The issue for me is that both Trump and his followers operate off of belief. In my opinion, belief is the most dangerous force in the universe. It leaves infinite room for manipulation. No amount of evidence can change the mind of someone that just believes and that’s truly terrifying. Sure, Trump may not actually believe everything he claims to but his followers absolutely do and that makes them easy to manipulate and control. When I say “I’ve lost friends to Christian extremism”, I mean that I’ve watched them slowly lose there cognitive abilities and become vantriliquist dolls spewing whatever they hear on Fox News without question. I prefer to talk to people that can have their minds changed based on new evidence. These friends used to be capable of this. This happened when they started identifying themselves as extreme right wing Christians. These used to be decent people but are now entirely consumed by a perceived attack on race and religion. Christianity in itself is not bad but what it enables is: Belief.

What do you mean by belief? This is going to get deeply epistemological really fast. But if I can summarize millennia of great thinkers trying to figure it out: all you have is belief. We cannot know what the fact is. We merely believe something is a fact with high degrees of confidence. And this is not a trivial distinction. Is it true that that Neptune is closer to Earth than Alpha Centauri is if this is a simulation? Things we think are facts are merely beliefs in context of assumptions.

Again, I know very little about your experience. But it sounds like they became something that digusts you. The fact that you could not tolerate your friends transitions to self-professed right wing extreme Christianity is a you problem, not a them problem. Your lack of tolerance isn't their fault. Just as their supposed lack of tolerance isn't your fault. You might lament losing the person they were, but that doesn't make them wrong and you right.

> I mean that I’ve watched them slowly lose there cognitive abilities and become vantriliquist dolls spewing whatever they hear on Fox News without question. I prefer to talk to people that can have their minds changed based on new evidence.

Rest assured that many people on both sides believe this about each other (though arguably more lefties take this view than righties). Is by no means one way. I have been a right winger with friends on both sides for a very long time, and the same sentiment you expressed about losing cognitive abilities is expressed by the right wingers about left wingers. Ever heard the epithet NPC? It's aimed at SJWs specifically, calling out the supposedly unthinking, dataless parrotting of CNN talking points.

You should check this out and see how your perspective about your opposition and the alt-right's perspective of their opposition are nearly identical. https://kotaku.com/how-the-npc-meme-tries-to-dehumanize-sjws...

I don't use dehumanizing terms like NPC because they are not constructive, and neither is assuming your ideological opposition is a cognitively degenerate enemy.

> These used to be decent people but are now entirely consumed by a perceived attack on race and religion

I wonder what that means. That being said, surely you can see they might have reasons to fear a near-future problem, if there is no problem today, right?

True, there are believers on both sides. Also I agree that network news is saturated with falacious content meant to do nothing but divide and manipulate. I honestly can’t remember the last time I watched network news of any type but I assume it’s as bad as I remember. I can see that you’ve rationalized your opinions thoroughly and you believe you are correct so I’ll leave it at that.

I'm genuinely interested in what you think belief is. I've talked to thousands on the internet and about a hundred in person deeply about epistemology and religion, and read even more, and you're the first person I've read that disparages the concept of belief in general.

Is English your first language?

Belief is similar to an idea but a little different. An idea is similar to a theory while belief is more similar to an absolute. This is why belief goes hand in hand with religion and faith; which are two other concepts that I dislike. Thinking an idea may be true is vastly different than knowing so. When someone “knows” something is true they can almost never be convinced otherwise. Belief in a religion or an inherent superiority has enabled the great atrocities of our world and that is the main reason for my dislike of the concept. I would be naive to think that I do not have beliefs and it’s important to note that I am not devoid of belief but it is something I work towards eliminating in my life. Ask any militant, religious fanatic or terrorist what they BELIEVE in and you’ll quickly realize that people are willing to die for some pretty ridiculous things. Someone has taken their trusting demeanor and convinced them into the belief that they are righteous and justified in their actions. Today in America that force is Network Television. They repeat and repeat until one believes. I was raised in an evangelical Christian community and I’ve seen first hand how senseless things can become when belief is involved. My first love is computer science but my muse is philosophy/political science so I’m not surprised you haven’t run into my ideas yet; I’m often on the edge of what is mainstream. I’m actually writing a book on the concept of belief, which I’m happy to share with you when it’s done. My hope is that we can step away from the concept and usher in a new era of science and exploration because right now we’ve stagnated.