Seananigans

Rene Descartes, one of the world's most influential philosophers says in his key work Meditations that when he considers and questions how he came to believe what he believes, he realizes that everything he has learned was "conditioned by various political, religious, and educational authorities" and NOT by conscious choice.

Well certainly this is true of most of us. We are conditioned starting day one to believe certain things by our parents, our friends, our education system, religion, etc. We are scripted to have certain beliefs about things. Whether this be political or whatever. Think about your political beliefs. Most likely you are a democrat or republican not b/c you choose it by conscious choice, but b/c your parents were that.

Taking this further, I believe if you don't come to a belief by conscious choice and studying, you MUST reject that belief b/c you do not understand it! It is scripted and conditioned, and therefor only making you ignorant if you regurgitate or even argue for a belief that you learned from you parents or friends and not by researching and seeking to understand.

Rejection of all your beliefs in order to seek truth is not such a bad idea. This is where I am today. I still hold on to something I read from Plato on Socrates.. Socrates was considered to be the wisest man on earth (at the time) because he realized he knew nothing. Certainly when we begin to think we know, we form an ego attached to that belief. By keeping ourselves humble and always seeking to remain in a state of learning and not getting a big head about ourselves we can begin to really understand and educate ourselves.