![](misc/art_Knowing_vs_Believing%2001.jpg)
Knowing
vs Believing
By Don Bennett,
DAS
If
I asked you, "Do you know your date of birth?" you'd
probably give me the answer right off the top of your head, right?
But do you really know the date you were born, or would the more
correct answer be, "I believe I was born on..." I make
this distinction for a very good reason. Even though you were
there at your birth, you were too young to remember much about
it, especially the date. At some point in your life, you relied
on what others told you your birthday was, and your birth certificate
(something in print from an authority) would certainly back up
those claims.
A
friend of mine from many years ago thought she knew what her birthdate
was. I'm sure, like most of us, she would have been willing to
bet money on it. Then one day a thoughtful friend gave her, as
a birthday gift, one of those newspapers that were published on
the date of her birth, from the area she was born in. She thought
the gift was "so cool". But in checking the accuracy
of the paper, she noticed the weather at the time of her birth;
"clear and sunny". This didn't square with her mom's
account of the day she was born. My friend had been regaled, on
more than one occasion, with the story of how she was almost born
in the car because it was raining so hard that some of the streets
were impassible, making it difficult to get to the hospital. But
yet there it was in black and white: "clear and sunny".
Her first thought was that this novelty newspaper wasn't what
it was advertised to be. So she decided to prove it. But a check
of the Farmer's Almanac for that day and area revealed that it
was indeed "clear and sunny"; and the National Weather
Service agreed with the Almanac. Turns out, the date on her birth
certificate was off by seven days, and rather than her parents
correcting this when it was discovered, they simply celebrated
her birthdays to coincide with the printed document.
The
moral of the story? You don't know your date of birth
you believe it is the date on your birth certificate. Knowledge
and belief are two entirely different things. But sometimes the
two are used interchangeably. No big deal, right? It really doesn't
significantly impact anything if your real date of birth is a
few days different than what you thought it was. But what if you
thought (knew) that something you consumed on a regular basis
was beneficial to your health, when it was actually harmful to
your health. Many people I speak to know that milk and dairy products
are good for your health. So it's natural, since they know this
to be the case, that when they're given information to the contrary,
they dismiss it out-of-hand
because they know milk
is good for them. In reality, they believe milk is good
for them. In reality, milk is not a normal, natural part of an
adult human's diet, and does way more harm than good.
So
why am I making this distinction between knowing something
and believing something? If I asked you, "Is milk
good for you?" your ability to hear the reality about dairy
products is greatly affected by your answer. If your thinking
process is, "I know milk is good for me", you might
have a difficult time hearing the facts surrounding this topic.
If, however, your position was, "I believe milk is good for
me" (same as, "My understanding is that milk is good
for me), then you're more likely to be open to hearing information
about the topic's facts and fictions. And you'll take at face
value "facts" from "authorities" (whether
in print or on TV) instead of seeing them as the Gospel truth
(remember, although from an authority, my friend's birth certificate
was incorrect; no doubt an honest mistake, but a lot of information
regarding things like diet and what's good for your health is
intentionally misleading).
Needless
to say, being open-minded, especially about issues dealing with
your health, is in your best interest. And one of the best ways
to be open-minded is to realize that many of the things you know
to be true, you instead believe to be true
and it's
in your best interest to acknowledge that there's a difference.
Remember, "What can do you the most harm is what you know,
that just ain't so." (Hey! That's the title of one of my
books!)
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