"Belief"

Why we believe what we believe....

Anatomy - The structure of an organism or any of its parts. A detailed analysis....

"I believe things will work out....". Why would someone say this? Is it true? Can it be backed up with any evidence? When a person says something like this a couple of things may be going on behind the statement. First of all it's necessary, for sound observation, to recognize it for what it is. It's a statement of belief. It could be said that it's a belief based on observing historic evidence. That the person says it because, so far, everything has been seen to work out. I guess that depends on what we mean by work out. Maybe we need to narrow the statement down some. Let's use - I believe everything will work out for the best. Now we can say the person has observed things working out for the best - so far. Then it's assumed that, like the sun rising tomorrow, it's believed because it's most likely. Is there any other reasons for believing that everything will work out?

You'll notice I mentioned anatomy and even included a definition. If we want to understand belief we'll need to understand the nature of belief. We could well ask the question - what is it? What is a belief. We all have a rough idea of believing. We just say - I believe the sun will come up in the morning and leave it at that. To believe otherwise would work for a day or two. Then we'd have to re-evaluate. This belief, as mentioned previously, is based on some evidence. Even if we never intentionally looked at the evidence - it's there. We've acquired the evidence passively. What about any of the more personal beliefs we have? Why do we have them? One reason, all evidence aside, is because we like the belief. It's the more comforting option. I have spent a lot of time examining my beliefs to see if there is any basis for having them - or if I just passively absorbed them. Knowing what I do about the way we get our information, I recognize that I could have beliefs with no evidence to support them. How could we come to believe something that isn't real? Why would we believe it?

Lets take a look at - I believe everything will work out. Better yet - everything will be OK? It's helpful to narrow it down so it's easier to examine. So now we have someone who believes that everything is going to be OK. It may look bad now - but, in the end - things will work out. What does the evidence say? Lets narrow down some more. What is this thing that is going to be OK? Let's say it's the survival of the human race, as a species. At the moment, if mankind continues in the same direction, if he doesn't make drastic changes - we'll all die. That isn't a belief. That's just a statement using all the evidence available. So why would someone believe everything was going to be OK? What evidence can be found to support - everything will work out? One could say, "Well, people have always done crazy things to themselves, to others and to the planet - and things have worked out so far...". This is one aspect of the anatomy of belief. The personal definition of - worked out. So lets narrow it down some more. Forget about - worked out. That's way to relativistic. Lets go with survive. Let's agree that, for this conversation, being OK, or working out, is surviving. If we continue doing what we're doing - will we survive? Somewhere someone is saying, "I believe we will....I believe everything will work out.....". Why?

Is our picture of belief getting clearer? We could go on - piling up evidence that supports extinction. We could look at a chart on exponential growth and see - in black and white - that we can't even survive our current rate of reproduction. The math - the unemotional unarguable - math, says if we keep having babies, living longer and don't come up with a way to get off this planet - we're all gonna die. The math say's - if we don't stop siphoning resources and turning those resources into garbage - we're all gonna die. Science - real, bona fide, testable, fact based, non speculative science - say's if we continue poisoning the insects and the water - it's over. Where would a belief like - it's gonna be OK - come from?

Unsubstantiated belief is likely the result of fear. One of the basic instincts of the human being is the need for security. A lack, or perceived lack of security results in fear. How could fear effect a belief mechanism? How would fear create the conditions for an unwarranted belief?

For starters it may be as simple as a reactionary thought process. A lot of people don't like scary. Some people don't like going to the doctor because the might get bad news. The doctor could tell them they were terminally ill. I understand not wanting to be terminally ill. It's scary. If we were terminally ill it might be easier to simply suffer the result than have to think about it. So a lot of people will intentionally avoid bad news or any possible scary realities. I will hesitate to call someone who may tell me someone I don't want to hear. It's automatic. So what is it we're afraid of that causes so many unfounded beliefs? It's more helpful here to deal with security as a whole than to break it down into ones individual ideas about security. Some people might see security as food. Some might see it as a bank account of sufficient size to last ten years if they were to lose their job. So lets just say that security is at the bottom of this belief issue and everyone can examine their own individual thoughts and fears.

I guess a good question to ask ourselves is, "If what I believe isn't real, would that be scary?". Would finding out that my belief was not real result in feeling insecure? You may want to discuss this further on the Forum.