The Reader has certainly noticed that beliefs among humans are very different, even though most people are looking at the same relative information, generally speaking. So how can humans draw vastly different conclusions, and form deeply held beliefs which can be polar opposites? And how can so many people believe the unbelievable? There are, of course, answers from the Bible.
It is not possible to cover all the variables and permutations of belief systems, therefore the discussions and examples will almost always have exceptions. Some people do the complete opposite of what most would do when forming beliefs, and some will set aside portions of an overall belief system easily when it is convenient. And some people say they believe one thing and do the opposite. So belief systems can be all over the map, and wildly different from one person to the next. Due to the "irrationality factor" involved, overall generalities will be explained, but belief systems cannot be forced into a mold. Everyone is different, and no two people have the exact same belief system. Even those belief systems which have well defined top level core beliefs will have numerous sub-levels of beliefs which can differ. Christianity has numerous denominations with alternate sub-beliefs, and individual believers sometimes disagree with certain core teachings from the Bible. Therefore, having a core belief does not mean a person will comply with the entire belief system as outlined from top to bottom. We see that the variability of beliefs among humans is wide-ranging and often unpredictable.
Part of this is due to the various ways people arrive at their belief systems, which can often be random and undisciplined. Given the importance of beliefs aligning with reality, that would seem to be a bad idea. And it is. Beliefs can either align with reality and truth, or try to defy them, or fall somewhere in between. Belief systems are best developed during childhood, and then re-tested after the person begins thinking as an adult. But children now grow up learning from multiple sources, more than ever existed previously, since technology has greatly expanded those sources. And schools may be less focused on teaching the basics and how the world really works, as opposed to indoctrination about how teachers want the world to work. Peer-to-peer social media has also made thought and belief transfer among children much easier, so it is harder to control the quality of the inputs, or to correct them. Parental teaching must now compete with more conflicting data, inputs, and information than ever before. Therefore confusion among children has become intensified. All too often children arrive at beliefs by random information from non-trustworthy sources, unless they grow up with a few core beliefs which keep them on the right track, such as a foundation in Christian principles. And there is a right track, and there are wrong tracks, as defined by truth and reality vs. untruth and unreality. The world tries to deny this and restate the premise as there is no truth, so reality is what anyone thinks it is. But the world also has a way a reinserting reality into the equation in the form of hard-knocks.
Because there is a distinction between truth and untruth, reality and unreality, many beliefs are untrue and/or not based on reality. A few examples would be useful, just for illustration to make a point. Think of the ancient world where the earth was believed to be flat. Idolatry was also widespread, whereby most people worshiped statues make by human hands. Human sacrifice was sometimes used to please the gods, because they believed that would bring rain or some other form of enhanced material gain. Now idolatry is more sophisticated, but still based on falsehood. Many forms of magic and superstitions have been believed, and still are. There have been many forms of mysticism throughout history, which are generally beliefs in the powers of an outside force, but not from the true God. Numerous false religions have existed and still exist, with many followers. What about the healing powers of radon gas, tobacco, voodoo, and snake oil? Alien abductions and crop circles, anyone? Going faster than the speed of light could make time go backward? Dragons or the Lochness Monster? The Blarney Stone? Vampires, ghosts, zombies? Tachyon particles and warp drives for Star Trek fans. Of course, some of these are not actual beliefs but rather exaggerated stories, or fiction, even though untrue. Some are harmful and others are harmless, so the point is simply to illustrate untrue beliefs, not to comment on their effects on a person. Sometimes an untrue belief is just having fun or using the imagination, so as long as they do not become high level beliefs they have little effect. The fact is many beliefs held by people are patently untrue, and often bizarre. People will take an unsupported theory or rumor and believe it far easier than many truths. The reasons are wide-ranging, but the effect on people can be real if it gets in the way of believing the truth. And this is the real problem, when untrue beliefs stand in the way of believing truth and facing reality when it is important. Therefore some false beliefs can lead to a miserable life and even a miserable eternity.
