It’s my experience that even away from organized religion, people still have very strong feelings about “belief.” I think I will start with what belief ultimately is.
It’s a feeling of certainty and it does not require logical support. It does require experiential support and it is necessary to human function. It is a part of human nature. They say that religion is a manifestation of the nature of the human mind. In the most rigid sense of the word, it is indeed. We have habits. Religion is a body of practices. In the original latin that is what it meant. We each day engage a world we believe in and if we question another we often find that the world according to.. oh say, Travis in this case… is not necessarily the world the next person engages. Here is the tricky part for most people. Both you and the person who disagrees with you is right about their world. We function not on reason but on belief. Depression arises when too little belief is permitted.
Does it arise when that person’s reality doesn’t match their belief? Their reality always matches their belief. People usually believe other than what they declare they believe. Belief is not a product of cogitation and has very deep roots. We don’t have to choose to believe. It is how brainwashing works.
People always believe something even if those are anti-belief centered beliefs which really are pretty damaging. Our minds create beliefs. Pictures of our experience, that we operate from when you oppose belief, is when you just create a form of schizoid dissonance. Your brain doesn’t stop believing things because you tell it to. So emptying your head of beliefs sort of denies the most basic truth of human nature. More useful would be to see beliefs for what they are.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~