A great many people have this problem:
They will hear of some idea or principle, which immediately sounds very good to them. That is, it makes them feel good. But from there, they make a wild leap into believe that they themselves are complete devotees of that cause, who understand it thoroughly and live in accordance to it.
But the two things are not the same. Having warm and fuzzy feelings about a thing are not the same as understanding it and accepting it and living that way.
But if you try to talk to them about it…. Well, they’re not listening. Hardly any of them will listen, because they shut down their thinking about it the moment that decided to declare themselves fans of it. It’s all settled and done, and it’s not open for further consideration.
And then some of these people, as they are, decide to be vocal proponents of the cause in question, making themselves spokespeople for the cause, and misrepresenting it substantially as ambassadors to the world. And from there, some will adopt the cause as superficially and carelessly as they did, while others will reject the cause, having figured out that the spokesperson is not authentic. So they make the mistake of “throwing out the baby with the bathwater”, so to speak. And while they should have researched the cause separately from the spokesperson, they will forever associate the two—which they would never have done had the spokesperson either known what he or she was talking about, or kept quiet.
And what if this new person goes around promoting the rejection of the cause, based on their unvetted assumptions about it? Now you have two camps forming, and neither of them having done the homework that due diligence requires for their position.
And is this not the story of this world, more or less?
Who can adequately explain without error every cause to which he has aligned himself?
