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2. Models and meaning
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The importance of personal beliefs
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| Do you remember the old folk story about the boy who cried wolf? He cried with such conviction that the villagers initially hid. But when the boy continued to use this powerful word, the villagers became suspicious and in the end shunned the boy as a liar. Do you remember what happened next? Of course the boy then really saw a wolf and no-one believed him, to their eternal regret. | ||
| Personal belief that things "are what they seem" is fundamental to life. That you believe in something is better than believing in nothing. Beliefs are even more important when you hold them to be true and act upon them. | ||
| Our belief of the world around us, what you see with our eyes, hear with our ears and feel in our hearts is essential to our sense of sanity and comfort. That you have your own bed. That you have your own room. That you have your own house. That you know where you live. That you know where you work. That you know where your friends and family live. That you know your name. That you know the names of your friends and family. That you know the names of the streets and roads where you live. | ||
| 2.1.1 | The deep roots of personal beliefs | |
| If any of these beliefs were to be challenged, our immediate response would naturally be to resist. For you rely on these personal beliefs to maintain a sense of who you are. When strangers challenge our beliefs, our resistance may even turn to anger at such a personal insult. For what you believe and know is fundamental to who and what you think you are. | ||
| Yet our beliefs extend beyond just the names of friends and the geography of our neighborhood. You have beliefs in terms of such things as life on other planets, dealing with other people, beliefs on what happens when you die (if anything) and beliefs in the existence or nonexistence of God. | ||
| Like all our other beliefs, these beliefs were formed, or changed from interactions with other human beings. Usually the more tested our beliefs, the more entrenched they become. | ||
| 2.1.2 | The emotional attachment to personal beliefs | |
| Yet what of the question of origin of these beliefs: are all our personal beliefs based on scientific proof and personal experience? For most of us, the answer is no. | ||
| Our beliefs in God may come from our knowledge of religious texts such as the Bible and personal experiences such as the feeling of having our prayers answered. The Bible itself does not provide a scientific proof on the existence of God. Nor is the ritual of a church service based on any scientific formula on the natural structure of the Universe- but you may go anyway. | ||
| Often our beliefs about our self come largely from feedback from others. What they say about us, what you think they're really saying, what you think about what they're saying all comes together to largely influence our opinion of ourselves. | ||
| Then there are beliefs of our own safety. Over 100 million people live on or near dangerous fault lines of the Earth such as residents of the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles and Tokyo to name a few. Within the past 100 years, there has been devastating earthquakes in all these cities as well as many minor tremors. Yet people living in these cities carry on life with the general feeling that buildings are safer and that somehow the next earthquake won't happen for a while or won't be as bad. | ||
| Personal beliefs aren't always based on rational concepts. | ||
| 2.1.3 | The pain when personal beliefs are questioned | |
| So why do you hold out when occasionally personal beliefs are shown to be wrong? Why do you seem to burrow-in so readily when a belief is challenged? | ||
| Maybe, it is because anyone who has felt the emotion of betrayal knows the feeling of what it is like when you finally accept a belief in someone or something turns out to be false. | ||
| It's a painful experience when a fundamental personal belief is challenged. And pain tends to bring back painful memories. So, in the end, sometimes its better to accept the "devil you know, than the devil you don't know" then have to go through the painful experience of personal change of beliefs. | ||
| 2.1.4 | Events around us that are forcing us to change | |
| Probably the greatest irony of what we have discussed so far, is that you are being forced to change all the time by the pressures of life. Quite simply, the pace of life and the seeming rapid turnover in social values is causing us more and more personal stress. | ||
| Our personal beliefs are coming under attack from all sides. Worse still, many of our beliefs are just not holding up under pressure. Our belief in God might be an excellent example of a belief under pressure. Our belief in the underlying good of fellow humanity might be another personal belief under attack. | ||
| 2.1.5 | Many beliefs are adopted, not originated | |
| When you look at some of your beliefs that are failing to keep pace, you need to consider that many are adopted from established organizations who "offer" in some way those beliefs. A religious organization is such an example. Our government is another example. | ||
| One personal belief might be that Jesus is the only son of God. While you may hold this as a strong personal belief, the idea nonetheless has been around for a lot longer than you've been alive. | ||
| Another personal belief might be that only by working hard do you receive reward. however strongly you feel you have a duty to suffer long hours of seemingly endless frenetic boredom, the idea that work is a form of "punishment" for the sins of man has been around for hundreds of years in Christian cultures. Interestingly, many Asian cultures have traditionally adopted a completely opposite idea in that work is seen as a natural part of the flow of nature and the universe. | ||
| What we are saying is that many of the beliefs you hold aren't "home grown". You did not originally come up with the idea. Someone else did. What ever you feel towards these "adopted" personal beliefs, you did not write the Bible. You did not write new-age books or complete the scientific discoveries. Others did. It's their idea. It's got their names on it. You are merely agreeing with the idea or choosing to participate with others in believing the idea. | ||
| Consider then that some of the personal stresses you feel as your beliefs come under attack are actually "adopted beliefs" coming under attack. This brings us to the next step of our journey- the concept of an idea. | ||
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