Whateverist

I used to think I was an atheist because no, I do not believe in any God or gods. But then again, how would I know whether I do or not if I do not know what the heck a god even is? Now I guess I could just look it up or ask someone who claims to know but no, that would be too easy. So long as I don't know what we're talking about I just can't say whether I do or don't believe any exist.

More than that, I had no clue how to make sense of the locution: "believe in ...". I understood "believe that ..." but what sets "believe in" apart. I believe that what one "believes in" can be though of what one relies on when action is required but
all the information is not known or findable in time. So what do you do? What do you put your trust in? So belief in God is not about if (s)he exists; it's about what you put your faith in.

So I asked myself what do I put my faith in when all the facts aren't known? I realized that I have often found reflection to be a fruitful way to determine what to think in such circumstances. So how can that be? As a matter of fact, with the aid of a hallucinogen I did once experience an abundance of answers on a number of questions. Now there was no messenger involved, no deity of any kind. Just rapid fire realizations without a middleman. Reading in Jung and Hillman I realized there are levels of consciousness within each one of us and that under certain circumstances what we know can drastically increase. I have faith in the value of leaving space in my attention to receive insight and inspiration. Not from God as far as I know but in my experience what I get by way of intuition beats the heck out of brain storming and evaluating the merits of the alternatives.

So then the question becomes: does belief in God or anything that can't be demonstrated to be true rule out its being a useful to trust? I don't think so. Perhaps focusing on a traditional deity works as a way to listen for .. something more down to earth, something deeply imbedded in ones consciousness. So I guess the value of belief in God has nothing to do with the existence of a supernatural being. What matters is does belief in a deity allow a person to access something within worth counting on? The answer for some might be yes.

"Belief .. is the insistence that the truth is what one would "lief" or wish it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on the condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes.
Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be."

- Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity