In Love With Your Own Beliefs: The Root Of Conflict

[micksherlock]

It may be argued that certain beliefs, in particular, religious, political, and the beliefs one holds about the world, which may be influenced by the aforementioned categories, along with other scientific and academic ones, are largely fuelled and maintained by emotion. In two separate neuroscientific studies undertaken by researchers at both the University of Southern California and UCLA, to evaluate religious beliefs in comparison with ordinary cognition, it was discovered that beliefs, religious or otherwise, are predominantly located in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex and the Ventromedial Cingulate Cortex of the brain. (1) The interesting thing about this is that these are the areas of the brain which govern emotion, self-representation and cognitive conflict. (2)

Although the study was primarily focused on the difference between religious belief and ordinary cognition, the authors of the study concluded that belief is content independent.(3) In other words, beliefs, whether religious or non-religious, are filtered through regions of the brain that govern and elicit emotion.

 

One of the authors of the study, Sam Harris, said;

 

"What I find most interesting about our results is the suggestion that our view of the world must pass through a bottleneck in regions of the brain generally understood to govern emotion…” (4)

 

In this same author’s book entitled ‘The End of Faith,’ he stated:

 

A BELIEF is a lever that, once pulled, moves almost everything else in a person's life. Are you A scientist? A liberal? A racist? These are merely species of belief in action. Your beliefs define your vision of the world; they dictate your behavior; they determine your emotional responses to other human beings. If you doubt this, consider how your experience would suddenly change if you came to believe one of the following propositions:

 

1. You have only two weeks to live.

2. You've just won a lottery prize of one hundred million dollars.

3. Aliens have implanted a receiver in your skull and are manipulating your thoughts.

 

These are mere words—until you believe them. Once believed, they become part of the very apparatus of your mind, determining your desires, fears, expectations, and subsequent behavior.(5)

 

Further, he says:

 

THE power that belief has over our emotional lives appears to be total. For every emotion that you are capable of feeling, there is surely a belief that could invoke it in a matter of moments. (6)

 

Sam Harris is just one of the many scientists and professionals who have argued that belief is an emotional creature. Another is Robert Diltz who, based on his experience working with patients who suffer from various allergies, concluded;

 

Beliefs are not necessarily based upon a logical framework of ideas. They are, instead, notoriously unresponsive to logic. They are not intended to coincide with reality. Since you don't really know what is real, you have to form a belief—a matter of faith. (7)

 

 

Further, with regards to the emotional nature of belief and its propensity to be misled, in the Online Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, we read:

 

At the same time, emotions are both the cause and the subject of many failures of self-knowledge. Their complexity entails much potential to mislead or be misled. Insofar as most emotions involve belief, they inherit the susceptibility of the latter to self-deception. (8)

 

 

This cognitive theorist take on the interaction between emotion and belief harkens back to the words of Aristotle, who once said; “The emotions are all those feelings that so change men as to affect their judgments.” A notion which was later adopted by the Stoics, who sought to remain indifferent toward judgements and beliefs, seeing them as products of emotion, which misled an individual with regards to attributing value to various agents. Upon this logic, the Skeptics rejected belief altogether, seeing it as the root of all pain.

 

In addition, the Online Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy discusses the work of Professor Jerome Neu:

 

Jerome Neu (1977) is sympathetic to by psychoanalytic views of the mechanisms underlying the pathology of belief and desire frequently associated with emotion. But he remains among the staunchest defenders of a cognitivist view of the core of emotion, as attested by his book title borrowed from William Blake's line “A tear is an intellectual thing”. (Neu 2000). Neu has repeatedly stressed, in particular, that what distinguishes one emotion from another is not how it feels, but what belief is embedded in the emotion about its target. Despite the unifying theoretical vision suggested by this doctrine, much of Neu's work explores the pervasively messy and multifarious ways in which emotions influence our lives.(9)

 

 

Another explanation for the emotional nature of belief, aside from the neurological and cognitive theorist ones, may be found within the various psychological investigations into the ego. But this is a subject for a later thread.

