Beliefs Are Agnostic
Beliefs works for or against an individual and self-reinforce agnostically, creating one’s belief modality (beliefs about beliefs) concerning any aspect of life.
“If you hear something enough times, you will believe it. No matter how ridiculous, if you are presented with ‘facts’ in a certain way, you are hardwired to believe them. This is known as the appeal to ridicule fallacy.… Alternatively, if a ridiculous idea is given gravitas and treated with reverence, it will seem more viable. Repetition is a powerful tool, and when teamed with a shaming technique, it can be effective.”
— Neil Morton, Psychological Warfare & Deception
While beliefs are challenging to address in and of itself, it is its agnosticity that frustrated me the most because beliefs work the same way as disbeliefs. Whatever you believe or disbelieve, it is self-reinforced regardless of its veracity, causing you to think that everything you believe is true, and to believe everything you think is true.
Beliefs create the lens we perceive through and the mirror that reflects our perceptions.
The following graphic demonstrates Plato’s Allegory of the Cave which illustrates the power imbued in the act of believing.
In the graphic above, a rectangle can cast a circular shadow if its actual shape is cylindrical. By not examining the fire (belief), the Cause (object) is conflated with the Symptom (shadow) and thereby Plato (and philosophy in general) missed a golden opportunity to avoid the intellectual messes propagated through to today.
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
Originally Plato and siblings liken the uniformed as people who live in a cave. These cave dwellers are bound with rope and cannot move. (I didn’t bind the coffee drinker in the graphic) They’re sitting facing a wall with a fire behind them. Objects are placed between them and the fire, causing shadows to appear on the wall.
When dragged outside of the cave into the sunshine, cave-dwellers do not recognize the objects that cast the shadows. Why would they? If all they ever see is a circular shadow and everyone agrees that the shadow is circular, then it should be no surprise that the circular shadow could be a shadow of a globe, or even a cone.
As it is, and continues today, Philosophy doesn’t consider beliefs to be anything other than an irrational state of mind of the uninformed.
We are hardwired to believe and this capacity exists in every single human being. Beliefs works for or against an individual and self-reinforce agnostically, creating one’s belief modality (beliefs about beliefs) concerning any aspect of life.
There are several ways to convey that beliefs are agnostic. I’m using a Philosophy construct in hopes that you can read between the lines because so as to avoid reinforcing ‘beliefs about beliefs’ as opposed to discussing how beliefs work.
For example, God and an Atheist have one thing common: they don’t believe in each other. I don’t ever recall reading in the Bible that God believes in me, nor does God believe in any of creation because it just exists. Each person gets to choose what to believe, and how to express it. Here’s an excellent article that conveys this in different ways.
I actually prefer that article to anything I’ve written because it serves as a litmus test of what you believe or disbelieve. Two examples follow.
One, this article about knee surgery resonates with me because for 44 years I’ve not had a PCL nor ACL in my right knee. An MRI taken 20 years after the fact shows both are missing, and that the upper part of the tibia is spider-webbed with microfractures. My doctor couldn’t believe what he was seeing and showed me similar MRIs and photos of the leg itself. Theirs looked horrible, my leg looks normal. I have been trail running, hiking, biking, rock climbing for on a supposedly bum knee for 44 years—how is that possible?
Easy: I believe. My knee does act up periodically and when it does I stop what I’m doing and I tell my knee “it’s all right, you’re doing great!” This works every time. Just believe.
Two, I recently transplanted a 16 plants that unexpectedly overwintered in the ground. They are not winter-hardy plants, but here they were. I moved them from rocky ground into temporary containers. The first two of them didn’t take the stress well and began shriveling. I touched and told one that “all is well, you’re not dying, yes, that was stressful but you’re going to recover and grow into a big beautiful plant”. I watered both and brought all of them inside to enjoy warmth and sunshine in the window. I didn’t speak to the other one though it was just 2 inches from the other and their leaves touched. I didn’t touch it either. It died.
Beliefs are our superpower. “All things are possible for him who believes” is a statement about this superpower. But, because Jesus said it, and it’s in the Bible, people believe that it applies only to people who believe in Jesus, God, the Bible; that’s nothing more than a ‘belief about beliefs’. Doesn’t matter what one believes, just that one will always physically manifest according to one’s beliefs
Don’t believe that? Then will still manifest accordingly. Why not put your mind onto positive things instead of judging self and others?
