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Lately, the issue at hand seems to be how to decide who to believe.

It's not a new problem, nor one that people haven't developed strategies to answer.  Most people, however, have developed strategies that themselves should not be trusted.  But here are a few topics of note lately:  1) climate change, 2) the government "slimdown," 3) gay marriage, and 4) the war on religion.

I'm not too interested in explaining what I believe on these topics -- not in this post, anyway.  (There is one on climate change a few posts back.)  I am more interested in the reasons people believe the things they believe related to these topics.  It's not a concern to shrug off lightly.  But before I go into that, here's a brief summary of the topics:

1. Climate change -- The question here is whether you believe that humans are inadverdently but significantly affecting the climate of the earth.
2. The government slimdown -- At the time this post was started, Congress has failed to pass a budget, with the result that "non-essential" government services are currently shut down.  (Most news reports are calling it a shutdown -- "slimdown" seems to me to be enough of a mockery of the actual process to use the term merely for the rhetoric.)
3. Gay marriage -- With something like 14 states permitting the union of homosexual couples and 35 states outlawing it, a recent Supreme Court decision nullifying much of DoMA, and increased public debate, its a topic that people are at least more aware of now.
4. The war on religion -- Whether you believe there is a secular war on religion or not, the religious seem to.  I'm not sure of all the reasons for this claim, but one being touted right now is regulation of health insurance requiring coverage that some believe is immoral.

What do all of these topics have in common?

• The are all political. (1)
• The politics appears to be liberal vs. conservative. (2)
• All are polarized. 

So, how do you, personally, know what to believe?  If you're like most people, the answer is simply that you refer to some other authority and believe what they tell you to, without really thinking about it.  That authority may be your political organization.  It may be a religious leader.  It may be a peer group.  It may combine these elements, and others.

So, here is what I want you to take from this post:

Although almost everyone wants to portray the world in black and white, with themselves in the white, the world isn't like that.  Any argument that reduces to "you must be right because you are in the white and this is what you believe" isn't an argument -- it's a delusion.  At best, you are in the light gray.

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(1)  In the case of climate change, at least, it would seem to be easy enough to look at the scientific consensus -- but there are people deliberately obfuscating the consensus.
(2)  Although, if you look closer, there are plenty of surprises.