 

To conclude, I would like to share a small excerpt from the Indian philosopher, Jiddu Krishnamurti, who said:

 

Through experience you hope to touch the truth of your belief, to prove it to yourself, but this belief conditions your experience. It isn't that the experience comes to prove the belief, but rather that the belief begets the experience. Your belief in God will give you the experience of what you call God. You will always experience what you believe and nothing else. And this invalidates your experience. The Christian will see virgins, angels and Christ, and the Hindu will see similar deities in extravagant plurality. The Muslim, the Buddhist, the Jew and the Communist are the same. Belief conditions its own supposed proof. What is important is not what you believe but only why you believe at all. Why do you believe? And what difference does it make to what actually is whether you believe one thing or another? Facts are not influenced by belief or disbelief. So one has to ask why one believes at all in anything; what is the basis of belief? Is it fear, is it the uncertainty of life - the fear of the unknown the lack of security in this ever-changing world? Is it the insecurity of relationship, or is it that faced with the immensity of life, and not understanding it, one encloses oneself in the refuge of belief? So, if I may ask you, if you had no fear at all, would you have any belief?(10)

1. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091005092302.htm
   
2. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071212202008.htm
   
3. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091005092302.htm
   
4. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071212202008.htm
   
5. Sam Harris. The End of Faith. W.W. Norton & Company. (2004). Pg. 12.
   
6. Ibid. Pg. 52.
   
7. Beliefs-Pathways to Health and Well-Being. Metamorphous Press. (1990). Pg. 16.
   
8. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emotion/
   
9. Ibid.
   
10. Jiddu Krishnamurti. The Urgency of Change. Harper and Row. (1977) Pg. 98-99.
    

[Legion]

When these guys get serious and realize that we are anticipatory, then I might begin to listen to them a bit more. I was skimming through a psychology book the other day and was absolutely stunned to see that they still seem to be operating under a reactive paradigm. Not once did I see anticipation mentioned. Not only should it have been mentioned, it should have had at least a whole chapter devoted to it, right behind a chapter on biology.

 

Oh and don't even get me started on Dennet, or Dawkins. Machines. Fuck. How much longer will we have to operate under this disasterous metaphor?

[TrailBlazer]

Fascinating. I'd heard something like this somewhere. Beliefs are pretty much what hold us together and shape our perceived reality.

Guess that's why deconverting from a former religion or belief system is difficult- it leaves someone at a loss; feeling as though their world has been turned upside down because their whole perception of reality kind of is being turned upside down, if that makes sense

[Noumena]

All this was pretty much covered by Hume a long time ago. It is amazing how somebody can discover the truth, then everyone forgets it, then someone discovers it again as if they were the first. Humans have such a short memory.

 

David Hume: "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."

[Legion]

One could argue in turn I think that passions are themselves rooted in soma.

 

And even soma is anticipatory.

[Noumena]

“The body is our general medium for having a world.”

Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception

[Legion]

 

Nooou... ..mena!

 

mmmm hmmm

 

Nooou... ..mena!

 

ooooh yeah

 

Nooou.. ..mena!

[Noumena]

[Legion]

 

 

[Noumena]

 

 

 

I feel like I should have a cigarette now....

[Legion]

I feel like I should have a cigarette now....

 

I'm havin' some of the sacred.

 

And a peach White Owl cigarillo.

[Noumena]

I feel like I should have a cigarette now....

 

I'm havin' some of the sacred.

 

And a peach White Owl cigarillo.

 

[micksherlock]

All this was pretty much covered by Hume a long time ago. It is amazing how somebody can discover the truth, then everyone forgets it, then someone discovers it again as if they were the first. Humans have such a short memory.

 

David Hume: "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."

 

Hi Noumena,

Whilst I agree with you on two points, the first being, the notion of emotional beliefs is an old one, and secondly, the human race having a very short memory, allowing ideas to be recycled over and over, I do however, disagree with your attribution of the idea to David Hume in the 18^th century. The idea has much more ancient roots and can be found amongst a wide variety of more ancient philosophers and commentators. We may observe this idea within Thucydides’ ‘History of the Peloponnesian War’ (460BC-395BC), in which he said:

 

“…it is a habit of mankind to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy”.

