You Choose

We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.

John Newman
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Hello Lily
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A belief is like a body of water. Naturally we should keep an eye on our beliefs because they tend to affect our behavior and our points of view about many things. For some a belief is allied to a religious faith. To others they may correspond to social and ethical matters and some beliefs are coordinate with natural laws. Almost all beliefs are found tied to opinions, which are usually the product of ideas. But whatever the origins and structures of one's beliefs they should be held up for review regularly.

Naturally we should look at our beliefs to see what they are made of but we should also determine how deeply and seriously held those beliefs are. Is your belief a bird bath, a pond, a lake and ocean? The deeper the belief the more changes it can go through, and that's a good thing. Opinions change and beliefs change along with them. If they don't things get muddy and dangerous. William Blake wrote "A man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, & breeds reptiles of the mind. "

Some people suffer from the ornery ego inflated problem of being possessive about their beliefs, holding on to some threadbare idea because they don't want to challenge or be challenged for it. That man's belief is a swamp unless he runs it past his reason a few times and cleans it up.

It is permissible and quite natural to have beliefs you can't prove as long as they remain beliefs, subject to review and change, and are not stated as truth.

To choose what to believe is our right as humans. Being told what to believe by someone else is not.

DB - Vagabond
Happy birthday JSB, wherever you are.
Never give up.
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