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I hope this helped you realise something, anything really. All I want from the world is more questions with rational disscusions and conclusions to follow. Have a nice day and please begin asking your friends some hard hitting questions, it will weed out the close minded ones and you may have some really awesome conversations.

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This is a video about how your perception can be distorted and that our senses may not always be dependable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZflIMBxyIak

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There are many reasons for believing in things besides irrefutable facts suggesting the truth. Here are a few that I felt were the most prominent in my day to day life.
1.       Simplicity is the first reason for a belief I want to address. Most things in nature take the path of least resistance everything from rivers to electricity and this doesn't stop short at human thought. When something is hard to understand, for instance, how the pyramids of Egypt were built without the use of cranes or machines, it is easier to accept a simple doctrine than a complex one as it would require you to learn which, for some reason, people don’t like doing “How did the pyramids get built if we didn’t have cranes or machines?” “Aliens came and built them with their technology” That is a simple explanation and it is plausible. If aliens can reach us and build with our, materials it is absolutely possible, however, we have no proof. This is a photo from http://notbuyinganything.blogspot.ca/2013/09/inconvenient-truth-monday.html and it represents how most of the population will listen to something that compliments what they already think or feel. This is closely related to the confirmation bias.

2.       Patternicity. There is a plethora of information to take in at any given moment, from the smells, the colors, the temperature and so on. With all of this stimuli, the human brain has created some shortcuts so that we do not have to spend every moment perceiving everything like it is the first time. We have developed the memory to remind us of past failures and avoid danger. As a part of this memory, we have learned to recognize shapes, for instance, we have learned the shape of a gun very well so that we can identify it at a moments notice and perhaps save our hides. Another little trick we've learned is to recognize human faces instantly, this way we are able to find our own species and group together and survive. Read the book, The Self Illusion by Bruce Hood for more information on this subject. Since we have this survival instinct ingrained in us we often see faces in things like cars, toast, cliffsides or clouds. It is not bad to recognize these shapes in such things but it is a waste of a beautiful mind to give significance to the things housing the patterns without critically thinking about how it came to be that shape. This is an image from the article Finding Meaningful Patterns in Meaningless Noise from the website Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/patternicity-finding-meaningful-patterns/
I chose this photo because it is a good example of how patternicity can save your life. Essencially what this cat wants is to blend in with the background so it can stalk its prey but, since we are familiar with the shape of cats we are able to detect them through pattenicity. Life saved.
3.       Perception and observation. Again, I've chosen this reason for belief because it, along with the first two, are all the most basic reasons for belief in my opinion. It is likely that you have heard the phrase, 'seeing is believing' and it is also likely that there may be a few things that you would believe if you saw them for instance, if you saw an alien, it is likely you would believe afterward. This is not a foolish reason as we have grown to trust our senses to get us through our lives. Eyes help us find food, mates and detect danger, smell helps us avoid toxic food and substances, hearing allows us to communicate and so on. Typically one would not think to distrust our own senses, after all, what is life without perception? The problem with trusting your perception too much is that you may begin to think that the past is exactly how you remember it. According to innocenceproject.org, around 70% of wrongful convictions are due to eye witness testimonies. Here are two video links that will outline how our eyes can play tricks on us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZflIMBxyIak
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzo45hWXRWU

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A Red Flag is something to look out for when assessing the credibility of a statement, product or ideology.
Here are a few that I've chosen.

1.       Appeal to authority.
This Red Flag is very common, and it is found most often in product advertising, especially for toothpaste. It is called appeal to authority because we as a society have learned to respect people in certain professions such as police, doctors, paramedics and a few others, even celebrities. Because we've grown to trust theses people advertisers have learned to use them to draw in your attention and trust. For example, in a lot of Colgate's commercials you will see "an orthodontist" advocating the legitimacy of the product. The truth is that person is very likely to be a paid actor in a white lab coat. Speaking of paid actors, some hollywood stars will do commercials for products they believe in and sometimes for some they don't just because it pays well. The image below is a screenshot from a Colgate commercial, the man in the commercial is supposed to be a dentist but I suspect that he is simply a paid actor. Here is a link to the video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ULR68LTmbw

