Most of us have beliefs that we can categorize into two groups. One group is things that we believe, but that we can easily agree that not everyone should believe. Abortion might be a good example, at least for me - I’m a big fan of abortion being legal, but I can understand that others might reasonably disagree.
But there are other things that we hold to be so obvious that everyone should believe them. Now, not ALL of us believe these things - but each of us has our own set of ideas!
Hmmmm thats a touchy proposition…because they dwelled one in religion and the other in politic…
for the no.1 thats such a personal belief…that not for everyone to believe entirely again some of us do and others dont or have different kind of GODS…
this kind of belief is mostly personal…and private.
for the no.2 I believe the stress is in BELIEVE …
in a society morals are important for the welfare of everyone and the group at large, families, children, independent people…we are not living alone and we should adjust
if not our beliefs … our respect of a certain code of morality for the betterment and sanity of the group…it is a must…if we allow cheating, lude conducts,
dishonesty, lying, and the big one stealing, assaulting, killing…
Morality is non-negotiable for the social order of a nation, a city a village…
Perhaps we should not look at it as there needing to be a God for people to be kind and charitable.
What we should belive is that we need not look to a ‘higher being’ to make our lives better. We need to live in a place where morals need no written laws.
But belief is not a substitute for knowledge; you speak about believing there is no God, but perhaps it is possible to know for a fact that there is no God? Similarly, perhaps it is possible to know for a fact that dualism is incorrect? To suppose that such questions cannot be answered with any certainty assumes much.
However, I realise that by ‘believe in’ you basically mean ‘behave as though it were true.’ Unconditional belief is where problems begin.
Your question rings a bit brazen. People should believe that they shouldn’t believe anything, if they don’t want to. Wouldn’t it be better to say: what is that everyone should accept given current conditions, even though they do not necessarily agree with it ?
I think it is Rawls who said that in human affairs, truth and justice should never be the object of any compromise. And I’m certain it was he who advocated that there is a rational basis to all this. What he meant, I think, in the above quote was that despite all the cultural relativism being tossed around you need a set of constants to make life within a society possible.
Truth: You need a prezumtion in favour of truth. Imagine a society where such a prezumtion would be not: no reason to believe anything others tell you, in consequence communication becomes impossible. No communication, no society.
Justice: You need a society where people can feel that they’re not in constant war against others, otherwise they would isolate themselves. Murder, therefore would have to pass as a no-no. Also, you need something that protects freedom of speech and private property etc, no ?
On the other hand, it would be in our best interest if we all accepted and believed in the rules of logic and civilised argument. No proof required, I hope.
I think in the realm of theoretical belief, i.e. the big metaphysical questions, god and so on, to say everybody should have a particular belief is ridiculous. Religion isn’t going to go away, and there’s no good reason for anyone to want it to. I’m quite ready to defend the view that religion does more good than harm. Nobody is ever going to prove God doesn’t exist so on what basis should we say nobody should believe in God?
As someone mentioned, logic and general reason are good things for everybody to believe.
I think its more in the realm of political and moral beliefs where I’d be more inclined to say I’d like everybody to share a few, basic beliefs such as the belief that infringing upon a person’s basic rights is wrong etc. Of course I’m not saying I want everybody to share my own particular set of moral and political beliefs, just the fundamental basics that all civilised people agree upon. Though apart from the usefulness to society I’d be hard pushed to find a proper basis for doing so.
I don’t think we could have a basis for saying it is completely irrational to believe in leprechauns, what we could have is a basis for saying that existence of leprechauns is, based on our current experience, highly unlikely i.e. nobody has ever seen one. We certainly couldn’t, in my opinion, say nobody should believe in leprechauns in any kind of strict sense.
I don’t want to get stuck in a lengthy theological debate, so I’ll just note that God would be different given that while we could formulate a procedure for ‘leprechaun-finding’ which can demonstrate leprechauns are unlikely to exist we couldn’t do such a thing for ‘god-finding’ so we really can’t have any evidence either way.
I’d most highly recommend:
Considering believing in that which is beyond belief, that which is greater than belief, that which is higher than merely believing, trusting, or rooting inward. Beyond belief is the becoming.
I assumed my implications were evident. Was I incorrect?
That’s usually a good quality to have.
Who do you mean by “we?” America? Australia? Is that the only place it matters? Somebody forgot to tell Hitler about our motto. What about Islam? You are aware of how they treat women and education? And you’re saying that we should passively allow such belief systems to exist?
I guess I am just a tad more compassionate and concerned about the going-ons elsewhere outside of the America/Australia bubble.
^ No, they are evident, and if you re-read my response you’ll see that they were understood.
“We,” meaning Western society! And yes, good point… I could’ve thought more globally.
To clarify further though, I was thinking from a position of acceptance of things for what they are, and will be, as opposed to coming up with some loosely connected, quixotic ‘bread and circuses’ opinion.
I believe that everybody should think that I am God and that they would be willing to do anything for me, and that this isn’t a cult movement because it’s self-evident that I’m perfectly awesome and awesomely perfect and that my words create mandates that can affect both physical and metaphysical laws.
If there were something everyone should beleive then wouldnt it stand that to reason they already would.
form what I have seen the only unifing concept to all belief systems is allong the idea of what goes around comes around. In science it is cause and effect, in christianity it is do unto others as you would have them do unto you, hinduism it is karma, wicca call it the three fold law, I could go on but I feel my point is made in this.
perhaps if people were to follow this belief rather than simply say it then there would be peace, but as people do not then there will allways be useless conflicts, peace.