inevitable. You can KNOW things only if you know all the facts and have the ability as well as the knowledge to derive the right conclusions from the facts. Humanity itself does not yet have complete knowledge and you, yourself, do not even have all the facts which humanity has accumulated. And when you consider things as true, you are only believing them or believing those who say such things are true - scientists, economists, whoever. (Belief in the physical sciences was a lot more dependable in the past, when false facts and scientists who work to prove the point of their paymasters were a lot less prevalent. The social sciences, though...Show me a social scientist - economist, sociologist, whoever - who claims that his view is the incontrovertible truth and I will know where to go when I want an idiot OR a barefaced liar or both.)
Beliefs come in all flavors. Some are proven wrong with near-certainty. Some are not yet conclusively proven wrong but the preponderance of available evidence suggests that they may possible be wrong. Some are the sort where you could pick any side and have an almost equal probability of being wrong.
It is the tenacity of beliefs, though, that is astounding. I mean, you could possibly overturn a lot of FACTS and not elicit more than 'Ho, Hum' from most people. But touch upon a social belief...
You see, the first thing about social beliefs is that they provide an instruction manual for your life. If you want to be seen as good - dress like this, talk like this, act like this. And by the same token, you know what sort of people others are by taking one look at their dress, the way they speak or act. It is even easier when they come from elsewhere - if he is from that region, he is false, if he is from that region, he is rude...Avoids all this messy business of having to understand them and assessing their character. Who does not understand the importance of an Instruction manual? Now to change beliefs is to junk that oh-so-useful manual and open myself to the idea of assessing each person all by my lonesome. Have a heart!
Like it or lump it, Society works on a pecking order. Equality is for dummies. (Right-wing fascist? Me? Yeah, Right! Even liberals only want equal OPPORTUNITIES, you know. Opportunities to do what? To rise to any level in that pecking order. So, there!) Hierarchical organisations have a defined pecking order and a defined mechanism for rising up that pecking order.
The problem is, as usual, in informal situations which means home and society at large. Social beliefs define that for you rather conveniently. It does not matter what sort of person you are - you are above some and below some. It gives you a nice feeling of stability about life. Touch upon those beliefs and you mess up the stability in my life. Even those who are at the bottom - if you leave it to individual ability to stay there or move up...well, how many are confident of moving up and how many are afraid that the others will leave them behind? It is better if you are fighting to move up as a whole and push some other group of people below you. Otherwise...Change, you see, is always welcome ONLY when it is others who need to change OR when YOUR situation will only change for the better.
Beliefs are also an all-important crutch. Especially religious beliefs. Let us say that someone has a parent with an incurable disease. It is likely that he keeps his hope up believing that prayers to a deity will set things right for him. When rationality ceases to offer hope, people WILL lean on beliefs. Would you, then, find them open to have their beliefs questioned? (Well, IF it is possibly curable and they are refusing to take the rational option what do you think will work best? To tell them that this is nonsense and they should go to a doctor OR to tell them to pray but also go to a doctor?)
So, comes to those who have no reason for rational hope that their lives will become better in the future - due to poverty or lack of options or lack of options due to poverty - belief in a god who will set things right for them is all that would keep them going. And that belief is so tenacious that it will be vigorously defended.
Uprooting social beliefs or modifying them is what all change is about. You need to pick your battles, though, and pick your arguments so that it seeks to change only what needs to change in the better interest of society and not to try to remake the entire world in your image.
To dash around like a bull in a china shop, regardless of consequences, trying to destroy beliefs that you consider irrational is like...
Don Quixote tilting at windmills.
