Belief. As a word in and of itself, it's one of the more powerful. It has launched battles, inspired great art, torn close families apart, and so on. But although we may dwell upon the details of our beliefs, the very concept of belief is often overlooked. Everybody believes something, though some think that they believe nothing at all. The band Rush once sang, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." But why do we choose to believe or doubt? Let's take a look…
We either believe or doubt something based upon our own empirical experiences. So truth is built upon truth and experience. Doubts are those ideas that are filtered out of the truth column. But we believe what seems reasonable, based upon our previous experiences, and the consideration of the alleged facts presented. Some require little to convince, others a bit more, others still require tremendous amounts, and some are impossible to convince. No matter what the data presented, sadly, some will never let go of a belief that they feel more "comfortable" with. An example:
Person a: Do you believe that China exists?
Person b: Yes.
Person a: How do you know?
Person b: I've seen pictures.
Person a: They're fakes!
Person b: I've met people from China.
Person a: They're lying!
Person b: I've flown there myself!
Person a: while your plane was in the air, they set up a fake scenario on the ground. You circled in the air for an hour, landed, and they tricked you!
For each individual, there comes a point where the evidence presented, along with their own personal experience, tells them either to believe or not to believe. For many it seems, it is a source of constant frustration to have someone else believe something that they feel differently about. Often, we perceive an attack on our beliefs as an attack upon ourselves; that if our theology or philosophy is somehow flawed, then our justification as a person is threatened. While this thinking is clearly misguided, the wise person recognizes this aspect and modifies their actions accordingly. If I am ever to convince you of the things I feel are true; if you are ever to convince me, we must lower the ego and accept that others may indeed be as bright as ourselves, that questioning my beliefs does not challenge me as a person, that I CAN change my position based upon additional evidences, and that other's are more easily won over through a sense of mutual respect than by aggressive words.
I do not subscribe to the "birther" movement, but respect their concerns, give validity to the idea of requiring a certificate in the future (there is no legal requirement to present said documents), and respect their right to question what I already accept as fact. A case in point: I do not feel that it's fair to put an excessive burden on the wealthy for health insurance, yet recognize a need to solve a desperate problem, and hope that over the long haul we'll come up with a fair but functional system – we're Americans, damn it. Others have done it; we can too. We went to the moon with the computing power of a modern digital watch or two; this should be easy.
In closing, I preach to you to hold solid to those beliefs that you're certain of, be open-minded and well informed without bias, and respect each other and their opinions. Insulting people for thinking differently only incites similar activity, and produces nothing of worth. No matter how hard we try, we all succumb to the perceived attacks, intentional or not, when our beliefs are insulted. Still, we should try, both to be forgiving, and to not be offensive. This is the American way, my friends. Everybody gets a voice. But use wisdom in speaking, and use the ears too.
John
