When do we believe something?

Kelly, the last few questions in your post are quite intriguing, “How can we pinpoint an ultimate Truth if everyone has different definitions in different situations for what counts as logical and credible in Truth? How can we pinpoint an ultimate Truth if people ultimately have different experiences which shape their values in-which pre-determines what they may be persuaded to believe in as true?”

Between reading those questions and thinking about our discussion in class on Tuesday that revolved around another equally perplexing question (“Is there a difference between what is believable and what should be believable?”) I am reminded of a story I recently read in the news and am even more perplexed.

So I apologize in advance if this doesn’t connect but please bear with me! The example I’m about to give is incredibly random, but hopefully I can tie it back in with this conversation. So, on Saturday (3/29) it was reported that two men just became the first same-sex inmates to ever marry each other in a British prison. But, what makes the story interesting is that both of the men are serving life in prison…for hate-crime murders against gay men. There is a lot of controversy surrounding their marriage, some people are taking the stance of “hey they’re in love, let them get married!” while others are saying this is some sick psychopathic plot that the men thought up in their spare time and another argument is that the men will try to use this as a ploy for early release from prison.

Now, in a situation like this what should I believe? Maybe they are actually in love, in which case – great, get married! But what if it is some sick backhanded plot with ulterior motives? How do I know what to believe? Of course in this scenario it is not pressing that I decide what to believe, because at the end of the day my opinion in the issue really doesn’t affect anything. But what about cases when it does matter? What if I am on jury duty for some court case and I am having trouble figuring out what to believe? Usually, anything backed up with scientific evidence or logos is pretty easy to believe. So, it is usually the cases that rely/play off of emotions that really blur the lines of believably?

It seems pretty easy to come to ‘general truths’ as Kelly mentioned when logos are involved. For example, Ebola has claimed 10,445 deaths according to the CDC. I’m going to assume that most people that we know will agree that Ebola is extremely contagious and severe. Those statements are based off of the facts. Easy-peasy. But what about when the facts begin to become less clear? What then? How does our 'gut' lead us to believe something?