Trust Their Actions, Not Their Words

A person’s actions are the most reliable evidence for assessing who they are and what they value. While an honest person’s words may convey truth about their intentions, a dishonest person’s will rarely match their actions. Even sometimes an honest person’s claims will not be true because a person’s subconscious often has motives of which their conscious mind is unaware. Because of this–the dishonest person’s lies and the honest person’s occasional lack of self-awareness–one would be wise to stop trusting what people say (unless they’ve earned your trust consistently) and start trusting what they do instead.

I Learned This Lesson the Hard Way

Having been raised by two covert narcissists, the truth in my home was far different than the deception of my parents' words. Things were said with the appearance of kindness or love, but the manipulation underneath was anything but lovely. Furthermore, they taught me to not trust my observations because they knew that I could see that their actions didn’t line up with their words. Love was spoken, but rarely shown and frustrations were placated, but only temporarily to do the same exact thing again later. 

My Heart Always Knew the Truth

The dishonesty and deception of my mother and father showed me how people have the ability, whether they are conscious of it or not, to use their words to keep others confused–in other words, to lie. I knew that people could lie, but discovering that the people you’ve trusted your whole life are lying to you is a completely different experience. Since my teens, my subconscious always knew that my parents weren’t worthy of my love, empathy, or adoration, but I gave it to them anyway because they had convinced me with their words that they deserved it and that I would be wrong to withhold it. However, I always knew on a subconscious, emotional, and intuitive level that something was wrong with them. While my parents had consciously convinced me that I could only trust them and not my much more honest heart, my heart always knew. Why? Because the subconscious mind (our heart) processes information at a much higher level than our conscious minds, noticing the disparity between a person’s actions and words long before our conscious mind does.

Seeing the Truth for the First Time

Once I began trusting my lifetime of observations instead of their words–the deception, hypocrisy, and double-standards of my parents began flooding into my conscious awareness. I had seen and felt who they were for almost two decades, but had repressed and disregarded my perceptions of them due to their continual efforts to destroy my self-trust and protect their delusional egos. Now that I began to trust myself, I began to see them and everyone else clearly by their actions instead of easily spoken and broken words.

Where to Look to See People Clearly

Everyone will show you who they are if you objectively observe their actions for long enough instead of overvaluing their words. If you want to know what really matters to a person, look at how they spend their time. If you want to know if someone loves you, look at how they treat you. If you want to know if someone can be trusted, look at their history of keeping promises. It’s so simple, yet the pontification of so many people would convince us to ignore this simple truth and instead believe their delusions, dishonesty, and lies.

Ground Even Your Trusted Relationships In Truth

Even the people you love and trust should be held accountable by their actions. While understanding and empathizing with them is healthy, your empathy should also be grounded in the truth of their actions. Why? Because blindness is not a virtue and opens the door for dysfunction and disrespect. If we want to have healthy relationships, we must see people for who they are–not who they claim to be. Those who’ve earned our trust may get some free passes, but if their actions begin to consistently show contempt, dishonesty, or disrespect, they must be held accountable and repairs must be made before resuming trust again. Otherwise, if they are unwilling to apologize and change their unhealthy behaviors, those relationships should be reconsidered as a valuable use of our time and effort.

Place Your Trust in the Right Place

Deceivers will take advantage of our trust if we allow them by ignoring and minimizing their toxic actions. That’s what happened to me with my father and mother. While trust is wisely built upon consistently observing the actions of others, I would argue that many of us have instead mistakenly placed our trust in what people tell us about themselves. Instead of allowing people to convince us about who they are with their words, we would be wise to let them convince us with their actions. This is the foundation of reliable trust: evidence, not words or stories or feelings or promises, but instead what people actually DO.

Are You Confused By the People In Your Life, Even Yourself?

If you’re confused about who the people in your life really are and what they actually think and feel, stop listening to what they say and start observing what they do. Manipulative people in my life taught me that words are cheap, but actions reveal the truth of who people are. Even when applied to yourself, this concept will help you to develop incredible clarity and self-awareness as to who you really are, what really matters to you, and areas in which you could grow. 

Conclusion

The words that come out of a person’s mouth only have value if they continually align with their actions. If they don’t, ignore what they say and stay away. 

Life is too valuable to waste on dishonest people.

Why Skepticism is Superior to Faith

Being raised in a very religious part of the United States of America, I was indoctrinated to believe that faith was important, could be trusted, and actually meant something. This all made sense to me until my deconversion from Christianity in 2015 and my subsequent intellectual awakening. 

Religion Taught Me to Suppress My Doubts and My Intellect

My parents taught me to suppress my intellect growing up, only encouraging me to use it to confirm the beliefs they gave me to absorb instead of using it to seek truth. Also, doubt was discouraged (even though I now know how important it is for ridding oneself of untrue beliefs) and blind faith in God and the Bible was honored with respect that it doesn’t deserve.

Skepticism Versus Faith and Cynicism

For the purpose of this article, I’m going to define skepticism as withholding belief when encountering new ideas unless sufficient evidence has been acquired to justify belief. Also, skepticism is not cynicism like many people seem to think. Instead, skepticism involves being open-minded to new ideas while also exercising self-restraint and personal judgement to prevent acquiring a false belief whereas cynicism tends to be the complete opposite, assuming that everything is false without giving any open-minded consideration. Therefore, true skepticism is open-minded and unassuming, which is completely different from the assumptions and close-mindedness of cynicism.

