My first YouTube video dropped Thursday night of last week. I had hoped to upload it earlier in the week, but preparing my studio space, getting up the nerve to record it, and post-editing it took much more time than I had anticipated. It serves as an introduction to the focus of the channel. I asked my listeners to think about one central question:

Do holding the beliefs I have give me a net positive amount of empowerment?

To begin answering this question, it is imperative that we first think about the nature of beliefs. I propose that all beliefs have some costs and some benefits attached with believing them. Choose any belief and this will be the case if you think about it.

What are the costs of a belief? I think they fall into two main categories:

1. Constraint costs. Any time I believe something, this necessarily is going to constrain some aspect of myself, be it thoughts, actions, or lifestyle. If (A) you believe jumping off a cliff will be harmful to your health, and (B) you don’t want to cause harm to your health, then (C) you are unlikely or at least less likely to jump off of a cliff. Therefore, these beliefs are constraining your actions. If you didn’t have these beliefs, in some sense you would be freer, even if this freedom was short-lived because you ended up jumping off of a cliff and dying.
2. Maintenance costs. Any time we adopt a new belief, we have to make sure it interacts and plays well with the other beliefs we already hold. In the case it doesn’t, we either have to discard it, discard our former belief, or accept living in a state of contradiction (this is known as cognitive dissonance). If (A) you believe a chair (pick one out for the sake of this example) will hold you up when you sit on it, and (B) you believe said chair will crumble to the floor when you sit on it, then how can you relate to this chair? Either you randomly decide to sit or not sit and hope for the best, are paralyzed in a state of inaction, or just have to never think about or relate with this chair.

For those of you who believe in a God who is omnipotent (all-powerful) and omnibenevolent (all-good), here is a possible maintenance cost you may have to deal with.

P1. An omnibenevolent being does not want there to be any evil in the world.

P2. An omnipotent being has the ability to make it so no evil exists in the world.

P3. God is an omnibenevolent and omnipotent being.

P4. Evil exists in the world.

C: Therefore, God does not exist.

This is called the problem of evil. The above is my formulation, but you can find many similar ones if you search around online. Unless you want to accept living in a state of cognitive dissonance, you have to show how one of the premises above is false. Attempts to do this are called theodicies, and there are many of them that have been formulated.

With all these potential costs of beliefs, why do we believe things at all? Hopefully, because the benefits of the belief outweigh the costs. What are some benefits of beliefs?

1. Social Benefits. Beliefs can help you interact with others and give you a shared sense of community. This is especially the case with religious and spiritual beliefs, which are often shared with a group or community that validates and supports each other.
2. Self-Concept Benefits. An example of this would be the concept of personal responsibility. For some, it is extremely beneficial for them to own the problems in their life as the first step towards solving, fixing, or correcting them. For others, it is extremely beneficial to radically accept their current situation without attaching responsibility for their problems to themselves or anyone else.
3. Existential Benefits. Belief in an afterlife is a very common belief. There are many different forms this afterlife takes, such as resurrection, reincarnation, or a continuing conscious mind-stream. This belief can give a tremendous amount of perspective and peace, especially when dealing with suffering and uncertainty in life. Other people find rejecting the idea of an afterlife causes them to have a renewed interest and focus on the present, which can be liberating and productive.
4. Navigational Benefits. Beliefs can help us effectively relate with the physical and relational realities of life. The belief that the sun will rise tomorrow (or technically, that the earth will spin so that it faces the sun) at a certain time, helps me plan out when I want to wake up and start the day.

In detailing the various benefits that beliefs can bring, I have neglected to talk about the concept of truth. Many think that truth should be the only factor we consider when deciding whether or not to believe something. Prominent atheist YouTuber Matt Dillahunty is well-known for saying:

“I want to believe as many true things as possible, and as few false things as possible.”

This seems like a noble sentiment to maintain, but this seems to assume that their is a simple metric for defining and determining what is “true” and what is “false.” This is definitely NOT the case. The definition and usage of truth varies from religious to secular contexts, from historical to scientific contexts, and even in different situations by the same person oftentimes.

Also, if your primary concern (as mine is) is empowerment, it is not necessarily the case that (assuming we could know ‘the truth’) believing the truth would be best for us. The adage, Ignorance is bliss, is a pithy recognition of this idea.

“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”

– Anatole France

Namaste.