Most things which humans think of and believe as true, right, or personally pleasing are relatively unimportant, and do not become part of a set of core beliefs, even though they may be believed. For instance, if someone believes chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla ice cream, then that is a matter of personal preference which does not generally affect others, either in a positive or negative way. One might think preferences among pickup trucks is also something irrelevant, but to some it is akin to a religious choice, so to them it is more than a choice among equally useful options. To bystanders, personal preferences are merely choices from equally useful alternatives, but beware that they can be a deeply held belief to some. Showing preference of some product over another is still a belief, and it is that person's choice to make. However, the point is that a belief system is what the individual decides it should be, and the components are very personal, even if the belief system is foolish, detrimental, silly, ridiculous, shortsighted, or just plain wrong. There are many such beliefs out there, often based on low evidence inputs, hunches and intuition, and are therefore highly variable in quality. But not all are important. Sometimes a belief is just a way to set up a personal identity. After all, a person is defined by their beliefs.
However, some beliefs matter a lot. If a believer does not think the belief system of an unbeliever will lead to eternal condemnation for that unbeliever, leading them into a miserable eternity, that believer does not believe the Bible is correct about the existence of Hell and the eventual Lake of Fire. This would be a failure of the core beliefs of such a believer, at least in that area. Such a belief would provide no motivation to seek to change the beliefs of the unbeliever, since it would apparently not matter. But what is the consequence of an inaccurate belief system? Sometimes we just get less than we had expected. Other times we avoid a core duty of being a believer. For the unbeliever, their belief system has eternal repercussions. Beliefs matter when they drive motivations and actions in key areas of life, and cause people to avoid taking action to prevent eternal misery.
We may care about the belief system of others for several reasons. If they are close to us, we want them to be happy and successful, and we may think they can achieve such things if they believe as we do. Or we may come into conflict with others, or be affected by their decisions, and we do not like what they believe because it is opposed to our beliefs. We care if someone chooses to be law abiding vs. a criminal. So if a person believes they deserve to have your property more than you do, and act on that belief, that brings about direct conflict and violates the right to own property. Then we care about their beliefs. Christians want to affect the belief system of those who do not believe as they do, because they want all people to have eternal salvation and live a life which glorifies God. On the other hand, those who believe in radical causes may want to suppress the rights of others who just want to live as they choose. There are many reasons why the various belief systems in the world cause friction and disagreement. And that is the ultimate issue with belief systems, namely that it results in polarization. Beliefs separate people. They drive people apart. Jesus said "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." (Mathew 10:34) Meaning the truth will divide people based on their beliefs.
Please do not misunderstand, polarization can be good or bad. We should not alter or violate our core belief system based on pleasing others who simply disagree, but rather our most important beliefs should be based on pleasing God, with the interests of others in mind when possible and compatible. Being unified and in harmony with evil people and accepting their evil activities as just as legitimate as the truth from God's Word is not a positive approach to the incorrect belief systems of others. Toleration is one thing, but actual acceptance joins with them in their beliefs. It will not be a surprise that if two people disagree about their core beliefs then there is a lack of harmony, and even friction between them, leading to polarization. Core beliefs are very powerful things. They can motivate enormous effort to change the beliefs of others, sometimes even to the point of believing they should be eliminated from society if they fail to change, as with certain lawless groups. And if the belief system is criminal, terroristic, and otherwise harmful to innocent people, it becomes necessary to isolate them, and the Bible supports that view. During a time of intense polarization in society, asking "Can't we all just get along?" is not a valid question unless a person is willing to give up core beliefs. Then what is left? An empty shell. A person without core beliefs lacks substance and purpose.
Along those lines, one of the least understood issues in human life is why different people can look at the same information, conditions or circumstances and draw opposite conclusions. Some look at the expanse of the universe and the clouds and how the human body works and know instinctively that God created these. Others look at the same things and conclude there is no God and believe the universe occurred from random chance, starting with nothing, and became something amazingly beautiful without a Designer. People look at social and political information and often migrate to polar opposite views, each strongly held. The examples are endless, but how do different people have such divergent views on the same subject when looking at the same relative information? Let us proceed to unravel that issue in more detail.
