Sometimes I seem to open a can of worms on even the simplest of expressions that perhaps I don't even really think about when I am writing them.
Its just my way of expressing my convictions as I really hate absolutes, I really hate saying 'this is the unvarnished truth' or worse 'this is so'. I prefer to skirt round the problem by stating my perception of the way things appear to work.
Below the break, so as not to start a flame war or whatever I explain what I hold to be true. It is my personal faith if you like and I support anyone's right to 'believe' whatever they hold to be true. First Amendment and all that jazz.
Anyhow...oh gosh...scary.
I tend to use the phrase 'I believe' quite often when not even really thinking of its religious undertones.
I will say "I believe in Evolution for example".
What I really mean is that the process of evolution is occurring in my view. Intellectually I agree with the concept what I am doing is avoiding chiselling it into the stonework. From all the evidence available it is the only logical conclusion, is it absolutely correct? I think so, and believe the possibility of being proved wrong extremely unlikely, otherwise I would use "I pretty sure that...".
If I said I believe in the theory of Evolution relating to Darwinism, again I am expressing a strong agreement with the general principle.
Now I believe in a life force [no Yoda no light sabres are involved] its a purely visceral belief with no grand theory to support it, yet it is a strong conviction.
I do not believe there are any sentience nor intelligence controlling this energy. Hence I do not believe in intelligent design. Then again I could accept that I am wildly wrong.
I believe that some maybe able to channel this energy to drive us forward, again no death star in orbit.
Hence I am a Nontheist and not an atheist, I give credence to something not nothing. Then again, I might well be totally off my rocker.
So I am a Buddhist as well, once again by conviction that this process of enlightenment fits my basic beliefs better than anything else. Buddhism is adaptable to my view of how things work, and how we relate to them. It makes sense to me.
Marie-Louise my partner is a fairly devote Catholic by tradition and by conviction, it fits her view of the world. Again we chose what fits us on a very basic level.
Finally the hardest belief I have.
Reincarnation, it is a conviction for which I have no intellectual reasoning and yet it seems perfectly logical to me. The looks I get... Alessandra has really gone off the deep end this time. Maybe its the meditation or the morning swim, I really don't know. However there has been nothing proposed to persuade me otherwise, nothing that seems as right as it were. No, I have no interesting past lives to recount, I don't think it works that way.
So I am a Nontheist Buddhist, it works for me and is a pragmatic choice.
I'm rambling I know but sometimes it is hard to be clear when it comes to belief in oneself let alone to convince others.
For as long as space endures
and for as long as living beings remain
may I too remain,
to eliminate the suffering of the world
I am also a Chemical Engineer and sometimes it feels in practice like a black art, you just know it will work you struggle to prove exactly why, bullshit is a useful tool when boundary conditions prove not to be definable.
Be at peace.
Alessandra.