Faith on the other hand is more proximate to cynicism. It is both assuming of propositions unverified by reputable evidence as well as close-minded to any other potential truths. When one has faith, they have chosen to dismiss any evidence (or lack thereof) to the contrary while also accepting only evidence that confirms their position. Therefore, faith, by definition, is a dysfunctional cognitive bias whereas skepticism is a much more useful tool for retaining objectivity and actually discovering truth. Honestly, the faith that I had when I was a Christian was nothing more than an assumption drilled into me during my childhood, as is the case with most proponents of faith. The reality is that very few people value faith in modern society unless it was idolized in their childhood. This explains why most fans of faith have either believed in the concept since their childhood or are returning to their childhood indoctrination later in life as an adult. However, someone raised only with objective critical thinking skills and an evidence-based epistemology would likely find faith a troubling concept for sure and have no reason to invest in such an unreliable way of determining truth and reality.

The Brutal Realities of Faith

Let’s get to the real elephant in the room. People of faith like to believe that faith is an admirable value, something possessed by great people, and that somehow it far surpasses reason and evidence-based frameworks. However, the truth is that faith is nothing more than a feeling without any evidence to support it. That’s why the majority of religions value faith because it can be used to justify belief in anything with no proper grounding in reality. That’s the problem I have with faith. All of these religions are claiming that their beliefs are true on the basis of faith, even though they regularly disagree with each other on the nature of reality. Without any rule or measure by which to judge and discern reality, anything goes, including ideas that are mutually incompatible. If one religion says that there are multiple gods on the basis of their faith while another says there is only one god on the basis of faith, then what’s the truth? Either one of them is wrong, or both are wrong. It is just not possible for two conflicting ideas to be true at the same time, unless of course you use faith for determining truth and reality.

Therefore, faith is nothing more than an assumption lacking evidence to establish it in reality whereas skepticism is a system by which facts are observed and belief is withheld unless sufficient evidence is present to justify belief or conclusions. And even when a skeptic determines that belief is warranted, he practices caution by assigning degrees of certainty to his conclusions because he knows that while truth exists, it is difficult to capture confidently. This is completely contrary to the absolute arrogance of those who possess faith, who assume that they have THE truth and that everyone else is wrong even though they can’t even provide the slightest adequate evidence for their emotional convictions. The irony is that I was taught growing up to believe that skeptics were the arrogant ones while us Christians were the humble ones, bowing down at the feet of Jesus. The truth, however, is far different: It is actually the skeptics who are the humble ones, choosing to admit what they don’t know on the basis of inadequate evidence. The bearers of faith are actually often the arrogant ones, especially the evangelicals, who think that it’s somehow acceptable to push their unverified beliefs upon someone else.

Don’t Expect the Religious to Support Your Abandonment of Faith

If you were raised to respect faith and are starting to see its flaws, know that you are not alone. There are plenty of people who’ve been down this road before (me being one of them) who have discovered that faith is all bark and no bite. You may be realizing for the first time that faith is nothing more than a concept rooted in superstition, indoctrination, and group conformity instead of reality and evidence. Just be aware that most of the religious people you’ve been surrounded by your whole life will not respect your new position and will try to convince you that your thinking is flawed or sacrilegious. If you want to debate with them, go ahead. However, if you’re looking for support, you’re going to have to find it elsewhere in both new people and yourself.

The Doubting Shadow Personality of the Religious

Most people possess at least some ability to reason objectively if they choose to use it. However, people of faith often reject this aspect of themselves because it eventually raises reasonable doubts about their religion. Instead of valuing truth by openly considering these doubts, most of them give into their fear and try to suppress their rational self in favor of blind faith. As a result, most religious people possess a subconscious doubting side that has long been repressed in their shadow personality for years. Therefore, your dissent and doubt will likely make them feel uncomfortable because it will be raising this aspect of their doubt into their awareness that they’ve been avoiding for a long time. Even your withdrawal from their religion alone will be enough to trigger intense feelings of uncertainty in them–and boy do they hate uncertainty!

The Truth About the Practice of Religion

One thing you will learn quickly as a truth seeker is that most people–but especially the religious–are driven by comfort and security. When they perceive you as the cause of their discomfort, even though you’re only triggering an internal confrontation within them with their own repressed doubt, they’re probably not going to like your new position very much. Many of them will want nothing to do with your new ideas and others will even refuse to acknowledge your shift, treating you like you’re still a person of faith like them. Furthermore, some will try to argue against your ideas and others will even try to shame or discredit you to avoid facing their fears. It isn’t your fault that they’re feeling this way, but most of them will do whatever they have to do to push their doubts back into repression. That’s what the practice of religion actually is: Struggling to maintain unverified beliefs in an effort to minimize fear and maximize comfort. YOU may have chosen to leave this practice of fear and comfort behind, however, they haven’t and they are not going to understand or respect your departure from it.

Protect and Respect Yourself

Don’t let anyone tell you what you “should” think, feel, or believe. That is your right and your responsibility, not anyone else’s. Even if you feel unsure of your new ideas right now, which is completely normal, know that you are fully capable of developing critical thinking skills quickly if you haven’t already. 

Conclusion

As far as we know, humans are the only conscious beings on this planet capable of critical thinking, so let’s not waste this capacity by choosing to ignore our doubts out of fear that we might make mistakes. While we all regularly make mistakes, I would argue that faith maximizes the likelihood of possessing false convictions whereas skepticism minimizes this risk and increases the likelihood of actually securing some truth for yourself. 

The religious might not respect your new position, but those of us in the skepticism community do. Keep questioning. Keep doubting. Keep separating truth from fiction and don’t believe in anything unless you can prove it. Afterall,

The discovery of truth begins not with faith, but with doubt.