Usual stuff here. No one knows. This is my view.
Beliefs - we all have them. When I want to know about something, I create an image that sounds right about that thing and then analyse the image I just created to see what it tells me about what I want to know.
This is otherwise known as a 'belief system'.
There is nothing wrong with beliefs in themselves. What I make of them is extremely important though. But only to me. If my beliefs work for me I will become more whole. If they do not, less. There is nothing inherently good in beliefs, they are neither good nor bad things. My beliefs are only as good as what I make of them.
Can you spot the potential problem with beliefs?
I create an image. And then I analyse the image, not the thing I want to know about. I'm no longer looking at the thing, but an image of it.
And because the image is a cosy place for me to rest my head, I adopt it quite easily, and from then on imagine this image IS the thing. And never look back.
From now on, when I say "but I have truth" or "follow the science" or "these are just the facts", this is an unconscious activity, saying 'This is the image I created about this thing and I like it so much, I have made it real. This image has now become, my world. I believe. If you object, you are offending me in the biggest way possible and you are a danger to the world I created which gives me so much meaning'.
From this point on I am unable to distinguish between the thing yet to be analysed and the image I created of it. I have rendered this activity into the unconscious.
There are no teachers in this game. Beliefs can be from the individual or the collective. If the collective creates an image of something, it becomes what is called a narrative, a story about reality but not reality itself. It is these kind of images which are so powerful within social organisation - with the power to create or destroy us, depending on what we as a great mass of people make of them. When I adopt a collective belief, I am simply believing in what someone else believes in. What someone else has told me to believe. An image of something which I have allowed someone to convince me is the real thing. This activity was totally my free choice to accept. I was not manipulated into it. What I believe in and what is real are both matters entirely for me to take care of. I cannot go to the judge of all and say "but they told me it was true". There are no teachers in this game.
So when I find religion and start to believe in God, I create an image of God because I cannot really know about it. And then I start to worship the image I created, never looking back to its source. Part of the image creation was that it would always be immutable. Let us pray this image makes me more whole, because then I will be able to love. Finally.
Nevertheless, I am now worshiping an image, not God. An image of God. I believe that from now on and there's no going back.
A wise old man came up to me once. I asked him "if you are so clever tell me what God is". He said:
"when you have found the strength to suspend all your beliefs, so that you are no longer looking at images, there you will find God"
Split the wood; I am there. Lift the stone and you will find me there.