I love the cartoon, Dilbert. Scott Adams has really captured the soul of the engineer–and some would say the soul of the manager. He often gets right to the heart of the matter.
Dilbert’s “Pointy-Hair Boss,” “We don’t care what smart people think. There aren’t that many of them. We only need to convince our dumb customers. Dumb people believe anything.”
Do you sometimes feel that leaders or managers treat you that way?
Problem is that many people latch on to a belief system and then believe anything that is told them that fits within their system of beliefs. Therefore, they are easily manipulated.
This works in politics, in churches and in commercial life.
Therapists will tell you that it is very hard for people to step back from themselves, examine their belief systems and then take actions to improve them–and live a life more fully in line with what God wants for you.
Americans in the early 20th Century were passionate optimists that education would cure this. So, we are all now more educated–both academically and in our religion. Yet, we’re still gullible to that manipulation.
I think one of the more powerful concepts of the past 30 years has been the concept of Seekers. It tries to approach people by considering them Spiritual Seekers. Practitioners point the way not only in belief, but also in Spiritual practices–especially study, prayer and service.
The German poet Goethe said it’s not just in the knowing, but in the doing also.
One of my favorite thoughts comes from the ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates, who said, “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” We’ve spent too much time filling vessels, too little time kindling the flame.
I look also at Spiritual Practices in the same manner.
We need to kindle that flame within us. But we also need to be flame kindlers to others.
Faith Venture 
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