Hey Pandas, What’s Something You Once Believed Strongly But Have Since Changed Your Mind About? (Closed)

Religion.

As a teenager and young adult struggling with poverty and domestic violence, I relied heavily on religion (Eastern Orthodoxy). It was the only comfort available at the time. As I moved away from my toxic family, I opened up. I continued reading and meeting new people. Little by little I started questioning religion and its fixed ideas.

I saw their hypocrisy and shallow rules. Their greed, their hatred, their focus on obtaining power and influence. The way they tried to cover up and minimize cases of r4pe on minors (when rap1sts were high-rank church officials). The way they shame women, encouraging them to stay in abus1ve relationships because "this is your cross, given by God".

I no longer believe that going to church is "mandatory"; neither are following their rules, nor the donations that every believer is expected to make.
Sure, there are cases of priests who are amazing persons and live up to their mission in their communities; but they are rather the exception, not the rule.

I used to believe I was of average intelligence. But then came anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, and DJT won a second term in office, and I realized I'm a goddamned genius. And that should terrify the hell out of all of us.

The existence of god(s)

That hard work will be rewarded. The only thing you get from hard work is more work.

I used to believe we were going to be OK. As a society. That is all out the window now.

The fact that by and large people are not so gullible that they believe stupid ideas like "flat earth" , moon landings not happening, contrails and what have you. Education should have taken care of that.

That grown ups know what they're doing and have the answers. I'm now a grown up and I know sod all, just like everybody else. We're all faking having it together and being competent at life.

The USA government. I used to believe that they made laws and regulations, for the most part, to help the greater good. I no longer believe that and likely never will again. Even if everything was put back to the way it was before DJT, I will never believe that the government cares about any of the citizens except the extremely rich.

I used to believe strongly that the problems of society existed because powerful people simply didn't care enough to fix them. Pessimism turned into misanthrope...for too long I believed that humans were horrible because what COULD be done never was done. However, I now know that such complex problems require much more than that base-level blame. Most humans are doing the best they can to be the best they can. The bond of unity in humanity is our fallibility. Every person is broken in some way (some more shattered than others). None are perfect and few are maliciously destructive. Have hope, dear Pandas! Good is far more common in people than the loudness of evil would lead us to believe.

Hope. As a young man I used to believe that the world was improvable and the improvements were happening. Now I'm old, and I look at a world that my generation has bequeathed to our descendants, and it devoid of any hope, any promise; just a boot crushing the human spirit forever.

The goodness of humankind.

- God...As a child/young teenager I was actually afraid of God and his judgement etc.. Now I know that God is just a metaphor respectively a projection of human ideals and wishes

- That adults know the solution to all of life's problems/that they have figured it all out...Now I know that many adults are just children trying to somehow get along

The fact that people of different backgrounds can live together and have an harmonious existence

Back in the 90s, I thought we were moving towards less unrealistic body/beauty standards for women. But it's gotten far, far worse. And now, men have been dragged into it. So sad. It causes oodles of problems.

Similarly, I (in the US) thought that there were just a tiny minority of crusty old people who were racist left in the US. Boy was I ever wrong! Racists abound here. They were just silenced in polite discourse (as they should have been) for quite a while.

Just to lighten the mood a little: I used to believe wholeheartedly that to say the word "balk" you pronounce the "L" in the word. Like...ball, with a K at the end. I'm 41 years old and just learned last year 2024 that you in fact do not pronounce the L in the word.

The supremacy of humans. We're all essentially taught this and believe it. Now I see us as just clever animals that caught some lucky breaks. We can and will fade away as easily as anything else on the planet.

Dating

I once believed that finding the “right” partner was the missing puzzle piece to a happy life. I thought being single meant I wasn’t complete yet, and that dating someone who shared my off-the-beaten-path lifestyle was the only way to fill that gap. But after dating men who saw me as someone to conquer, a prize than a partner, men who tried to change me into a girlfriend who existed to support them, I realized something important. Peace, freedom, and joy aren’t things someone else can give me. They’re things I can give myself. And that’s far more fulfilling than chasing someone who doesn’t want the real me, only a version they can mold into their “ideal” girlfriend or wife to cheat on.

Yes, I know not all men are like that. But enough of them are that I no longer see dating as worth pursuing. What I once thought I needed, I’ve discovered I already had in myself.

Humans being smart and animals being dumb. Too much evidence to the contrary over the years. We're just an animal with thumbs and base our superiority on our ability to build.

That's evident in the way we treated peoples who didn't build so much as well.
Many have learned to communicate our way, few humans have learned animals way. The few that have been studied, they have language, the have names, they have the same things we do.

The stupidity of humans, the nonsense we believe, the insistence of it without evidence and even with evidence to the contrary. Nope we're not the cleverest anything.

Politics. I was beyond excited when I voted in my first federal election. I hate that with most elections; I'm choosing the least wretched candidate. There are some interesting *third* parties that I have supported. Yet every time I bring the subject up, I'm accused of "wasting" my vote. The only wasted vote is the one that was never cast.

That the internet would create a revolution in global cooperation and thinking, unfortunately in went the way of VHS, "The internet is for p**n"