The Matter of Belief.

An actor I knew once asked me to explain my spiritual beliefs, which I did. After I’d finished he asked me: ‘But how do you know any of this?’ There’s only one answer to that, of course. I don’t. Nobody can actually know anything that isn’t either provable or demonstrated by direct, personal, unequivocal experience. And the important word there is ‘unequivocal.’

So how do I come by my beliefs? By weighing up the evidence, and that evidence can come in a variety of ways. It might come from personal experience, from reliable second hand testimony, from logical extrapolation, or from intuition. If, in my opinion, the evidence in favour outweighs the evidence against, I choose to believe it. And the more powerful the evidence is, the more entrenched the belief becomes. Equally, however, if fresh evidence swings the balance the other way, I’m quite prepared to stop believing it. I see no other tenable position for the human mind to take.

Back when I was a gullible child and a Christian, I remember being told: ‘You mustn’t ask too many questions. You must have faith in God.’ I asked why, and was told ‘Because God says so.’ Now, if that isn’t a preposterous, pointlessly circular argument, I don’t know what is. And religions of all colours, but especially the Judaic ones, are riddled with the classic non-sequitur that might run thus: ‘I was ill. I asked God to make me better, and I did get better. That proves God helped me.’ No, it doesn’t. Soldiers are particularly prone to this. They get comfort from the belief that God is on their side, so if they win the battle they give thanks to God. Meanwhile, those on the other side, who also believed they had the favour of God, ask themselves what they must have done to displease the Almighty. This is what comes of believing something simply because you want to believe it.

And the so-called rationalists have their moments, too. I’m quite sure that the vast majority of what people claim to ‘know’ comes simply from either having read it in a book, or having heard somebody on the TV say so. Most of us actually know very little. Life is based largely on belief, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you see belief for what it is. It isn’t the same as knowing.

Which is why, as I’ve said many times, I don’t know anything. And it’s why, although I occasionally lapse into an unfortunate habit of didacticism, I never proselytise. It’s also why I have absolutely no truck with those who do.

And I might just add here, in case anybody cites an apparent contradiction, this post is aimed at the sub-Zen level.