"I'll never believe x"

“I’ll never believe x”

silently implies

“…no matter how true it may be.”

Making enemies of ideas, makes an enemy of thinking itself.

Many of us are constantly saying “I’ll never believe x” in various ways.

Conclusions are often disguised as identities: “I’ll never believe x” comes out sounding like like “I’ll never be an x.”

Unwillingness to believe a thing, is unwillingness to understand it. Before you can understand an idea, you have to be willing to embrace it as your own. I’ve written about this before.

There’s a bit of a conundrum here — some ideas are actually bad.

I suspect I still shouldn’t say “I’ll never believe [objectively bad idea].”

Here’s why:

The fact that there are actually bad ideas seems to parallel the fact that there are irreparably evil people. But since we couldn’t possibly know which those are, the most skillful action is always to love every single person. It’s the most effective strategy for you, whatever your purpose is, and might even have a rehabilitative effect on them.

Love every person, and the evil ones will weed themselves out. Possibly by bashing your head in — but getting your head bashed in is better than hating the wrong person for no reason.*

The epistemology version: being innocently mistaken is better than hating a great idea for no reason.

*I still hate certain people, so I’m a bit of a hypocrite here — this is just how the logic shakes out for me.)