Have you ever wondered why you believe what you do? Recently I listened to an interview with Alvin Toffler, author of Revolutionary Wealth and other books. In this interview he referred to beliefs and gave some very interesting points that I want to share. Most people have no idea of why they believe or how they decide to believe. The following are two points are what I have thought about and I am now sharing.
*Authority. We have authority figures and too many people blindly accept what they profess to be true as their belief. I am an avid researcher and no longer do I accept anyone’s word. When I read a book and it has a bibliography, I often read or have read the same books listed and by doing so broaden my knowledge base so that I can decide for myself. I have learned that there are really no authorities on any subject and this leads into another reason of why people believe.
*Acceptance. We (collectively) assume that because someone has a power position that this person(s) is an authority. Therefore accepting someone’s power position empowers the power holder(s) and creates a belief that a person, institution, or group knows what they are talking about. As a child I accepted what I was told by my parents, my church, what I was taught in school and other sources. I am reminded of a song we were taught in Sunday school: Jesus loves me. This I know. For the Bible tells me so. This is blind acceptance. I also know that I accepted a belief that I could not talk to God because if I did, God would strike me dead. This was very confusing, but I accepted these two beliefs until I grew up and left home. My breakaway point came when I entered the Foreign Service of the U.S. State Department. I grew up in segregated Texas and many of my beliefs were uprooted when I was assigned to the embassy in Paris. This has led to an uncommon non-academic education.
Too often we accept a belief because there is a consensus – meaning we accept a collective opinion or a general agreement. We accept our beliefs for various reasons such as everyone say so, there is a consistency in information, the media promotion, the durability of a belief, and scientific research or someone has had a revelation. There is also the belief in superstition. Superstitions were instilled in me as a child such as don’t walk under a leaning ladder, don’t step on a crack or it will break your mother’s back, carry a rabbit’s foot for good luck and Friday the 13th was a bad luck day. It was years before I learned why Friday the 13th was a bad luck day. It was the day in 1314 when Jacques DeMolay, a Knights Templar was burned at the stake. Thus a myth was born.
Over the years my beliefs have changed drastically and I can attribute this to seeking knowledge and wanting to know. Because a doctor has gone through medical school, the majority of people assume he/she is an authority and believe what the doctor tells them. Doctors are not infallible. Too often they rely on what pharmaceutical literature and salespeople tell them. The doctors become overloaded in their practices and have no time to research for themselves, so they may prescribe drugs that have adverse effects on the patient. People misplace their trust in the infallibility of their doctor without doing some research for themselves. They do not seek a second or a third opinion. I have often wondered how many people have died needlessly due to a doctor’s mis-diagnosis or prescribed medications.
The scientific community is an interesting aspect. Rarely do scientists agree. Each has their own point of view or their belief. I remember reading an article some years ago that peanut butter caused cancer. Then another researcher said that it was healthy some years later. Another example is eggs. It came out from the scientific community that eggs were supposedly bad for people due to the cholesterol and some years later another study said they were healthy because they contained the good cholesterol. From my research, eggs are one of the healthiest foods one can eat. Even science is not infallible regardless of the number of blind studies.
Too many people place their belief in the infallibility of their religious authorities. As the one statement in the song I just quoted above states, “because the bible tells me so,” is an example. This is a major belief and it is a challenge to shake people’s beliefs because they have been taught to accept in blind faith thus creating closed minds. There is one thing that cannot be changed and that is a closed mind. It must be opened from the inside.
I can only come from my own experiences and research knowledge. When I left Texas, I opened my mind to receive new information. This was the greatest turning point in my life. I put my beliefs I had been taught by my church on hold and became for a period of time an agnostic. An agnostic is not an atheist. I use this word in the sense that I was noncommittal. After I married and had children, I attempted to become involved in going to church again because I had a belief that my children should be exposed to religion.
My husband was a career military man and we moved often. Wherever we lived, I learned that my answers were not to be found in any church and I dropped away until in my late forties. When I reached my fortieth birthday, a thought would come to me that by the time I was fifty my life would be changed. This thought flitted through my mind off and on through the next ten years. At fifty my life had changed. In looking back, I can see Vietnam and the Watergate scandal contributed to my changes. I began to question. I also began a search for the spiritual aspect of myself. This led to a divorce and a year later I entered my ministry by being ordained as a Divine Science minister. This was another great turning point in my life.
My belief in my ministry was only a stepping-stone and I chose to retire from it. I had discovered that if I was going to stand up and give a message that I had to learn to live what I said. I knew I did not want to be a hypocrite. My late husband and I moved to Washington State after he retired over twenty years ago. I have been a student of an academy of the mind, the Ramtha School of Enlightenment for twenty years. Ramtha’s teachings have resonated within my being. He has taught me not to accept what he teaches us, but to research and to experience so that we know it ourselves. The following is a quote from Ramtha’s White Book.
“Never believe in anything. Never! That is convincing yourself of something you have yet to know and understand through experience. And belief is very dangerous, because in belief, you are placing your life, your attitudes and your trust in something which is not founded itself as a truth within your being—which causes you to become very vulnerable. And in that state of vulnerability, you can be manipulated, accursed, damned, and can lose your life—all because of belief.
“Know whatever it is you wish to know. And you can do that simply by asking for the understanding and then listening to the feelings within your being. Always trust the wisdom of your feelings. Never go against them and try to force a belief upon yourself that doesn’t feel good inside.”
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