"Begin by believing with all your heart that belief is true so that it will work for you, but then face the possibility that it is really false so that you can accept the consequences of the belief."
- John Reseck
John Reseck has very beautifully laid down that truth like perception can be subjective and your beliefs if strong enough might be what is the truth for you. A belief is something your mind views as the truth. He encourages one to be open-minded and develop beliefs and faiths. It speaks about how knowledge can also be personal.
For example I am in an unknown city and a local behaves in a particularly harsh or abrupt manner my belief will be that the people of that city are rude and unkind. That belief can also be translated into personal knowledge. On the contrary the people there might actually be very pleasant and good-natured on the whole. But my belief has biased my knowledge and hence my personal knowledge for that particular place is that the people there aren't very friendly. For someone else who hasn't visited that city they might not agree with me or believe me cause they haven't shared the same experience and hence their knowledge about this place is different from mine. This shows to a large extent that someones personal experiences and opinions can be translated into their personal knowledge but this knowledge may only hold true for them and them alone as someone else may not share the same opinion or have shared that experience or similar experiences for them have inculcated that belief.
Reseck then also goes on to say that when you believe in a belief so sincerely you should also take into consideration of that belief being false. Firstly a belief is a personal opinion and anything that is personal cannot be questioned so as to whether it is right or wrong, in my opinion. Similarly because the belief is personal you can't impose them on anyone. You can't force someone to adopt your beliefs and agree with your opinions. When I believe in something I have my own justifications for why it is so but someone else might differ with me completely. Hence when you take a belief into consideration there isn't anything as right and wrong and because a belief doesn't appeal to someone it can't automatically be considered wrong.
1 comment:
C - while you have talked at ength of the first part of what John
Reseck says regarding beliving and truth you have almost said nothing but how he also says that one must also prepare oneself to a change in truths and prepare ourselves adequately to change our beliefs and only then we will be able to accpet the consequences of these changes.
He means that we must more or less always be prepared to challenge our beliefs, either by ourselves as we evolve and our own beliefs change but also to be challenged by someone else which might prove what you believed tobe true as not true anymore. If you prepare yourself with this possibility then you will be able to bear the consequences of the belief you had. One must always question knowledge, no matter what or who the source, intelligently that is and always say to oneself- "what if.............?!!
Ms.B
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