2.       All Natural is another Red Flag in advertising. It works because in a world where studies show that our air quality has declined and that processed foods are bad for us, walks in the forest and whole foods are more desired as are other “all natural” things. The problem with this particular red flag is that although “natural” things are certainly better for us, in regards to whole foods vs processed foods or countryside air vs city air,  just about anyone can slap on an all natural statement on their product so we as consumers must be critical in our choices. Below is a picture of Cheetos new "Natural" Cheetos. I posted this picture because I feel like it is a great example of how the word 'Natural" is used everywhere in marketing, even where it doesn't really belong. I don't know what your definition of natural is but to me a processed cheese puff without artificial flavors, preservatives or artificial colors IS NOT natural. A GMO apple is more natural than a Cheeto. In my opinion at least.

3.       Ancient Wisdom, here's a good one. The use of the “Ancient Wisdom” tag probably has about the same merit as the use of the “all natural” tag for the same reasons, there is no real definition of this term. All Natural is undergoing investigation by the FDA but Ancient Wisdom is not. In a world full of new and unnatural things that are bad for our health it would seem wise to act as one would before these technologies entered our world. Only thing is, how can an ancient being possibly know whats best for us in a time full of things they wouldn't have been able to even dream of. I personally believe that there were many people in the past whom had a much better grip on life than most of the people i've met in my life. Socrates for instance is one of the people who i think did a lot of good for humanity in his time but also transcends his time with his teachings. I think there is certainly room for some Ancient Wisdom in our world today but I also think that there is a lot of bogus products labeled or advertised as ancient wisdom. Here is a link to the website Skepdic (Skeptic's Dictionary) talking about ancient wisdom http://skepdic.com/skeptimedia/skeptimedia22.html. One paragraph in this site reads,

Come on, people. Use your common sense! In your gut, you know I'm right. Anyone who doubts the wisdom of the ancients need only look to the world's great religious traditions. Who can deny that the ancient practices of stoning people to death for adultery or persecuting those who charge interest on loans are far superior to letting people freely choose how to live their lives? The ancients knew how to treat homosexuals and would never have considered same-sex marriage as acceptable. The ancients didn't need science. As Ben Stein said: "love of God...leads you to a glorious place. Science leads you to killing people." In your gut, you know he's right.

This is written very sarcastically but I felt like I couldn't have said it better myself.

4.       Red herring is basically a distraction, hence the photo below. Red herring is also known as changing the subject or clouding the issue. This may not be seen on television advertising as much as the other red flags but it is definitely seen at flea markets or other person to person markets. Here is an example of a red herring.
Mom: "Joshua, it is getting late and you haven't begun your homework. Stop playing those video games and get your homework done. "
Joshua: "Why do I have to do it now? It's due in a week."
Mom: "Because when you get older you cannot afford to procrastinate."
Josh: " What does procrastinate mean?"
Mom: " To procrastinate is to put a task on the back burner with the intention to 'do it later' when it should be done now."
Josh: "What's the 'back burner'?"

Joshua has cleverly diverted the conversation from being about his homework to be about procrastination, ironically.

5.       Confirmation bias, is probably so prominent due to the natural dislike of cognitive dissonance in individuals, understandably so. Cognitive dissonance occurs when one’s mind has been introduced to a claim that would contradict current beliefs if accepted, often leading to the denial or resistance to accepting. An ever open mind is an easy preventative measure to cognitive dissonance, as is an ever closed mind. Confirmation bias can be described as the tendency to interpret evidence or circumstances as supporting evidence for what you already believe in.  Here is another link to SkepDic. http://skepdic.com/confirmbias.html
http://michael-roberto.blogspot.ca/2015/10/confirmation-bias.html

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This is a Padlet wall post, a sort of visual blog if you will, written by me, Joshua Ingram.
This particular Padlet will be about why people believe in things and what sort of things to look out for when considering the legitimacy of a subject, product or ideology. It is my hope that by reading this you will learn a little something about yourself and about how to be more critical.