A Land of Beliefs

Once upon a time…

Once upon a time there was a boy that could believe. It was his design. He inhabited an entire land of beliefs. With little preparation, and with little instruction, the little boy explored the land, a land of limitations, and a land of beliefs. He could smell and enjoy flavors. An array of colors, both dull and vivid, treated his eyes. Sound provided music, voices, the calls of birds and other creatures. It seemed everything made sound and had color. The wonders of the environment he found himself in obscured reality. Truth and reality became defined by the other inhabitants. Truth and reality became vague.

Now, the land he found himself in was vast. Most of those dwelling in this land would rarely make contact with all of the others living far away. Those others also came equipped to believe. They too learned to believe what truth and reality were from the inhabitants around them.  All had the same subjects of belief. Although, the beliefs themselves were different. There were beliefs concerning the origins of things, freedom and governance, moral right and wrong, death and dying, and science.

These topics are serious and there was not much time. Time in this land of beliefs is limited. Everyone agreed on that. There was a definite end that complicates things further. There is a temporal and fragile edge to everything. Everything comes with the reality that all one day exit the land of beliefs. With the pressure of time comes a lack of patience and with a lack of patience comes an irritability. Beliefs often differed. There was fear and hatred for differing beliefs. It seemed one belief would be better than a variety of beliefs. “If only the others would understand and fall in line with our beliefs” was the subtle agenda. Even if it was forced upon others, it would be one belief that dictates all. Perhaps then, there could be peace in the Land of Beliefs.

A General Design

The above allegory provides a description of the reality we all face during our earthly life. While there is much debate about how people originated (and most anything else for that matter), an honest look at the world and its various inhabitants reveal design. Meaning, enough of the same characteristics suggest an original plan, a blueprint of sorts. While there are great differences in the lifeforms we find around us, there are also enough similarities to sense we are all connected.

We are all limited by forces we cannot overcome. The building blocks are the same. All life forms require fuel and all life experiences physical decay. Anything that thinks also utilizes blood as a life-giving fluid throughout its body. Anything utilizing warm blood (mammals) also utilizes organs that provide the same basic function throughout all species. To make it simple, a Ford pickup, a Chevy pickup, a Dodge pickup and a Toyota pickup all operate basically the same way regardless of where they come from or how they got here.

In fact, the entire universal system we find ourselves a part of operates on the same basic principles and laws of physics as far as we currently know. Oh, and all of it is in a constant state of decay for some reason (Some have said the same about Fords). Please, notice I have not indicated a source for the apparent design in the creation of the things we find around us.

One Big Difference

At an ever growing minimum, we can detect a universe limited in its physical ability by its nature, with at least one land of very abundant life. Everything in that land works interdependent on each other. It all appears both fragile and indestructible. Everything operates according to design.  Every living thing operates in accordance with a programmed nature and biology. We like to call it “instincts”, with one big difference…… Humanity!

The humans are as physically governed by the same laws as the rest of the universe and the land they find themselves. However, any of us who find ourselves of the human variety lifeform are keenly aware of how dramatically different we are in our thinking ability and creative inclination. Humans have a will of their own. They do things outside of their pre-programed instincts. In other words, humans think and act outside of any design. That is a big difference!

Humans Create and Manipulate

We purposely alter our environment. If it is cold, we create a means to keep us warm. We light fires and make machines that generate warm air and blow it into the dwellings we also create for protection from all sorts of things. If we do not like the way something we create looks or behaves, we change it as we desire.

From the bits and pieces around us, we build huge structures that last thousands of years. From the bits and pieces around us, we build powerful machines to catapult us outside of earth’s gravitational bounds and place us on the nearest celestial object (the moon) AND brings us back again. We create intricate instruments that express beautiful music simply for our pleasure. We create works of visual art because we enjoy it. The list goes on and on, infinitum. There is no known creature that possesses these abilities simply for pleasure.

Another Big Difference

Even greater still, the human being has an innate ability and desire to believe what it does not always understand. It is abstract. That are no bounds connecting it to the physical universe. There does not seem to be anything else that demonstrates such a characteristic. We know we will one day no longer dwell in this land. Humans experience a multitude of different emotions. They are not just responded to; we are innately aware of them. This land is home, and we are much like this land, but we are also very different. We can know and we can believe, and it is not an anomaly to us or even occasional to only a few of us. We are not the pre-programmed, sometimes robotic, creatures around us. In fact, we are not even close.

Abstract imagination and the ability to believe are unique to humans alone. There is no way to define the limits or the origin if any, of these amazing abilities. Every single one of us can believe. Not only can we believe but we all do it quite naturally and consistently. Even to say, “I do not believe in something,” is belief. Belief is a uniquely human trait and has no connected origin with the physical land we dwell in, there is evidence of it throughout the land to the level that the land is quite literally the “Land of Beliefs”. So, how do we define something with no explanation aside from expressions of it?

What of Belief?

Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines Belief in the following three ways: