Firmness in believing what one
considers to be true, must be related to one's age in a simple-harmonic way.
When you are too young, you are vulnerable to inculcation from
authority-figures. The thought of questioning them is unthinkable and doing so portrayed
as a bad trait. When one grows into an adult, one is self-sufficient, clear in
thought (at least some) and is free to believe what one thinks is true. When
this same person enters old age, the faculty of free thought is seen to be
wilting in many people. Atheists may suddenly turn into diehard believers,
creating a shot in the arm for believers to accuse rationalists of the
fickleness of their thought.
The reason for change in old ages
is not that the person suddenly stumbling upon the truth in light of the
experience he has accumulated. This is explainable only upon the basis of
physical and mental health, which deteriorates in advanced age. When you are no
longer able to move from place to place, when you are ridden with diseases,
when you are not economically self-sufficient, you lose the power to see
reason. The old man has only one aim in life – to prolong at, whatever be the
cost. So, the recantation of earlier ideas is the result of the helplessness
originating from a deformed mind, and not because one’s earlier ideas were
false.
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