what is a sad truth that people wont accept?

you know how stores misuse that "10 items or less" at the cashiers? its widely spread, but its wrong. the correct form is "10 items of fewer", because grammar and science and stuff. from what we know about the english language, fewer is the right term and anything else is wrong. however, there is a funny thing going on with language.

you see, language always changes. if a knight knifed your knee or knocked your knuckle.. why are there so many Ks? people used to pronounce them with K sounds, but it just sounded stupid and stopped the momentum of the sentence. a random K in midsentence just sounded weird. just say them with the actual K sounds if you dont know what im talking about. anyway at the time it was still pronounced that way, the average person couldnt read, let alone write. they didnt bother talking fancy either, so they just avoided saying the K sounds. since they never saw the Ks written, it quickly got a new common pronounciation. it was wrong, but over time it adapted to be the mostly used form, making it correct in the end.

its similar with less and fewer. stores and also many other people misuse that term, but it eventually got so common that its almost correct. what we believe was right a few years ago is wrong now. just like what might be right now, will be wrong eventually. this is not only limited to language. the "half life of knowledge" is the time it takes for half the knowledge in a field to be proven to be wrong. any information we have now might be wrong in 5 or 50 years.

now what does that have to do with what you said? i actually believe there are no gods, no spirituality and no life after death. its scienetifically correct for what we know at the time. but its not about what is true. this is more for others to understand why you believe in it, rather than me telling you why you believe in that. first of all, nobody ever came back from the dead. there are thousands of cases of people who were "dead" for a few seconds to minutes, but nobody ever pulled a full jesus and could tell us what is right, therefore there is a possible way how you can be right. secondly, it doesnt matter who is right. there is no reason anything happens, but there is a personal reason for you why things happen. you believe in your stuff because of how life treated you, and i believe in my stuff because of how it treated me. whatever we were taught or what we learned, it can change. life has no meaning as such. there is no script or a director yelling "cut" once you do something awkward, even though it would have helped me a lot. whatever fits into your life is the right thing, as long as it doesnt affect others lifes negatively. and since you said you have your reason, it might even feel others better. i hope that makes any sense at all

and as the other guy said, whatever helps you sleep at night.

/r/AskReddit Thread Parent