Beliefs

 

This is a hard subject, and personally very difficult for me to

address.  Beliefs are personal to the person, and really

our individual and collective identities are bunched up 

and interconnected with " our beliefs ".


And  clearly they must be rather unique to individuals and communities.

Often our comfort level is higher with others that share most

closely and connect to whatever kinds of beliefs we individually might

have.  Also, there is a qualitive nature to it, as well, which is the idea

that you might believe more strongly in somethings.


Of course, there are all kinds of beliefs, and I am not sure

there is a hierarchy of belief ,  although some might

be led to that conclusion.   Ultimately beliefs are very

strong motivators of action, which of course make them

even more strongly connected to such enigmatic notions

as identity.  It might be interesting to, in fact, speculate on

what trees or dolphins or daffodils might believe.


Clearly, beliefs are not facts, because for example, if the bell

rings at 3:00 a.m. that is a fact.  Doesn't matter much what I

believe.  But facts, as motivating as they can be, really don't

define very clearly, who we might think we are.  From that

you might conclude that beliefs are different from knowledge,

although they might be connected.


Then, there is that interesting remark: " I don't believe in nothing ",

which turned around kind of translates to " I do believe in anything ",

( I think ), although generally what is expressed doesn't seem the

same.  


I think, what is important but difficult to consider, is ,how justice

supplies such a key element to what our beliefs are or what our

beliefs should or might be.  The reason is, that justice allows

us to evaluate or examine our actions.  This activity must of

course be connected to our beliefs, as generally our beliefs are

motivating factors to those actions.

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