Why do you believe?

Tagged:

Belief arises out of incomplete information, ignorance if you will. Mind requires beauty, so when it encounters ugliness, it has a tendency to craft beauty out of the rough. The very beauty of religious beliefs is rooted in irrationality. It took a particular kind of crazy to build the pyramids.

I have certain beliefs that I’ve come to after decades of thought focused on making sense of exactly what this existence consists of. I’ve rooted my beliefs as much as possible in our common shared reality, but it’s unreasonable to expect my views to be taken seriously by a materialist, someone who only believes in the physical world we exist in.

I believe that I could, given enough time, articulate enough of my beliefs to convince even the most hard-headed of materialists that there’s more out there than meets the eye. But it’s just not how I care to spend my time, so I don’t conduct those kinds of debates.