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Just because others are wrong it doesn’t mean you are right

Just because somebody is clearly wrong, it doesn’t mean you are right. The mistakes made by others don’t prove the truth of your beliefs. The end of the world did not happen on May 21, 2011, as predicted by a certain religion group, but that doesn’t mean that other religious groups that didn’t support that idea are exempt from mistakes or that their beliefs are correct

In religion, philosophy, science, and in any area of knowledge being developed by humans, there will be mistakes, precisely because we are humans and, therefore, we are not omniscient. Our knowledge is at best conditional and conditioned, that is, it will change and it depends on our circumstances and beliefs.

In that context, it was interesting to hear several commentaries made by those who were sure May 21, 2011, was not the end of the world. (I have to confess that on that day, when I decided to help my wife in cleaning our garden, she was sure my action was a clear sign of the coming Apocalypse.)

In many cases, those who said that accepting May 21, 2011 as the day of the end of the world was an absolutely wrong idea were also absolutely sure they were in possession of the truth.

In other words, they used somebody else’s mistake to prove their own truth. However, just because somebody else’s ideas about eschatology were wrong, it doesn’t mean that our own beliefs about eschatology are right. In fact, it doesn’t prove that any of our ideas are right.

We can present this fallacy in this way: “They said the world would end and the world didn’t end. Therefore, they were wrong. Since I never accepted their beliefs, therefore my beliefs are right.”

This is a false argument, as it can be easily shown. Just because my wife is wrong (if you allow me to use an example from the realm of science fiction), it doesn’t mean I am right. Perhaps we are both wrong. Just because Republicans are wrong about a given issue, it doesn’t mean Democrats are right about the same issue. Perhaps they are both wrong.

This false argument was used by both believers and atheists. In trying to prove the truth of their own beliefs, they said something like, “They were wrong, therefore I am right.”

Clearly, this is a case of lack of logical thinking. Such irrational approach precludes any authentic dialogue, because the person saying “They are wrong, therefore I am right” is so convinced about the correctness of his/her own beliefs as the religious group from California was convince about the correctness of its beliefs.

In our everyday life we find many similar instances of hopeless lack of logic in the context of social dialogue about important issues. Perhaps that’s why we can’t agree about how to solve problems we can solve, including health, education, immigration, and others.

The hubris of using somebody else’s mistakes to prove we are right does little to promote true dialogue.

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