Reflections about beliefs and the examined life

I was finishing a meal one day at Grace Su’s China Gorge restaurant when I got the fortune in my fortune cookie that said, “People willingly believe what they wish." Well, that was quite a fortune to open and read for someone who holds the views that I do. Because in the first place, I would love to think that’s true – that we willingly believe what we wish. But in my observation and self-examination, quite the opposite is often true…. we all hold beliefs that, first of all, we don’t even recognize as beliefs…we like to call them something else …. And secondly, if some of these beliefs could be brought up into the light of day or we would hold them in front of us and examine them with some care, we’d realize we don’t wish to hold those beliefs at all. In fact, we inherited or absorbed or adopted those beliefs in any number of ways, but rarely with care, willingness, mindfulness, intentionality. And most of the time, once we’ve adopted our beliefs, it’s fairly rare that we ever re-examine them and reconsider whether they’re still worth holding, or if it’s time to put them aside and believe something different, something that might serve us better or serve our values and our fellow living creatures better.

Now, before diving into that, which is my purpose in these reflections, I need to make disclaimers or two. I’m very aware that what humans regard and define as “beliefs” is a big and controversial subject. I was a philosophy major, and I still study philosophy. People have been arguing for many centuries about what is belief, what is knowledge, what is truth, what is fact, what is reality, what is phenomenon, what is experience, what is revelation, what is feeling, what is thought, what is faith, what is perception, and so on. I love that stuff and I can definitely get engaged in it. But I’m going to intentionally sidestep it today, and ask that you do that, too. For this morning, I’m going to ask us specifically not to make argument in our minds about the working definitions I’d like to propose, but rather accept them, even if they’re not perfect and even though we can all think of interesting alternatives.

So the working description of “belief” I’m going to use here is pretty simple and everyday. A belief is something we hold to be true and that we allow to guide our actions, even when there’s not much solid evidence to back it up. In fact, most of our most important beliefs aren’t much informed or shaped by ‘evidence’ at all, and can’t be -- factual questions about them just aren’t very relevant.

Let me give an example. If you tell me that you don’t have the ability to sing, I might reply to you, “Why do you believe that? What facts or evidence do you base that on? I bet that’s a belief you have about yourself that you don’t have to hold onto.” And you’ll likely take issue with me, and say, “That’s not a belief, that’s just the truth.” The kinds of “evidence” you start pitching at me may be things like this:

You might say to me, “It’s true, I tell you, I can’t sing worth a darn and never could!” That’s called Begging the Question, and it’s also the strategy of repeating the belief with more emphasis and a louder voice, trying to persuade me (and yourself) that it’s true just by the strength of your conviction.

Or you might cite the evidence for your belief that you have no ability to sing in this way: “Ever since I was a kid, everybody’s told me I can’t sing.” That strategy callis a belief a fact by referring to the number of people who supposedly share it. By that measure, reincarnation or the resurrection of Christ are facts, not beliefs, simply because literally billions of people hold those things to be true. When it comes to the judgment of people who might have said “you can’t sing,” their beliefs about this probably had nothing to do with your voicebox, or your lung power, or whether you’d ever had a music teacher or singing coach to maximize whatever abilities you might have had. Even the most apparently “natural” singers improve with practice and teaching, and your ability to sing has probably never been put to much of a test.

Now maybe this is much ado about nothing. After all, you’re fifty years old and a dozen or more people have gently told you throughout your life that it’s too bad you can’t carry a tune, and you’re okay with that, so who cares? It’s about as factual as we get in this life, isn’t it? How about just getting real and accepting it?

And I would answer, okay, in a practical sense, that might be fine for you. But let’s take that kind of belief in our hands for a moment and turn it and change it a little. First of all, let’s say it wasn’t about the ability to sing, but something else: “I can’t read a map to save my life.” Well, that’s an interesting belief. You will probably protest to me that it’s not a belief, it’s just true, and to support your assertion you’ll conjure up failures of the past and other people’s opinions, just like the singing thing. Does it make any difference? Is this another one of those “who cares” things? I would argue that it might make a big difference. For one thing, this belief of yours will make you lazy. Reading a map, or doing your best with reading a map, is one of those adult life skills, if you’ve had the benefit of a standard education and the blessing of eyesight, that is part of life, like managing your money. Writing it off as if it were something you can’t learn is a lazy thing to do, one that won’t serve you or anyone else whom you might need to help. Secondly, “not being able to read a map if you’re life depended on it” is a very unfortunate belief to have, because mantras like that can be extremely self-fulfilling and psychologically powerful. If your life suddenly did depend on it, you might well have paralyzed yourself in fear. And it was never a factual matter, it was just a belief you chose to have about yourself.

