Perhaps the most stubborn things are the political and religious beliefs of people. Can Creator explain why that is?

We would agree that these are often a source of great conflict even among friends, and is widely discussed about family gatherings being a kind of minefield where it is best to avoid these subjects altogether knowing that disputes will be created and arguments and hurt feelings will inevitably follow. The fact this can happen so readily is, in part, the reflection of prior encounters between people where someone ends up believing the other party to be simply stubborn and refusing to listen when in fact these areas are often quite important personally because they are a kind of touchstone describing, at least in part, who they are and the deeper important aspects of their makeup. This is true particularly over time, when people are actively involved with their religion or political views by taking an interest or seeing their applicability to life in general and will begin to look at everything that happens through the lens of their politics or their religious beliefs. This is simply being human because life experience is the creation and expression of new knowledge reacting to the old. There are many learned patterns of behavior, expectations based on what one knows about life and circumstances encountered on a regular basis, and people adopt many behaviors as a kind of habit, a kind of routine they will exhibit in each similar circumstance that comes their way. So people act a certain way in school, a certain way at home, a certain way at church, a certain way at work, and so on. Sometimes this is comfortable and truly reflecting who they are. Sometimes it is a kind of act where they must wear a mask and project a certain persona they feel will help them be better accepted as fitting in and fulfilling the expectations of the others they are with. There is nothing inherently wrong with this as such things are required many times for getting along with members of a group, whether a family or work colleagues, for example. Identification with a political affiliation or a religion are both aggregate bodies of knowledge and meaning for the person that define who they believe they are. So a threat to their political party or a differing religious perspective that conflicts with dogma they accept may well be seen as an attack on them personally they must defend. So they are very much aspects of the core being as people experience with their physical incarnation. After all, they are not simply animals running about the landscape but have a personality based on who they have been before, but also all the learning during the lifetime up to the current moment and the beliefs cultivated within. Beliefs are the inner hardwiring much as a computer has software—sets of instructions describing what will happen when energy is applied, what must take place, where that energy has to go, and then what will happen automatically as a result. The software instructions in a computer program are like the beliefs within a person—they will automatically reject religious notions contrary to what they have been taught and then embraced as their own. The same is true with political ideas, ideology, and affiliations, it is all a set of beliefs they have come to accept and incorporate within themselves to varying degrees and with varying strengths. Some people have very loose morals, for example. They might be a devout worshiper of a particular religious faith but as they live their lives they might, in effect, push religious proscriptions to the side so they can indulge themselves in vice and think nothing of it, attending a religious service a few days later and think of themselves as a faithful believer and worshiper. But for the most part, people will stay true to what they hold near and dear in their heart with respect to their politics and religion because it is so much a reflection of who they are and many choices they have made that are, in effect, decisions in how they see themselves and rank themselves compared to others by the same criteria. When this brings with it a natural bias, that because they have spent years exploring, comparing, and contrasting ideologies, what they come to believe is the product of much soul-searching and hard-won learning and will not easily be overridden. So these indeed, for important reasons, are often the arena where the issue of stubbornness comes into play, and again rigid adherence to an ideology not believed by others may well be seen as stubbornness, whereas a fellow believer would see it as perseverance in the face of criticism. So such challenges to what are both viewed as many times being sacred arenas of thought and belief are heavily guarded against and will have consequences emotionally, and that ups the ante to engender stiff resistance, often without a logical basis that can be summoned, and that is when you can be sure emotion is in play more so than just an automatic robot-like lack of having an answer but not agreeing to outside persuasion. This taps into soul characteristics about loyalty because both politics and religion are in many ways the formation of a clan or tribe, so the members and believers have an identity in sharing this with others and this brings in many inner beliefs and instinctual behavior about challenges and perceived threat from outside perspectives. So stubborn resistance to what many would see as a superior argument may well encompass deeper issues of loyalty to one’s tribe in the person being challenged who then sees only an absence of a compelling argument. No one likes being cornered and forced to surrender, so contests about politics and religion are the most likely to lead to confrontations, argument, and conflict rather than a meeting of minds and an opportunity for those on both sides of an issue to grow and expand their thinking, through a confluence of perspectives that adds something that will create a greater whole rather than a diminishment.