Exploring

Those who have spent a lifetime "believing" are very unlikely to change their views unless faced with some serious emotional trauma that creates a "a crisis of faith." It's a normal and usually beneficial trait of our psyche to comfortably arrange our values to fit our beliefs.



Some of us are eternal skeptics (in all things) on the other hand, and thus have great difficulty finding the happiness and contentment that believing instills.

I've concluded that religion is probably the personally healthiest course for most people. There are lots of studies showing believers to be happier and they generally live longer. Believers are more cooperative within their religion and better followers. They thus are more likely to be hired and promoted because people enjoy having them around. As a result, they are more likely to be financially successful and so live longer since they can afford good healthcare.

The downside of course is that their faith in the idea that some people can be much better than most, and thus entitled to rule them, is not lost on those with an overwhelming need to dominate others. If there can be a deity entitled to total deference and obedience, then there must be lesser leaders entitled to unquestioning loyalty as well.

That is where I part with the majority.

I've no doubt that if most people were rational and "evidence-based" in their views, I might very well be religious myself. I would not feel such panic as we careen down the mountain, bouncing off the rocks, wheels spinning for purchase at the edge of shear drops into societal oblivion. I long to be able to trust leaders enough not to live in fear of the world those I love are inheriting.

So I'll continue being a skeptic. I'll continue questioning all and never being satisfied. I'll continue searching for better truths that obsolete today's knowledge so that maybe tomorrow will be just a little bit better.

I'll continue exploring.