A man named C. Simmons once claimed that "Accurate knowledge is the basis of correct opinions; the want of it makes the opinions of most people of little value." For the most part I can say that I agree with Mr. Simmons; however, I think that the opinions or rather I would say that the beliefs of people matter a great deal, to them.
If people act based on what they value or on what they consider to be important, then it might be advantageous to learn how people determine value or worth. In order to find this I believe that the answer lies in the fundamental answers to life's most important questions, like 'who am I?' 'from where did I come?' 'is there a god?' 'what is right and wrong?'. The person, who believes that he (or she) is a massive collection of cells that evolved from some 'lower' life form, is going to value different things than the person who believes that they were uniquely created in the likeness of an infinite god. Just as someone who thinks that everything is merely a part of one large life force that cycles around, will behave differently than the person who says 'we are all gods you just have to get away from all the distractions to find your true god-self.'
Now it's not like every time we do anything we say 'wait a minute...what do I believe about this?' No certainly not. If people's actions are based in beliefs, it would have to be, for the most part, subconscious. Now using this premise, essentially that 'ultimately people's actions are determined in large part by their fundamental beliefs or assumptions about the world', I am going to be writing on several areas of 'belief' having to do with those big life questions in some of my future blog posts.
But right now I'm curious, just in general what do you value in life? What do you want to get out of life?
Post Script: I apologize for not having written in a while, I have been out of town for the past month or two.
