“‘Billie Jean’ is a decent song.”

I was 7 years old, and I still remember those words uttered by a classmate about a famous Michael Jackson song at the time.

I always remember this boy being in school with me and thinking he was one of smartest kids I’d ever met.

As we grew, I became aware that he was one of the “brains” in school who’d never be socially adept enough to be in the cool crowd—and he was too intelligent to care about those kinds of things anyway. The point is, he always sounded like he knew what he was talking about, and it was easy to believe him when he spoke.

We’ve lost touch since school, but a Google search quickly confirmed that he’s doing what might be expected: teaching a particular brand of engineering at one of the top schools in the field, with his faculty profile boasting a long list of published articles.

But back to when we were 7 and when he made that statement about a Michael Jackson song on the bus to school—and a little context about my upbringing to explain why this statement impacted me.

My parents didn’t have pop or rock music on in the house. This wasn’t just because they had elementary-aged children. God’s Church had made sufficient warnings about this kind of influence (this was the 1980s)—objections to the music itself and more so to the lifestyle and culture surrounding the artists, which was hard to separate from their music at the time. Michael Jackson was iconic at the time for both the world and the Church: insanely popular, as far as the world was concerned, and he stood for everything that was distasteful about pop culture to God’s people.

So, it was fascinating to me to learn of someone (at a time when everyone seemed to idolize Michael Jackson) who was not on this particular bandwagon:

“Michael Jackson is garbage,” he said. “Well, ‘Billie Jean’ is a decent song, but that’s about it.”

What fascinated me about this statement was he wasn’t going along with the crowd in unquestioning reverence of Michael Jackson. But neither was he on another side of the spectrum just saying, it’s all horrible.

It seemed discerning—like it was based on thoughtful analysis. I remember, in my 7-year-old mind, that this seemed like someone who was honestly considering all the facts before forming an opinion.

Now, I don’t know if he’d heard “Billie Jean,” or what evidence he had for that song being “decent,” or if he was just repeating something his big sister had said.

It didn’t matter because I remember repeating that exact statement in a conversation a little while later.

Michael Jackson came up, and I wanted to sound like I had a balanced, educated opinion about it. So I parroted the same judgment about “Billie Jean” as my smart, trustworthy friend.

People do this well into adulthood, but it is especially easy when young. We can have uninformed and uneducated opinions. We can adopt others’ opinions as our own simply because someone we respect seems to have done the mental heavy-lifting for us. And we can mistake opinions as indisputable facts.

This was easy for me to do as a 7-year-old in the ’80s, and it’s easy for youth to do in the 21st century.

Your world is one of headlines, news alerts and statements of facts coming in utterly condensed form to a personal device. People read a fragment of a thought and form entire opinions about politicians, celebrities, issues, etc. Or, even lazier, people read the opinions of people they like and just superimpose those into their own thinking.

Perhaps if they kept a shred of open-minded about other viewpoints, this might be somewhat tolerable. But usually, for the viewpoints they’ve adopted, they’ve done so with the strongest feelings available to them. Nothing could ever change their minds!

Voltaire once said, “Opinion has caused more trouble on this Earth than plagues or earthquakes.”

Each of us should constantly keep our opinions in check. Why do we have them? Upon what are they based? Are we confusing them with facts?

Hear It Out

Thinking back on my acceptance of my classmate’s opinion and my eagerness to restate it as my own, consider this: I don’t think I’d actually heard the song “Billie Jean”! Definitely not at home. I suppose I might have been exposed to it like second-hand smoke at a store or something—enough to catch a fragment of it as an earworm, but certainly not enough for me to have this particular opinion about it. And I certainly was in no position to speak about how this song stood next to the corpus of Michael-Jackson-performed songs to date!

How many opinions do we hold that are like that? How many statements like that do we offer that are not based on any personal examination of our own, but simply quoting someone we think should know. And how often do we do that with such unswerving passion and convince ourselves that these things are actually facts?

Proverbs 18:13 states: “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.”

It could easily say, He who forms an opinion about a song before he heareth it, about a book before he readeth it, about a vegetable before he tasteth it, that is foolishness and a disgrace.

“Folly” and “shame” are some awful things with which to be associated. That’s because this kind of thinking is lazy at best, and extremely dangerous at worst.

Proverbs 14 contains several verses about this subject: “The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going” (verse 14). People who don’t like to think can believe anything. The second half of the verse reads more literally: but the prudent considers each step.