Core belief systems, the ones we really care about, can be very generally separated into two overall categories. The first category can be called something like true, reality-based, correct, good, accurate, or a number of other positive adjectives. The second category can be called unreality-based, untrue, wrong, bad, immoral, indecent, criminal, inaccurate, and evil, among others. We could add a third which would be indifference about everything, but that is not much of a belief system, but rather the avoidance of beliefs.
But who gets to decide right and wrong beliefs? Is it all relative?
If we humans were animals and there was no God then survival of the fittest and "anything goes" would be the rule. Moral judgments would not be possible, and would be a joke. Nothing would be out-of-bounds, criminal, or immoral. Nothing would be right or wrong. In such a world survival would be the number one rule, and also the only rule, so the belief system would be self-benefit, regardless of who loses out or gets harmed. In essence, there would be no principles to live by since they assume there is a difference between right and wrong, good and evil, compassion and intolerance. Without God there would therefore be no principles of right and wrong, only self-benefit at any and all cost to others. Others do not matter, only self matters. Eat or be eaten. Kill or be killed. Those are "principles" of animals, and also humans who act like animals. But wait, evolutionists believe humans are animals, so let us briefly examine what they would say about this issue.
This is where evolutionists reveal their true self. They are survivalists, and have no belief system apart from what an animal has, which is self-preservation. Darwin is their primary prophet, so survival of the fittest is the highest belief system they can muster, and they treat it as a secular religion. By the way, evolutionists disregard Darwin's original title of his book, which was "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." Interesting. Who was Darwin's "favoured" (or favored) race anyway? And we suppose the "others" did not matter, so in Darwin's view the weaker races needed to be eliminated so a stronger, fitter species (or race) could go on and take the place of what came before. Does this sound like someone who should be revered for stating that all "weaker" creatures and people should be eliminated by natural selection? But alas, the evolutionists show they have no sense of anything moral or decent or good or of a higher purpose. Evolutionists only have a god called "Time" which grinds up the current species at the expense of the future. Their primary doctrinal statement is that "Given enough Time anything can happen." That is illogical. But the god "Time" overcomes logic. And the future will yield -- only more grinding up of the next set of species, including humans. In this view people are animals, so they have no moral purpose in life except to be used to enhance future, stronger life-forms. But no other purpose. The endless tedium and boredom of evolution and its striving toward no purpose other than enhanced survival of future expendable creatures and people is a pitiable process. And an evil one. In the midst of this incessant tedium, self-destruction by weak people would be the only possible noble outcome, however even that is considered to be a weak thought which serves no purpose. The evolutionists do not believe in the soul, so killing off those "human animals" who are weaker is a moral imperative. It is what their god "Time" demands as a sacrifice. A human sacrifice.
Which by contrast, brings us back to God and His beliefs. And His love. God gives purpose to human life, and imparts high goals and moral achievements into the picture. The point is that God is the source of belief systems which have meaning and purpose, morals and nobility of character, and good which opposes evil. Apart from Him there would be only one belief system, which is not a belief, but rather the only available option -- survival. But the Bible declares there is truth, and also that there is non-truth and/or lies, and that there is right and wrong. Philippians 4:8 says "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Note the emphasis on thinking. And this verse makes the phrase "it's all relative" entirely false. "It" is not all relative. There is truth, and there are lies. John 8:44 says "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies." Pretty clear. And a mixture of partial truth and some lies is also a lie. People can sort them out to a degree if they are honest and willing, and especially believers can sort out truth from lies to a larger degree if they understand the Bible, since the Bible is the standard for absolute truth. Unbelievers can sort out truths about basic things in life, which is why God gave humans logic and a divine order for mankind to live under, and it is available for all. But unbelievers do not have access to absolute truth since it is only discerned by the human spirit using information from the Word of God, and they have neither a human spirit nor spiritual access to the Word.
