Sunday, May 11, 2014
Survey: What Do You Believe, and Why?
Since final exams are this week for me, I decided to keep this as brief as possible. I'm interested to hear the main reasons for why readers believe what they do, so please comment below (anonymously if you wish). Format: simply state the belief or philosophy you affiliate yourself with, followed by the fundamental reason(s) for why. I suggest to keep it to 1-2 sentences, but if you have some time to spare, then feel free to write as much as you want. I will not be responding to the comments; it is just a survey. At the least, I hope this is thought-provoking and helps bring you personal insight by organizing deep thoughts into writing. That's what I get out of these meaningful discussions.
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You could probably classify me as a charismatic Christian, and be pretty close to the mark. It is hard to be brief when discussing worldviews, because there are lots of important details that may not match up with any given category, but there you go. As to why, it is sort of a series of beliefs, all building on each other. For example (and I'll try to make it quick), I believe in a God because (among other reasons) the universe is too ordered to be random, I believe in the God of the Bible because (among other reasons) historically speaking the Bible has proven very accurate, including prophecies about events that came true (of which we have found written texts of the prophecies pre-dating the events), and most of the rest of what I believe is because I believe in the Bible.
ReplyDeleteAgain, these are mostly sample reasons, and I left out all the reasons that come from personal experience, because those don't transfer to other people very well. Suffice to say, my life story has frequently involved what I take to be supernatural intervention.
Good luck with finals.
I believe in a universe guided by laws we can estimate and discover. That is what my observations seem to indicate and what I believe most experts are in agreement upon.
ReplyDeleteSomewhat unreasonably, I believe there is inherent meaning in the universe, and that it comes from the relation between objects. I use these terms extremely loosely. Relationships can be about the physical or abstract. Objects can be physical or abstract. ( I do not believe objects have meaning on their own, but are granted it by their relations with other things. ) I do not have any real evidence that this is so. Everything might be meaningless. But this opinion of things resonates most closely with how I see things, so it is what I believe. Maybe I believe it because I believe it. Maybe I believe it because I want to. I am still unsure.
I believe that free will, in the sense of "a magical soul independent of the physical universe," is probably not real. Free will in the sense of "doing what we will ourselves to do" is still true. I think we can fundamentally rewrite our wills over time as well, but I think our wills are from physics, chemistry, nurture, society, and other physical realities. I believe our intelligence and will are not unique or impossibly unlikely. Nor do I think our intelligence is the highest kind or the only kind of intelligence there can be.
I believe we really suck at ethics and that there probably is a more scientific way to develop ethics in our society. I don't mean conducting ethics with hypothesis and proofs. I mean a way of thinking about ethics that is way more advanced than the philosophies and guesses we've come up with so far. All the ethical theories I've come across seem awkward and inelegant. And the way we come up with theories seems random and inelegant too. I can't help but feel there is a better way to deal with the entire subject area and that we as a species are only beginning to deal with what "ethics" as a subject can mean. I'm hopeful anyway.