Illusion: A Costly Assumption

   "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." ~Stephen Hawking

Many times we hold onto some beliefs that are not true, they might look like it from the surface but a closer look reveals it's falsehood. Example is the belief that money equates love.

a belief in something that is in fact not true.

Even before civilization and the coming of Christianity, our forefathers had this illusion where they worshiped stones as their gods. Even though stones had no life, they believed in it and worshiped it as if it was indeed their savior. Many people still have faith in this fetish worship till date , even though it has been proven to be false.

Individuals have different perspectives toward a thing, these perspectives sometimes come from experiences, observations and stories. Most often they assume the few things they have seen hold the entire truth about the subject and once faith has been built upon it, they create a belief system that assumes it to be the absolute truth. Most people who believe love revolves around money may never know the deceit of this belief until they become poor. Love and money may be entirely two different things but never realize this as they wallow in wealth until they have little to keep the deception from showing.

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Dangers of illusion

The fact that one holds onto lies for too long only denies him the truth that might have saved him years of fruitless toiling. Our forefathers never knew about God because they held onto a belief that laid on falsehood, most youths are now reluctant to seek after love instead they chase money hoping it will buy them the love they desire, Rich Men believe wealth can buy them happiness, etc. Only to find out at the end that the belief they had wasn't true , there was more to it than it seemed from the outside.

"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." ~Stephen Hawking

To have the wrong knowledge about a matter is truly disastrous. We are what we think and once our knowledge is wrong, we transmit wrong information to generations. The economy of a country will suffer if those who manage its affairs have wrong knowledge, the religion of some groups of people will suffer if the leaders have wrong beliefs, and the politics of a country will operate on the wrong background if the belief system is faulty. Indeed illusion is an enemy of not just knowledge but to peace and rightness.