Verse 18 contains a similar contrast: “The simple inherit folly: but the prudent are crowned with knowledge.” You don’t do much to “inherit” something, and this is what lazy thinkers have come into their possession without any effort.

The previous verse offers a practical example: “He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly: and a man of wicked devices is hated” (verse 17). The Bible says you can be angry without sinning. Even so, if you arrive at anger quickly, that’s similar to forming an opinion too soon—that’s acting “foolishly” (the same word used here as for “folly” in Proverbs 18:13).

Verse 29 reinforces that: “He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.”

You can either think it through carefully, or you can quickly arrive at an emotional reaction.

Those who gullibly inherit others’ opinions without thinking—there’s a connection here even to their ability to control their emotions.

Are You Prejudiced?

It’s so easy to form an opinion before hearing something out—to jump to conclusions. This is essentially what “prejudice” is—pre-judging. It is deciding on something before you have all the information.

“All the facts, positive evidence, rational reasonings and proofs in the world will never induce such a one to accept that against which he is prejudiced,” Herbert W. Armstrong wrote in Does God Exist? “For prejudice is a barrier to the entrance of truth into any mind.”

That’s deep: Our opinions could be walls in our minds, blocking out actual truth! There’s a danger of getting stuck in that type of thinking. “A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself” (Proverbs 18:2). The second half of that verse reads, in the Revised Standard Version: “… but only in expressing his own opinion.” As another proverb stated, the wise and prudent will examine each step—thinking about, for example, why they arrived at a certain conclusion. And this will keep them properly open-minded, in case they’re in error.

“How did you come to believe the things you believe?” Mr. Armstrong asked in his June 1969 Plain Truth personal. “Consider: The instant you were born you arrived in the world with a mind capable of absorbing knowledge and utilizing that knowledge in forming opinions and beliefs, arriving at decisions, forming judgments and conclusions, exercising will. But you did not come already equipped with a supply of knowledge. You merely had a mind capable of receiving knowledge and utilizing it. Every bit of knowledge now in your mind—and every belief or opinion or conviction—has entered or been formed in your mind since birth! The question now becomes, then, how—by what process—did you receive this knowledge or formulate those beliefs? Very few have ever stopped to ask themselves this question. Very few realize just how they came to believe the things they believe.”

Mr. Armstrong includes opinions in that list of things we may not question why we have them. He then gives three ways people acquire all their beliefs, convictions and opinions: 1) passively accepting, taking for granted, assuming without proof what we’ve heard or read; 2) believing what we want to believe or disbelieve, based on emotion rather than evidence; 3) carefully and objectively examining and sifting the facts without prejudice.

The third method is the rarest. Under that point, Mr. Armstrong is talking more about proving the true from the false, which is less about opinion—but not much different in the way we go about formulating those!

Can you think of an opinion you formed, say, about a food item, or maybe a school subject, before you even experienced it? Let that inform how you arrive at opinions!

Describing the second point, Mr. Armstrong wrote: “Personal opinions often are formulated selfishly and prejudicially according to emotional feelings for or against.”

Can you think of something you used to not like, and now you do like it? Let that experience inform how you formulate opinions!

Need to Belong

Under the first reason (passively accepting or assuming an opinion), Mr. Armstrong said people are more apt to do this “if it evidently has common acceptance among their group, their locality, their people or country ….” He asks why most in some countries are of a particular religion, while others in another country are another religion. “Simply because those around them are of that belief or faith. It is what they have always heard. It is what most of those they know accept. They go along with the crowd.”

He asks the same about political parties—why those in some American states are Democrats, and those in other states are Republicans? “Because their parents were. Because those around them were. Because they followed the crowd where they lived. Because it was what they customarily heard and read. Because it is what they carelessly assumed and took for granted!”

He addresses a similar issue at the beginning of Does God Exist?—putting a little more emphasis on this tendency to accept a belief because of a need to belong: “… perhaps a vast majority who accept evolution, at least passively, were simply swept into that acceptance in college or university. It became the scholarly ‘in’ thing. The opposite belief, special creation, has not been widely taught. It has not been objectively examined. … All of which goes to show that people in general believe what they do simply because they have been taught it, or because it has been accepted in their particular social environment. People want to belong! They go along with their particular group. In general, they believe what they have taken carelessly for granted—without examination or proof!

So many opinions are simply the result of this: wanting to belong or fit into a specific kind of group.

This is something your generation needs to be on guard against. Studies conducted over the past couple years by Jigsaw, a Google subsidiary, have examined how “Gen Zers,” 13-to-24-year-olds, consume and digest online information. Adam Rogers writes about the results in the June 25, 2024, Business Insider: “They just read the headlines and then speed-scroll to the comments, to see what everyone else says. They’re outsourcing the determination of truth and importance to like-minded, trusted influencers.”

