It’s interesting how people appreciate and see things. People say about certain things:
“Yes, I believe this is truth.”
“I’m sure that he is capable of doing this.”
“I don’t believe that this could be the end of our relationship.”
“I believe in God.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences.”, …and so on.
Every day, every hour and every minute people say loudly or they think in their minds : “I BELIEVE”. Practically, in all his life man doesn’t cease to believe …or to not believe in something. Let’s look a little closer at this behavior and try to see why the human being BELIEVE so much about so many things and so many times in all his life.
“Believe or not believe, this is the question” says the famous quote. But why believe in the first place ? Why we need all the time to believe in something ?
The answer comes from the human brain and the evolution of the humans as a specie. As a tiny creature on the surface of the Earth, man struggled to survive across the millenniums. The evolution put him in the posture to learn. He always needed to learn new things, new abilities, new places. It depended his survival and he begun to adapt to specific situations. In fact, this ability of adaptation has made man the emperor of the Earth today. His brain evolved in relationship with the ability to adapt to environmental conditions. He was in the situation to need the ability to anticipate something. To be able to appreciate if certain things will take place. From this thing, it depended all his life. The ability to predict, to anticipate.
Why this ? Because he needed to know if rain will come over night, and grass will cover the fields, animals will come to eat and they can hunt. His survival depended on this ability. He adapted consequently to this need.
Generally, when people say : “I believe that …”, they try to anticipate, and to predict the future. In fact, they put an event with a certain probability to happen, to the test. They test in their minds if a certain thing can happen. They simulate. And how do they do this ? Simply. All this simulation is based on his own knowledge and experience. He tries to see if he have seen others phenomenon with similarities, he makes analogies, deductions, evaluations. This is a complex process in the human brain. Very complex.
He thinks so much just to say : “I believe”. And what is hilarious is that he can’t be sure. He may be sure with a high probability, let’s say 99,99 %. But it always rests 0,01% for what he can’t be sure. So he is never 100% sure. Why ? Because the situation has never passed, it has never happened. It will come, this is sure, but until his completion he need to speculate, to anticipate and to predict. And he can’t be sure 100 %.
Believing is a sort of flow of logic. It is needed in life. Because humans need constantly to anticipate things. To predict. Because their lives depend on this, every minute. When people believe, they can’t never be sure.
But what if you say ? “I believe that this apple will fall down on earth if I let it from my hand.”
What probability it has ? It’s obvious that apple will always fall down because of the omnipresent gravitation which never lies. Gravitation is a known fact. When it comes to gravitation we will always be sure that things will fall down. It’s a solid argument based on much experience across all the human history. It has never happened to let a apple fall down and to not fall. And if this is absolutely sure why people says : “I believe it will fall down” ?
In this case, humans use an incorrect word to express a known fact. Believing is used as a 100 %. And has nothing to do with the process of believing. They know. They know this. But they are expressing with this common language “I believe”, which is not well suited and it is a little confusing. But it’s the common way used, and nobody offend for this convenience. It’s an unspoken convenience to replace KNOW with BELIEVE.
But what if you say ? “I believe in God”.
Generally religious people says often this. Their religion is based in making trust in God. In fact all the religions are presuming things without having evidence. They exploit this ability of people to believe in things. And they exploit the human condition. But this is another subject to speak about.
Here, in this case, the verb to believe is used mainly as a probability. He has never seen God, he has never experienced what it can be called: “God”. In fact what is God ? How people are seeing God ?
Every human see differently God accordingly with his knowledge, experience, feelings, emotions, intelligence. And religions came, and claimed that there is a single God. What God ? Which God ? How do you define a God ? And every man see Him differently. I will write about this also, I hope these days. There are much things to be said about this subject. They exploited once again the need of protection. Human psychic is very weak. And when it comes to diseases and to put life in danger, often men accept God as a need. They begin to believe. They believe that they have some revelation in doing this. And they found God to be their salvation. And they have right in certain degree, but things are a little more complicated that that.
And finally, men believe in God by accepting his limitations. And then he cease to wonder and become a believer. Religion has been always a need for some people, who needed to believe without investigate. To accept things as they were told, without wondering. This is the most of the cases.
What about me ? Do I believe ?
I always know there is a life to be lived. I know that there are much things to be done accordingly to my knowledge, my experience, my feelings and my intelligence. And I’m happy with that.
Sometimes I can believe, but I prefer to know. And I know that in every human being there is an infinite Universe, where may reside God as somebody may call him, in his heart.
Don’t believe. Know for sure, because when people do not have enough evidence, they believe.