We might also see more esoteric hints of this idea within Plato’s notion of the ‘true form’ enunciated beautifully within his ‘Cave Allegory.’ Admittedly, Plato did seem to be recycling Pythagoras’ philosophy regarding the hidden realm, that paradigm of thought that exists beyond immediate perception, which Pythagoras saw as being constituted exclusively by numbers and equations, however, when Plato adapted/recycled that idea, he employed a somewhat more metaphysical and psychological interpretation. Further, we see this notion being encapsulated within Aristotle’s works, in particular, his comment regarding the effect emotions have on human judgement, and so on.

 

But you are correct. This is a very old Idea, one which has very ancient roots.

 

The way I have adapted this idea in my three volume series , which is predominantly targeting Christians, is to use the three part Christian theological construct, of the Death/Crucifixion, which relates to the crucifixion of the psyche (drawn largely from Jungian influences), the ‘Resurrection,’ which is underscored by the awakening of the mind after what I refer to as the ‘belief induced slumber,’ a time which is highlighted by a hunger for that knowledge which the previous state of mind prohibited, and the ‘Ascension,’ which pertains to the ‘Understanding,’ representing original and unconditioned thought, or the original application of information gathered, not only during one’s resurrection, but throughout the entire course of one’s life.

[Paine]

I feel like I should have a cigarette now....

 

I'm havin' some of the sacred.

 

And a peach White Owl cigarillo.

 

Man...I'm late to the party......

 

But I will respond to the original post>>>> I think the SCIENCE of our belief systems, varied though they are form person to person, IS FASCINATING!!!!

 

How can you say Jesus is my Savior when you don't even understand the physiology behind a sneeze? We are complex creatures.....and yet the Christards among us just take their blue pills and float thru the world.....I envy them to some degree, I have to admit.

 

GREAT POST! Thanks for all the super links! WIll add to my "Why I am no Longer a Christard" file.

[micksherlock]

I feel like I should have a cigarette now....

 

I'm havin' some of the sacred.

 

And a peach White Owl cigarillo.

 

Man...I'm late to the party......

 

But I will respond to the original post>>>> I think the SCIENCE of our belief systems, varied though they are form person to person, IS FASCINATING!!!!

 

How can you say Jesus is my Savior when you don't even understand the physiology behind a sneeze? We are complex creatures.....and yet the Christards among us just take their blue pills and float thru the world.....I envy them to some degree, I have to admit.

 

GREAT POST! Thanks for all the super links! WIll add to my "Why I am no Longer a Christard" file.

 

Love the blue pill comment, very appropriate.

[Noumena]

I feel like I should have a cigarette now....

 

I'm havin' some of the sacred.

 

And a peach White Owl cigarillo.

 

Man...I'm late to the party......

 

But I will respond to the original post>>>> I think the SCIENCE of our belief systems, varied though they are form person to person, IS FASCINATING!!!!

 

How can you say Jesus is my Savior when you don't even understand the physiology behind a sneeze? We are complex creatures.....and yet the Christards among us just take their blue pills and float thru the world.....I envy them to some degree, I have to admit.

 

GREAT POST! Thanks for all the super links! WIll add to my "Why I am no Longer a Christard" file.

 

Love the blue pill comment, very appropriate.

 

What is the blue pill? and why haven't I heard of this before? I feel like I've been jipped....again.

[micksherlock]

I feel like I should have a cigarette now....

 

I'm havin' some of the sacred.

 

And a peach White Owl cigarillo.

 

Man...I'm late to the party......

 

But I will respond to the original post>>>> I think the SCIENCE of our belief systems, varied though they are form person to person, IS FASCINATING!!!!

 

How can you say Jesus is my Savior when you don't even understand the physiology behind a sneeze? We are complex creatures.....and yet the Christards among us just take their blue pills and float thru the world.....I envy them to some degree, I have to admit.

 

GREAT POST! Thanks for all the super links! WIll add to my "Why I am no Longer a Christard" file.

 

Love the blue pill comment, very appropriate.

 

What is the blue pill? and why haven't I heard of this before? I feel like I've been jipped....again.

 

It is a reference to the movie, Matrix, in which Neo, the hero, is offered two choices. Take the blue pill and go back to the illusion of reality, or take the red pill and seek the truth.

[Noumena]

 

 

It is a reference to the movie, Matrix, in which Neo, the hero, is offered two choices. Take the blue pill and go back to the illusion of reality, or take the red pill and seek the truth.

 

 

Ah...thanks for clearin' that up. I'm not a movie buff.