When we form beliefs and opinions

I’m going to go ahead and sound really dumb here. But maybe it becomes one of those the-emperor-is-naked moments to some people. What I’m going to say is that when I analyze how I’ve formed a belief or opinion, it has often not been because of some rational deliberation. 

I don’t have a concrete example, so I’m going to make one up that is representative of this: I hear someone whose judgment I trust express a belief or opinion about something. I find what the person says fairly reasonable and a few of my own experiences actually support what he/she is saying. Maybe it’s one possible conclusion that can be drawn from what I already know. Here I want to pause for a second, because this is important. Here, I believe, is where many people go wrong. We know A and that from A B might follow. But not necessarily. Then someone might offer some ideas that contradict B. But since I’ve already made an emotional investment in B, I find reasons to discard those ideas. And instead I find other ideas, that I don’t at all put under the same scrutiny, that support B. And so I hold on to B for reasons that are in no way reasonable. 

Seeing it written out like this, this looks pretty absurd. But in reality this is, at least in my case, how my beliefs often are formed, when I don’t pay attention to what is going on inside my head. Which is something that happens quite regularly, even if I’m becoming better and better at it. And if you say: "This would never happen to me", chances are that you haven't really payed attention to your thought processes.