Seek first to understand, THEN to be understood.

welcome, and thanks ... just wish i would follow my own damned advice more often : )

little correction there - conspiracy theorists are those that believe there was a conspiracy, not necessarily one who simply doesn't buy the bullshit pumped out by the MSM

no offense, but your statement is a possible example of the MSM propaganda machine at work in that they sometimes label anyone who does not believe the mainstream version as a 'conspiracy theorist', regardless of whether the person believes a conspiracy took place or not

but yeah, planting that innocuous seed, as i mentioned in a previous comment, and getting them to ask the questions is key - agreed

remember one thing here please: do as i say, not as i do : )

certainly one of the problems you're (we're) up against is ego - people do not want to accept that their beliefs are wrong

another problem is the constant brainwashing through the "education", "news" and entertainment industries

when you combine those problems, it is easy to understand why many people will resist or simply ignore anything which challenges their current beliefs - ego

so how to get around this?

i'm sure much has been written about breaking down the psychological barrier that prevents people from questioning their own beliefs - any marketing company can probably be of help - but the most recent that comes to mind is James Corbett...

Episode 306 – Solutions: Laughing At Tyrants

in addition to laughter, i think that getting the person to challenge their own beliefs themselves without attacking their beliefs directly is a powerful solution - what i mean by this, is to prompt them to ask the questions by simply planting an innocuous seed

let's use the Jewish "holocaust" as an example - which of the below do you think would be the better way to initiate a process of challenging ones belief that 6 million Jews were murdered in homicidal gas chambers? ...

a) 6 million Jews were not murdered in homicidal gas chambers and that figure is a symbolic figure that can be traced back to the late 1800's

or...

b) why did the Polish historians reduce the official death toll at Auschwitz from ~4 million to ~1 million after the Zundel trial?

if you can get them to look start researching of their own free will, it is far better then trying to force facts down their throat in my opinion

two people can present the exact same evidence and one will meet far greater resistance than the other based simply on how they choose to present that evidence - i find it unfortunate that people will tend to attack the the messenger without ever considering the message, but this is exactly what the mainstream media teaches us to do; that questioning what the establishment presents is loony ('conspiracy theory' is tantamount to 'kook', etc.), and so this creates an atmosphere where one does not want to be ridiculed by others (again, ego), plus, because they have been beaten over the had so often by mainstream version, they simply think that it must be accurate

if you know who 'Amalek' is here on Voat, he is a great example of how to do it wrong - even though some of the info he offers is factual, the way he presents it causes him to make a big fat ass of himself and his ego is a concrete barrier that makes any attempt to reason with him(?) impossible - what he does not see, or perhaps chooses to ignore, is the fact that that other people here, myself included, present the exact same kind of information he does, but in a slightly different manner that doesn't lead to being down-voted into oblivion

unfortunately for me, apparently i am somewhat like you in that i can be condescending and confrontational in my approach to some degree and often opt for approach (a), which is why i opened this comment the way i did : )

the last thing i would add is this; for your own sake, don't bother wasting a lot of time trying to challenge someone who is so entrapped in their own box that they cannot see anything outside of it

I'm the same way. Shit makes me mad as hell.

There's still s life to live, relationships to keep. Don't stand down for what you believe in, but don't let it rule your life. Not that I'm one to talk, at all.

Perhaps you're too intense. You and everyone else are entitled to their own opinions- you gotta remember that.