Let’s all picture a person who is probably pretty average but who asserts, “I’m really stupid.” I think we’d all agree that it’s a sad belief they hold. It’s a belief that will not serve that person. On the contrary, such a belief will likely hurt or limit the person who holds it. It’s a belief, not a fact. It’s not somehow “true” in the sense of real evidence, but rather is probably adopted or inculcated in some not-very-healthy way, and is now part of the person’s belief system and world view, but is not serving that person or the world well at all. And I think we can all agree that if the person would ditch that limiting belief and adopt a new one, it would be terrific. For example, “I haven’t had as much education as I’d like to, but I can learn things when given half a chance.” Their life would be quite different with that new belief, wouldn’t it? Some barriers would come down, paths would appear and doors would open.

Psychotherapists deal in beliefs like these a lot. I’m told that they regard them as “core beliefs” – beliefs about one’s self --- and that when they’re brought into the light, they can be sorted out. What are they based on? Most importantly, are they making my life better? When the answer to that question is “no,” or “not really,” then the person can be supported in letting those unconstructive beliefs go, or replacing them with different beliefs, that stand up better to that kind of inquiry.

Now I’d like to move away from these “core beliefs” we might hold about ourselves and move to another realm of belief system that we commonly refer to. And that’s religious belief.

Most of us in this room would probably readily agree that religion is a matter of belief. Interestingly, many other people would protest that, saying that personal revelation is a factual matter. “I know that there is an archangel Michael because he appeared to me in my room when I was ten and I’d prayed for him to come.” Or… “I know that Christ (or my guru) works miracles. I’ve seen them with my own eyes.” Or… “I know that reincarnation is real. I don’t just believe it, I know it, because I can remember details fromm one of my previous lives.” Now, the question of whether something is belief vs. knowledge has been debated for centuries. But I’m going to take the liberty today of calling that a distraction, and say that the easy, practical, and useful way to look at all this is just like those core beliefs I talked about earlier.

There’s nothing wrong about any of these beliefs. In other words, no one can prove you wrong if you believe, let’s say, that we will have a life after we die on earth, or that we will see our loved ones again who have died, or that there is a collective consciousness that builds on all our collective wisdom and is passed to future generations……And no one can prove these things right, either. Whether these things are true, or correct, or not – well, it’s just not that kind of question. It doesn’t lend itself to reason or to evidence. It’s religious at its base --- intrinsically --- by definition. It’s about faith, it’s about choosing a belief system that we like, or at least think we should like, and holding that belief system. Once we’ve gotten that far, we’re pretty good at interpreting our experience and making it fit in with the belief system we chose.

Now, as a hospice doctor, I am very, very aware of how religion can affect us as we approach our deaths. And for the most part, religious faith is very helpful to people in the dying process. Making that observation over and over again has helped me to figure out what I think is valuable about religious faith. Also, I also grew up very religious, with 12 years of Catholic education, and when I was a practicing Catholic, I knew firsthand the feelings of being in love with god, of being special in god’s eyes, of having a special relationship with god, and of anticipating the joy of seeing god and being with god after leaving this earth. I remember those feelings very intensely. So combining my own religious faith from that time, with my observations nowadays as a hospice doctor, I’ve come to regard religious beliefs as important and useful when they have these certain specific qualities:

1. the belief is inspirational. It fills me with gratifying feelings and makes me want to be good, to live out my values. It challenges me to be not lazy. It’s not a crutch, like Dumbo’s belief in his supposedly magic feather, but instead it motivates me to lift myself up with my own wings.
2. the belief is comforting. It makes me feel better, more secure, less fearful, at the hard times in life that are inevitable. The belief consoles me in times of difficulty.
3. the belief has an element of mystery and
4. it is humbling. These are two different qualities, but they go together. I’ll say more about that in a moment.

   And

5. the belief gives me some moral and ethical direction and guidance. It helps me remember that my actions are meaningful, and they deserve continual examination. The belief helps me discern when my actions haven’t really conformed to my values. And the belief holds me accountable to those values.

Okay, so, I’m saying that religious belief at its best is inspiring, comforting, humbling, contains mystery or something beyond one’s understanding, and helps keep the moral compass calibrated properly.

So looking at it from that perspective, I’ve chosen my own belief system. And I can share some of it with you. For example, I don’t believe that I will exist after my physical death, any more than a beetle or a dog will exist after its physical death. Also, I don’t believe that my life is intrinsically more important than a beetle’s or a dog’s life is, except in the eyes of those who love me, and in the eyes of other human beings, because we have a natural, probably biological affinity for our species. Restating these beliefs in an affirmative way, I will now say to you, “I believe that I stop being me, and my component parts are scattered and preserved in the cosmos, in the beautiful ways described by the laws of thermodynamics, once my body dies. This I believe.” And I will tell you, “I believe that the life of a beetle or a dog is intrinsically as beautiful, precious, and remarkable as my life. This I believe.”

