I've read several things on this community that I don't necessarily believe-- things that seem unlikely at best to me, and/or that contradict my own spiritual beliefs, and/or resemble the behavior of people I've known in the past who were deliberately making a play for attention. I tend to assume more of them are sincerely misguided than making a deliberate attempt to lie and manipulate others.
Usually I don't address it for two reasons, if they seem to be sincere, a) if they're just doing something like roleplaying or naming different parts of their personality or experimenting with a new identity, I figure their ability to keep up the act consistently, if these aren't real people, will give out after awhile.
b) if they're deliberately acting or making a play for attention, I figure someone will call them on it eventually. (OTOH, maybe I'm overly optimistic in assuming frauds will always be spotted by someone.)
c) if it has to do with someone believing certain things in a religious/spiritual sense that I don't, I don't want to address that at all, unless they try to push their belief system on me or insist it applies to everybody.
On the other hand, I might also encourage them to work within the context of a belief system I don't subscribe to, if it seems to be working for or helpful to them.
For example, is there a difference between someone claiming to do/be something that you think is impossible and someone contradicting themselves or claiming that something happened in real life that could not have happened?
In the first instance I'd be more likely to see them as sincerely misguided; if someone repeatedly contradicts themselves in their claims I am more likely to suspect that someone is trying to pull something over on me (partly because I've been led on by a few people in the past, and all the discrepancies in their stories started to add up after awhile).
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Usually I don't address it for two reasons, if they seem to be sincere,
a) if they're just doing something like roleplaying or naming different parts of their personality or experimenting with a new identity, I figure their ability to keep up the act consistently, if these aren't real people, will give out after awhile.
b) if they're deliberately acting or making a play for attention, I figure someone will call them on it eventually. (OTOH, maybe I'm overly optimistic in assuming frauds will always be spotted by someone.)
c) if it has to do with someone believing certain things in a religious/spiritual sense that I don't, I don't want to address that at all, unless they try to push their belief system on me or insist it applies to everybody.
On the other hand, I might also encourage them to work within the context of a belief system I don't subscribe to, if it seems to be working for or helpful to them.
For example, is there a difference between someone claiming to do/be something that you think is impossible and someone contradicting themselves or claiming that something happened in real life that could not have happened?
In the first instance I'd be more likely to see them as sincerely misguided; if someone repeatedly contradicts themselves in their claims I am more likely to suspect that someone is trying to pull something over on me (partly because I've been led on by a few people in the past, and all the discrepancies in their stories started to add up after awhile).