Consider that—“outsourcing” your thoughts and opinions. In other words, that means having others do it for you. And the danger stated here is not just outsourcing what you think about something—your opinion of something—but truth itself.

John 17:17 says God’s word is truth.

“And if an article’s too long,” Rogers continues, “they just skip it. “They don’t want to see stuff that might force them to think too hard, or that upsets them emotionally. If they have a goal, Jigsaw found, it’s to learn what they need to know to remain cool and conversant in their chosen social groups. … ‘Gen Zers will have a favorite influencer or set of influencers who they essentially outsource their trust to, and then they’re incredibly loyal to everything that influencer is saying,’ says Beth Goldberg, Jigsaw’s head of research. ‘It becomes extremely costly to fall out of that influencer’s group, because they’re getting all their information from them.’”

This isn’t even about opinion, but the principle applies—putting their trust in influencers. If so-and-so says it, then it must be the way to think.

Those blindly following influencers have simply been brainwashed! God’s Church, by contrast, encourages you to think for yourself. Heed the admonition of 1 Thessalonians 5:21: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”

This is why you first prove that God exists and that the Bible is His inspired Word—that it is 100 percent reliable. Whatever it says, that you can believe!

Romans 12:2 states: “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

How many of our opinions are just confirming—following a “brand” or a “group” we want to be associated with? As a musician, I have certain opinions about pieces of music (which are still opinions, but hopefully based on educated considerations based on my profession versus my own feelings). And I am convinced that this need to belong or conform is the reason most people like the music they like. It has little do with what the music sounds like.

From Illogical to Diabolical

Uninformed opinions—certainly being in a habit of holding those—hamper our ability to think logically. It is “folly” and “shame.” It leads to making illogical leaps—classifying feelings as facts. That is the definition of “will worship,” as termed in Colossians 2:23, which we so commonly see in the world today!

In a March 2024 Trumpet article, Editor in Chief Gerald Flurry quoted Former U.S. President Barack Obama in an April 2024 speech about regulating technology (his way): “It is a chance for all of us to fight for truth—not absolute truth, not a fixed truth, but to fight for what, deep down, we know is more true, is right.”

Do you see how illogical—no, diabolical—that statement is?

Mr. Flurry comments on that: “To him, “absolute truths” don’t matter—what matters is what you feel is more true “deep down”! Is he really one to be lecturing us about trying to prevent truth from being blurred with lies? There is absolute truth, fixed truth. Only God can define what is truth and what is error. When individuals try to define fact and fiction, there is a diabolical spirit behind their actions.”

He then quotes Colossians 2:18, 23 about “will worship” and comments: “Paul reveals what happens when you worship the human will: It leads to worshiping demons! That is because the human mind is vulnerable to the broadcasting, deception and influence of “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,” Satan the devil (Ephesians 2:2). When you hear Barack Obama trying to enforce regulations on communication and technology aimed at ‘fighting for truth’—meaning whatever he says is truth—look out!

God wants us to use our minds—our reasoning even (Isaiah 1:18). But He also wants us to be aware of its severe vulnerabilities. That’s why we always have to be lining up our thinking to God’s Word.

That quote from Mr. Flurry is similar to something he wrote in the “Worshiping the Will” section of America Under Attack: “Hitler believed he did not need to rely on reason, intelligence, reality, truth or God. Instead, he worshiped his own human will and believed he could create his own reality.”

Hitler actually wrote about creating reality where there was no reality.

Mr. Flurry continues later in the section: “When human beings reject God’s truth, they start worshiping their own opinions. They start thinking like Satan. When this type of thinking becomes entrenched enough, people stop even caring about the difference between true and false. They start trying to magically “create reality where no reality is.” Satan’s broadcasts make us impervious to reason—if we allow it.”

The truth is, this is where uninformed thinking and opinions lead!

Mind Your Thoughts

The Bible tells us to prove what is true. What can know the difference between true and false. We should know the difference between fact and opinion.

As the Proverbs say, don’t draw conclusions based on insufficient information. Don’t just believe anything you read without consideration. Don’t outsource your thinking to someone else. And certainly do not repeat others opinions because you trust that they should know what they’re talking about.

Take responsibility for your knowledge, beliefs and opinions. This forms positive habits—habits of examining and proving, habits of thinking and logic, and habits of a sound, disciplined mind.