Now, no one can say these beliefs of mine are right or that they are wrong. There’s no way to apply the question of right or wrong to them meaningfully. Let’s ask another question. Are they religious beliefs?

And the answer to that question, to me, is yes. Because these beliefs meet all the criteria of my definition of worthwhile religious belief. They inspire me, comfort me, humble me, dazzle me with mystery and help guide my moral conduct.

It is, to me, very inspiring and wondrous to think of this life as the only one I get, and hence that I should make the most of it, and appreciate it in its entirety.

The belief that I’m gone forever after I die comforts me. I don’t have to fret about the details of an afterlife or a final judgment, and can picture being at permanent rest like my dear dog Sophie, who died last year.

The humbling part: I naturally tend to think I’m something special – we’re wired that way -- but when I recognize my kinship with the beetles, hummingbirds, chimps and starfish, or for that matter remember that I’m made up of many tiny organisms and my species evolved from things like amoebas, and when I take stock of how tiny our world is and how short our lives are in the cosmic scale -- well, all of that is appropriately humbling – amd it makes any thoughts about having a big legacy or impact or fame pretty ludicrous. (Which is great!)

Then there’s the mystery in my belief system: How it is that my molecules and their atoms came together, and that I and other human beings and mammals evolved over the milennia to have convoluted brains and opposable thumbs and a level of complexity in reasoning and perception that so far defies the best computer programmers…now, that’s mysterious. Not in the sense of being supernatural…in fact, it’s inherently about what is natural. But in the sense of being beyond my understanding, not all within my ken, full of questions I’d love to have answered but never will. So they remain a beautiful mystery to me.

And my beliefs help me continuously shape and reexamine my moral compass and be accountable to my values. If I have one life to live, and other people have the same intrinsic value as I do, then I’d better do my best to live that life in a good way and in service to others. There’s lots more I could say about that, but there’s a thumbnail sketch.

Finally, and moving on to one last area: besides core beliefs about ourselves, and religious beliefs about the “higher” context in which we live our lives, there are other beliefs – what you could call world view – about the way the world works, with us or without us. We all have lots of those “world view” beliefs. Some of them might be: “People are selfish, and if threatened they will look out only for themselves.” Or: “People are basically good and want to treat others well.” Or: “We will have a peaceful world when pigs learn to fly. Violence is a natural part of our biology.” Or: “Women would make better world leaders.” I hope it’s clear by now that these are beliefs, not statements of fact or anything that can be considered true or false. As a high school debater, I learned that I could argue either side of just about anything, and present “facts” and “evidence” fairly convincingly. But on questions like these, facts and evidence are mostly meaningless.

So is it irrelevant whether we believe that people are good, or that people are bad? Or that violence is inevitable? Or that women or men are better at this or that?

No, it’s not irrelevant at all. We can choose from among those beliefs, and dispense with the rest, or choose others, or move from one to another during different parts of our lives.

So if we CHOOSE our beliefs, how do we choose them and why? And are we stuck with them?

One of the things I’ve been mulling over in my mind for the last few decades is how weird it is that we expect children, as part of their healthy development, to leave behind certain beliefs, but we often treat adults who divest themselves of certain beliefs as immature or lacking in integrity. For example, many people intentionally inculcate beliefs in their children in Santa Claus. That’s a fun belief, it serves a fun purpose for a while, one can argue, and then a time is reached when a child should be ready to painlessly – or, if necessary, painfully – leave that belief behind. It’s time they realized that Mom or Dad left the gifts under the tree, not Santa. It’s time they learn that there’s no Santa Claus watching their every move to see if they’re naughty or nice, bad or good, deserving of a lump of coal vs. a nice toy. They’re expected to outgrow the Santa Claus belief. If they don’t, it’s not healthy.

Let’s compare that to what we expect of ourselves as adults. During my Catholic education in the 1960s, our teachers wished that we would all go to Catholic colleges, but they recognized that most of us wouldn’t. So they were very explicit in preparing us for the challenges to our religious faith that we would experience in secular colleges. Both in religion class and speech class, for example, I had to rehearse what I would say and do when a future philosophy or history professor would say something critical about my faith. And the right answer was to debate the professor, and if that wasn’t possible or effective, then I was to stand up, make a statement of faith, and leave the room. We honestly practiced doing that. We were told, as so many people learn in their church communities, that our FAITH WOULD BE TESTED, and we needed to measure up to the test. We learned a little basic theology to argue from. But mostly, this was about our integrity, even our stubbornness. We must NOT WAVER IN OUR FAITH, regardless of what we saw, heard, or experienced.

