Thrive!

Doubters asks the questions believers have already answered — unsuccessfully. Is there God?  Can we trust our leaders? Is it okay to have doubts? The world is still exploring these questions, and we should certainly keep asking such questions, and answering the best we can without acting arrogantly on either side of the answers, doubt or faith.

Doubt is useful. By it we test our theories, disbelieve liars and discover more truth. I doubt that a fomer friend of my is capable of receiving the truth that his style of relating is harmful, to himself and others. He simply won’t or  can’t go there. I doubt he ever will.

For centuries people thought the earth was the center of the universe. But by observation Galileo, with his telescope and his questions, attacked the old geocentrism and led the way to a more accurate view of reality, heliocentrism. But interestingly enough, most people still live like  they are the center of the universe.  Heliocentrism is taught in school, but geocentrism reigns in our personal choices. Two-year olds and adults have the same problem — decentering. Proof. They do nothing about injustice.

People usually don’t live according to their beliefs. People also do not usually live according to their doubts. Doubters are notorious for not doubting their own doubts. People of faith and people of science are famous for holding on to their theories in the face of contrary evidence.

I’m a doubter. I doubt most conspiracy theories I hear. I doubt what I hear from most political and religious leaders.  I doubt that people have pure motives. I doubt that we exercise anything like pure reason. I doubt that there are space ships visiting the earth from other planets, and I doubt that the next President of the United States will do much to improve international relations, bringing peace to our own planet.

I have at one time doubted everything I have believe, and I have even doubted my own doubts. But this has been good for me, because by means of doubt I have come to more certainty about what I do believe. And I have come to believe some things that I formerly doubted by testing them and proving them in my own experience. I doubted that french fries tasted good dipped in ice cream. Then I tried it.

Test everything, but don’t be afraid to believe something. And you do, sometimes.

For more thoughts on doubt, check out www.modernproverbs.net    Click on the tab “doubt.”