Contents List:Fundamental FreedomSanta Claus Truth Meaning Understanding Principle Faith Conclusion |
Go to:Supplementary "Lectures""Campus" Temple Library See also:Mutual Respect |
There is an important difference between believing something and believing in something. What you believe in becomes part of your psychological make-up, of your philosophy of life and how you live. What you believe in to a great extent determines whether or not you believe, i.e. accept the truth of, factual statements, assertions, explanations, excuses, etc., which may be presented to you as facts.
What you believe in is infinitely more important than whether or not you accept the truth of any particular item out of the stream of data which comes to your attention. And this holds true whether or not what you believe in can be shown to be factually correct.
The magic of the myth of Santa Claus does not end as soon as the child has become aware of the "truth". It will have converted many children into magicians, eager to perpetuate the myth by seeking to provide joyful moments in the lives of children down the generations.
To intend is to have in mind a specified purpose, use, or destination. It implies action in order achieve a desired end. Action changes conditions or circumstances.
To tell is to inform, to give an account of something, or to narrate a story.
To signify is to make known or to communicate some purpose or intention by some sign or combination of signs. This implies that the sign carries the same (or a similar) meaning for all participants in the communication. You may notice that, as often happens in life, an element of "circularity" has entered our discussion of meaning. This does not invalidate the train of thought. It shows that words (which are themselves signs) are inter-related in subtle ways whose significance would inevitably be lost in any attempt to analyse them too precisely. There is always some ambiguity in attempts at communication, and this arises from the strictly personal element both in the choice of signs by the transmitter and in their interpretation by the receiver.
I fear that too many of us in Western culture have been indoctrinated into supposing that meaning and understanding are essentially intellectual processes which are assumed to take place mainly, or even exclusively, in the brain, and that we arrive at our beliefs in a purely logical manner. But when we carefully and honestly examine the routes by which we arrive at important decisions, we shall usually find that our motives are mixed and that logic is frequently over-ruled by emotional, aesthetic or sentimental motives which may not have been subjected to intellectual consideration — perhaps because we may not even have been consciously aware of them. This common psychological trait is well appreciated by successful salesmen.
Whilst the intellect has an important part to play in discerning logical inconsistencies in our decision-making and may thus help to preserve us from making fools of ourselves, it is seldom the decisive factor. As a determinant of human behaviour, psychological truth may be more important than logical consistency.
As you go through life with this attitude, you will gradually come to adopt a small set of central beliefs or principles on which you can rely and from which you will gradually distil a consistent purpose or project for your life.
Unlike the professional scientist who amasses supportive evidence through a series of experiments which may be repeated objectively by others, you are not concerned with whether or not your belief, or lack of it, is shared by other people. The most important thing about a confirmed belief or principle is not that it has been arrived at by objective experiment or intellectual analysis or calculation of statistical probability or that it is the "accepted norm", but that it has received sufficient confirmation in your living experience to make you psychologically certain of its reliability. You gradually learn to act upon it with confidence, and eventually to stake your life on it. It will then have become a keynote of your character. You will have evolved a personal project which will crystallise as part of your personality. And you will have a story to tell.