One question at a time 15 being right
Being right often gets in the way of having a good relationship or a great one. We should not let people walk all over us although don't get caught up in the small things. Ask yourself what really matters, will this small trivial thing really matter 5 or 10 years from now?
Sometimes being right does matter even when we are swallowing our pride and trying to be humble. We don't want to give up our principles and we don't want to admit that we could have been wrong. Sometimes people will hang on to ideas, thoughts, feelings and beliefs even when it does not make sense to others.
In many third world countries people have superstitions and beliefs that may not make sense to us. They make seem silly or foolish yet the people continue to believe in them. In Guatemala people will place a small piece of red thread on the forehead of a baby when they get hiccups and they strongly believe that this will help. Does the string actually make a difference, is it the persons faith that makes something like this work? Family or culture traditions continue to be taught even though society is moving forward. Some of the young people point out to their parents the foolishness of these old ways of thinking and they let their parents know what a myth is and often they often the older generation because of their lack of respect. Interestingly enough I have taken time to listen to many of these old traditions from the Philippines, Mexico and Guatemala. Sometimes there may be some truth among the traditions and learning them and respecting the older people enough to be interested makes all the difference in the world.
I suppose learning some of your culture's traditions and respecting the elders is very different than allowing your entire life to be determined based on what your parents believe. Each generation has to decide these things for themselves. Religion overall is evolving in such a way and it seems to be changing because of the Internet and all the available information that is out there. We do need to be careful as we can get so much information and much of it is not dependable.
Having faith in something that you cannot see is difficult. We look at the effect of religion around the world and we look at the effect of it on our parents, family and culture and overall we need to ask if it has benefited them or not. People are deciding to move into other aspects of being spiritual and often these do not include a religion or church. Organized churches can help us or sometimes they can close us in from the world where we close ourselves off to others. Analysing our past, our present, our beliefs is not a bad thing. Sometimes loosing something we have had helps.