So now, don’t you think that’s a very interesting thing? That being an adult came to mean holding fast to a belief system, and not letting yourself question it?

I didn’t buy it. And over time, I developed for myself a pretty simple set of questions to apply to beliefs, you might say a habit of mind: What would be hurt if I questioned my belief? What is the risk? What would I lose if I let the belief go? What would I gain?

These questions are so important to me that I want to repeat them for you: What would be hurt if I questioned my belief? What is the risk? What would I lose if I let the belief go? What would I gain?

This is the core of the examined life, in my view. Yes, the examined life also means reviewing one’s actions, correcting them, and so forth. But at the heart of it are these questions about beliefs. If I can bring my beliefs into the light, and then examine them with these questions, there’s a chance that I’ll end up MINDFULLY choosing my beliefs going forward, and choosing them on the basis of my values.

Let me give an example we can probably all relate to:

American society has changed a lot in the past generation when it comes to the subject of sexual orientation. Not nearly enough, we would argue, but still a great deal. And one of the changes is about beliefs.

Let’s say I have a beloved child whom I learn now is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered, and my belief is that to be that way is to be sinful, or wrong, or sick. Suddenly, my child and I may face some dissonance, some grief. For me to keep expressing my love, support, admiration, appreciation, and enjoyment of my child is now suddenly put in opposition to a negative belief I hold -- about a vital element of my child’s life.

In this case, the healthy, mature, self-examining me will hold the negative belief into the light and ask the questions:

1. “What would be hurt if I questioned my belief ?” The answer to that question is almost always very easy: Nothing. There is nothing hurt by questioning. There is nothing hurt by questioning.
2. “What is the risk?” The risk is usually that I might change my mind. I might change my beliefs. And that, in turn, might change my comfort zone.
3. “What would I lose if I let that belief go?” I might lose solidarity with some people I care about, even my spouse, let’s say. Not a trivial matter. But then:
4. “What would I gain?” Well, I would stand to preserve harmony and peace in the way I regard my child, because without believing negative things about his or her sexual orientation, my replacement belief is at least one of neutrality on the subject. And I can replace with various beliefs I might choose, such as that sexual orientation is eventually going to be understood biologically. I can choose to believe that God created transgendered and gay and bisexual people for a reason, that such people are teachers for humankind. And so on. With any of these new beliefs, or none of them, or different ones, but mainly just by putting aside the old, negative belief, I will be readily able to continue loving, admiring, supporting, enjoying, appreciating my child…and interestingly, by extension, a whole lot of other children and adults that I’d either judged rather negatively before, or more likely had no association or relation with.

Why would I want to do this? Well, obviously, one reason is to preserve and honor my relationship with my child. And many, many parents, fortunately, have done just this. When their child comes out, for example, even when the parents are at first shocked or don’t behave in the way we all wish they would, many of them famously “come around,” and come to love the partners of their child, and come to speak about all this openly, and maybe join PFLAG or change their churches amd learn from and support others. Not all do this, god knows, but many do…..they change their beliefs, to remain appropriately in love with their child. And that should be reason enough.

But there’s another good reason. And that’s the final thing I want to share about beliefs and the examined life.

The most important value I hold, and one which most religious traditions share, is reflected in the golden rule: I will treat others as I would want them to treat me. This is a principle of Fellowship. We are all in this together, and my actions should reflect and honor that. When they fall short, and they do on a very frequent basis, I need to spot that, correct it, get back up on the horse, and try again. The fellowship of human beings stems from the purposely, intentionally held belief that every person in this world is intrinsically as important as I am, or my child, or my mother – that we are all here, struggling and suffering together, some more than others which is not fair, hence we owe help when we can give it.

So our best beliefs broaden our circle and our fellowship, lead us to love, appreciate and serve more people, not fewer, and more fellow creatures, not fewer; to honor what we share and have in common, not focus on the things that divide us; to build bridges, not borders. To know one another without fear.

I’d like to finish by sharing five lines of a beautiful poem by the lateWilliam Stafford, who was a conscientious objector during WW II, and the first poet laureate of Oregon, and an all around great guy, as far as I can tell. In 1960 he first published “A Ritual to Read To Each Other.” These five lines sum up, to me, what I’ve been hoping to share here today, and in a far better way than I’ve done.

From A RITUAL TO READ TO EACH OTHER
By William Stafford

If you don’t know the kind of person I am
And I don’t know the kind of person you are
A pattern that others made may prevail in the world
And following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For it is important that awake people be awake.

By your liberty, I’ll repeat those five lines again:

If you don’t know the kind of person I am
And I don’t know the kind of person you are
A pattern that others made may prevail in the world
And following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For it is important that awake people be awake.

It is important that awake people be awake.