The fact that human history is filled with fighting wrong with right, even if imprecisely, shows a fairly universal belief system regarding the existence of right and wrong, good and evil, and an overall belief that humans are not animals. And what is the Bible except God's revelation of right and wrong, good and evil, and proper beliefs? The fact that the Bible has "commandments" shows that God has a fairly strong attitude about the subject of right and wrong, otherwise He would have given us the "Ten Suggestions" and made a more persuasive attempt to gain the favor of humans. Instead, God provided humans with an overall belief system as outlined in His Word. As you might suspect, those beliefs which do not align with what God has provided in the Bible are said to be wrong, incorrect, and even evil. It seems that God is fairly adamant about His set of norms and standards for humans, and that He has a belief system which humans must align with, rather than vice versa. The reason is that those provide happiness for now and eternity. But as we look around we quickly find that beliefs among humans are quite variable, and often do not line up with what God has revealed. In fact, humans try over and over to act as if God does not have the right to decide what is right and what is wrong.
So the answer to our question "Who gets to decide?" which beliefs are correct vs. incorrect, then it is certainly God. And He gets to decide for all people, including those who do not believe in Him. Believers usually try to make decisions which align with God and His plan. We fail regularly, of course, and are forgiven for it, but we look forward to more than mere survival of the fittest, but rather to a life with meaning and purpose, followed by an endless eternal life with God and our Savior because of love, first from Him to us, then from us back to Him. And it is love which ultimately separates God and His plan from a godless evolution-based belief system and its lack of any useful purpose. A belief system based on love is what separates true meaning from emptiness. And by the way, the only religion based on a loving God is Christianity. The only one.
So we now come to the questions most of you have been wondering about: Why do people have such different beliefs? How can various people adamantly hold to polar opposite views, even if they have been presented with the same general set of facts? Why cannot education by facts and logic lead people to form the same general set of thoughts, conclusions and beliefs? But of course, it does not work that way. This will not surprise you, but you want to know why it is true. Only the Bible reveals that to us, so we will now drill down even further and explore and describe what the Bible says about variations in human thoughts and beliefs.
Having recently discussed the Sinful Nature, you likely already suspect it is somehow involved. You are correct. At the core of the issue of variable belief systems is the internal battle in the soul, which pulls people in two directions and affects their thoughts, thinking, and beliefs. It is this internal battle between the soul components, those which God created, and the acquired Sinful Nature which humans created, which causes such large variations in belief systems among humans. And this is a key point, that the most important issue which affects how core beliefs are formed and maintained is about the level of influence the Sinful Nature exerts on the soul, and the degree to which the Emotion is allied with that Sinful Nature. When irrational and illogical beliefs are the overall theme in a person's life, there is a powerful influence from the Sinful Nature strongly allied with the Emotion influencing that person. That is because two non-rational actors got together and tried to come up with a rational thought and belief, but failed miserably. It cannot be overstated how much the Sinful Nature/Emotion alliance negatively affects the thoughts, thinking, and beliefs of humans. This is the number one distorter of the soul, and therefore the biggest cause of polar opposite beliefs in the world, now and ever. Of course, we are not discussing an occasional odd belief, since there are many reasons for those. But irrational and illogical core belief systems are caused by the Sinful Nature/Emotion alliance which has a lock on the soul, and leads to hardness of soul and intense polarization due to the inability of such a person to see reality or the truth no matter how self-evident and convincing the facts are.
