A recent episode on GlobeTreker brought me back to early 60's pre-war Cambodia. It was one of the most lovely and peaceful places I'd been. Not surprisingly, Pol Pot's reign of terror really struck me personally. A quarter of the population (of 6 million) were murdered during those years. What made this somewhat unique was that this happened in such a bucolic peaceful Buddhist country. Also unique to this genocide was that it didn't play out along ethnic or religious lines like many in history (Nazis, Ruanda). It was political, but the setting was so different from other political genocides like Mao's in China or Stalin's in Russia. Cambodia's genocide was just dumfounding.

Perhaps it illustrates the point that we, as a species, are quite delusional and unstable. It's not genetic though; we are not inherently nuts. The main reason we are delusional is not only are we able to think, we also believe we think that we know. That tipped our primate biology off balance and we've used religion ever since (for the past 50,000 years anyway) to hopefully pull us back into balance.

Alas, religion - no matter how sincere - can never work for we still believe what we think. Our thought just takes on a 'spiritual' context. Nature's marvelous experiment has species coming and going all the time. I suppose we are the first species to 'take it so personally'. Do we 'take it too personally'? If so, is 'she' is going to fix us, or just start over and try something else?

The only scenario I can imagine fixing our 'problem' is more 'on the job training'. We each need to live much longer before we can begin to understand ourselves deeply enough to regain some balance. Curiously, modern medicine (combined with any ancient medicine that works) may extend the average life span to a couple hundred years – eventually! Would that be long enough to realize our ignorance? The toughest lessons take longest to learn. Hmm,...

Topher:

...I think we use beliefs to talk ourselves into certain behavior or to justify the behavior we are already bent on.

Certainly! Yes! But unwilling to leave well enough alone, I'd put it this way:

The beliefs we think endorse the passions we feel. Passions are the emotional currents that ebb and flow through life, e.g., pleasure, pain, anger, compassion, love, hate, etc. Put more simply, belief results when thought rationalizes need or fear. Viewed this way, desire can be defined as: 'the synthesis of a rationalization with its emotional core'.

Naturally, all this is academic (i.e., irrelevant :roll until I can personally watch how it all plays out in myself and in others. Then it become incredibly useful!

he also:

I would go as far as saying that Hitler and the pro-slavery bunch didn't really believe what they said. They either consciously or sub-consciously knew it was nonsense. But the belief served their desires.

Desire blinds knowing the 'big picture', making it impossible to distinguish 'sense' from 'nonsense'. Like I said, belief and desire are inextricably mixed, they are co-dependant and co-generating! What makes an animal's needs and a human's needs different? Animals don't desire, we do. We both feel need, but thought turns our need into desire. Then, we 'prove' the desire is just with rationalizations (belief) biased by need to favor itself.

My, that sounds convoluted. Life's most simplest aspects are among the most difficult to speak on. That figures!

and finally he:

The difference between this and how I understood you is that in your model, you think something and then believe it. In mine, you want something and form a belief to support it all the while hiding from yourself that you made it up.

Certainly, we agree that "want" precedes "belief". However, you imply that we, the believers, have enough free will to "hide from ourselves that we made it up". If anything, resulting "beliefs" feed back on the causative "wants" (often in a vicious circle) deepening self ignorance. How much 'outside his box' awareness can a 'believer' experience? Belief's obsession (the little Hitler in us all) is utterly ignorant. Being so, how can 'he' know anything? Sure, our little 'Hitler' thinks that he knows, but in the end, ignorant is ignorant.

The only way to break this vicious circle is to have little thought of self and as few desires as possible. Alas, first weakening that vicious circle is necessary before we can hope to 'have as few desires as possible'. It's a conundrum of sorts; a 'catch 22'. So far, I've found the only way to resolve that is to carefully watch what's going on. This helps deepen and broaden my understanding; understanding is everything. No wonder Buddha put 'right understanding' as the 'first' step on his Eight Fold Path.

We feel what we feel. Emotion is primal and integral to our original nature. There's nothing we can - or should! - do about that. So, the mind's thought - how we see things - is the only way we can weaken the vicious circle whirling between thought and emotion. The hitch here is that we need to muster the courage to distrust belief somewhat and remain still. Remaining still, helps us step out of that vicious belief – emotion circle to view the 'big picture'. Having the courage to be tentative, hesitant and to trust Nothing is a tall order to be sure. But, we all love a challenge, right?

Hmm,...perhaps I should say what I mean by 'belief':
Any certainty in thinking creates belief, except the certainty of this statement, naturally... ops: . Any thought that something is 'good' or 'beautiful', for example, passes for a belief. Knowing when to stop, for me, means to leave it at a sensual "I like this" and "I don't like that" stage. But, even then, certainty will turn simple sensual leanings into intellectual dogma. I suspect any thought that elicits strong emotion is belief.