Did you know that, in most instances, you can choose whether you are going to be offended or not? It’s true.
In our society today, we are so QUICK to feel offended, to be offended, to have our feelings hurt…and we feel like we have to then make sure that nobody out there makes us ‘feel’ offended. But did you catch what I said? Feeling offended is a choice!
And you know what most people say: Choose?!? I don’t choose that! I can’t help but be offended when someone does or says __(fill in the blank)____. I’m here to tell you, yes you can.
When you are constantly getting offended & upset by the things people around you say or do, you’re riding a never-ending emotional rollercoaster. Guys, this is ridiculous! This is a terrible way to live! Nobody else’s thoughts & opinions should make you ‘feel offended’. What they think is what they think and it has no effect on you whatsoever, unless you choose to let it affect you.
This is a segue to enemy number one, and it’s name is Emotionalism: Emotionalism is elevating your emotions as the most important thing. It’s when the way a thought or an idea makes you FEEL has become more important than whether the thought or idea is good or true. It’s where emotions are elevated above reasoning.
We live in a “follow your heart” society, where we are all encouraged to do “whatever makes you happy” and if it feels good, it must be good. We mistake feelings for facts.
The reality is, yes, God gave us our emotions and they’re neither good nor bad, they just are. But our emotions aren’t meant to be substitutions for good thinking and facts.
I want to challenge you to start wrapping your brain around the idea that you don’t have to be led by your emotions, regardless of who is trying to get you all wrapped up in your feelings!
Here’s the deal, and here’s why I’m talking about this early in this podcast: you won’t be able to hear what I’m teaching you if you get offended by the examples I’m using.
You will never be able to learn good solid thinking if you’re always led by your emotions.
This actually leads us to the second biggest threat to good thinking, which is Relativism: the doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute.
In other words, what’s true and right changes based on what society decides is true or right, and most of that is based off of feelings and emotions. You see how that works together? It’s like this vicious cycle of being tumbled in the waves of emotions and relativism over & over again, according to the newest flavor of the month. This has resulted in an ever-growing epidemic of emotional & mental health crisis in our country, and it has to stop.
Learning the skills of critical thinking gets your feet back on solid ground and gives you the tools to be able to see through all the tactics and allows you to start getting closer to the truth.
Thinking is the hardest thing you’ll ever do, which is why so few people do it. It is so much easier to just take & believe what you’re being told. Let me ask you…when was the last time you took an idea…any idea…and said, “Hm…I wonder if this idea is a good one or not. I wonder if this idea is a virtuous one…or if this idea is even correct! Let me think about this idea from all angles so that I can deconstruct it and see the value or the lack thereof in it.” That’s crazy! We don’t do that!
But our ideas are powerful b/c ideas precede action. You never take any kind of action without it coming from a thought or idea first. And in today’s world, most of those ideas are fed to us from others, and we haven’t taken the time to evaluate the merits of these ideas.
“We must exercise our minds so that it doesn’t hurt anymore when we try to use them.” -Fallacy Detective
Very few people are willing to question their own position on something.
I believe there is truth, and we can know it…and it’s part of our job as human beings to seek it out.
The reality is this- logical fallacies & thinking errors are everywhere - EVERYWHERE - including the church or religion you’re a part of….the political or social party you identify with…the hobbies you enjoy…etc, etc, etc. And I’m going to point them out for what they are, REGARDLESS OF WHO OR WHAT GROUP IS COMMITTING THE FALLACY!
That doesn’t mean the person, group or organization is BAD…a lot of times, they don’t even know they’re committing a logical fallacy! (although sometimes they do and they’re doing it on purpose to get a certain response )...but most people haven’t learned this stuff, so they don’t even realize they’re doing it.
So, if you think you need to get offended by any comment or idea that goes against whatever group or party or organization you’re in or aligned with…you’re going to struggle listening to this podcast, lol, b/c you’re not going to learn anything if you keep riding this emotional rollercoaster & getting offended.
But, if you feel like you can say, ‘ok…I can choose to not take everything so personally & I can choose to stop getting ‘offended’ or getting my feelings hurt by every little thing - as if the whole world is out to get me’ - then I promise you, you’ll start to see the truth in places you never saw it before.
You CAN see truth in someone you disagree with. And you CAN see errors in someone you do agree with. And I would say, we NEED to be able to do both!
Watch out for Emotionalism and Relativism on your journey to learning to think well.
Ok, that wraps up the introductory episodes…coming up next, in episode 5, we’re diving into the fallacies and we’re going to start with what’s called the Either/Or Fallacy.
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: “Is that really true?”