A person gets into such a condition by making wrong decisions, one after another. Rejection of God and His Word is a primary cause, but not the only one. People who reject God must approach life using their Heart and Mind to understand what God has designed into the universe as proper thinking and beliefs based on what seems to work out well. There is a cause-and-effect system built into God's design. Unbelievers can live a stable life based on work, family, friends, and interests, and form beliefs which line up with proper functioning of those. Morality, fair play, loyalty, and many issues are self-evident in the universe God has created, so all can live by them as part of their belief system. But if the laws God designed into the universe are rejected, this is when the Sinful Nature/Emotion alliance starts to take over and develop alternate, and therefore incorrect, thinking and beliefs based on unreality. This usually starts out rather slowly, but builds into a hardened soul over time if it is not controlled. At that point irrationality becomes the norm in some areas of life, even though the person may have pockets of rationality such as their work life, as we have previously discussed. Even believers can get into the Sinful Nature/Emotion alliance when they take an emotional approach to life and to understanding God, rather than a thinking one. The Bible emphasizes using the Heart and Mind in association with the human spirit as the basis for understanding God and the universe He created. Emotion must only come in after these primary soul players have first built a basis of understanding and wisdom, which leads to loving God. At that point the Emotion can fulfill its true role to appreciate, rather than lead the soul and react.
Still you ask, why do so many people reject the truth when it is clearly and plainly right in front of them? After all, reality is obvious, is it not? The answer is that people who allow their Sinful Nature to take control of their Emotion on a regular basis will have a soul where the Heart is not in control, and therefore the Mind is suppressed from logical thinking. Instead, their Sinful Nature/Emotion alliance controls their soul and does the pseudo-thinking for the entire soul, and the Heart and Mind take a back seat. That means logic and rational thought is overcome by emotional feelings linked with beliefs based on premises which do not align with the truth and reality God has put in place. This is one of the most important issues to understand from this book, since this one issue divides and polarizes humans more than any other single issue.
This is why people can be so diametrically opposed in thinking, why they cannot see what you see so clearly, why people think in ways which do not appear to be real thoughts, and why there is such a political and social divide separating people from each other. These are baffling to most people, and for good reason. Such thoughts and actions do not make sense. They are illogical and irrational. A rational person would want to align themselves with reality and truth, which are ultimately from God. But the seeds of revolt against God from the Sinful Nature assures that many people will reject the truth, whether it is the truth about God or the truth about social or political issues. This polarizes people into two general camps, those who are willing to look at the truth and give it an objective consideration, and those for whom truth is what they "feel" it is, regardless of reality. It is the Sinful Nature/Emotion alliance which makes feeling one's way through life into a belief system based not on thoughts, but on instincts, hunches, intuition, and other non-thinking approaches. This alliance is not logical, it is reactive. And since the Mind is suppressed by this alliance, the Conscience is also suppressed because it is subordinate to the Mind. That is why thoughts the Conscience formerly rejected now become acceptable. Of course, this is not an all-or-nothing issue, but rather a matter of degree. For some it will be a little, and for others a lot more. So this is the reason polarization is so rampant, because so many people have ceased thinking their way through life, and have substituted feeling their way along in a random manner, avoiding reality as they go.
Most belief-based disagreements, those where the facts are generally not in question, come from this bipolar set of vantage points, which ultimately have their roots in the Sinful Nature, the enemy within. This is not a new issue. It is the story of human existence. The only perfect human to exist after Adam and Eve was put to death for His thoughts and beliefs. Many wars have been fought over beliefs. The belief systems of dictators have squashed individual liberty around the world. The Sinful Nature causes serious distortions in thinking since it is not logical, but rather it is instinctive and deviant. And recall that God did not give humans instincts to live by, but humans chose to add base instincts when they sinned. The more a person gives in to these base instincts, the more illogical and deviant the thinking becomes. And even animalistic, as we have seen. It seeks to control the entire soul, and tries to distort or block belief in the truth. Some people control it better than others, but all are subject to its influence. Where there is illogical thought, the Sinful Nature is doing its work unhindered by the truth. And when power is added to the equation, the corruption of thought is greatly enhanced.
Now that we have examined the basics of variability of beliefs, we will continue to explain what the Bible reveals about what happens to the soul when truth is rejected, how humans deal with the unreality they create in their belief systems, why polarization of beliefs is so harmful to societies and nations, and other related subjects. We will also explore issues such as dreaming, dementia and Alzheimer's. Much more to discuss about thoughts, thinking, and beliefs.
Next, we explore what most of the people around us actually believe.