Do Beliefs Matter?

You couldn’t survive long without beliefs, and not just any beliefs but those that correspond to reality. If, for example, you refused to believe that hot skillets could burn you and then touched one, you would soon discover how important it is to have correct beliefs. Having the right beliefs about the physical world is obviously important. When it comes to religious beliefs for which there may be only ambiguous support, however, the difference between correct and incorrect can become murky and much less certain.

Philosophers categorize religious and other intangible beliefs as non-demonstrable, by which they mean that whether they are true or false cannot be proved objectively, to everyone’s satisfaction. Many of our beliefs are non-demonstrable, or at least we cannot personally verify them. We accept most of what we learn in school, for example, because we have confidence in teachers and professors.

When someone whose expertise we trust tells us the arctic is water surrounded by land, but the antarctic is land surrounded by water, we accept it. We also may have confidence in the statements of recognized experts, such as authors of textbooks, writers of scientific journal articles, newspapers and periodicals, or other kinds of printed information. Beliefs and opinions of friends can also influence us. And, we are increasingly affected by what we are exposed to through electronic sources, such as television and social media.

It is important to recognize that we can trust and rely on beliefs that are true. Some false beliefs are harmless and may even prove beneficial. If, for example, you are seriously ill in a hospital, but for some arbitrary reason believe you will get better, your health is likely to improve. Optimism tends to be correlated with good medical outcomes.

Beliefs that are false, however, may fail to prove helpful and can be dangerous. If, for example, you believe you can repeatedly drive recklessly and speed through red lights, it may be only a short time before you have a serious if not fatal accident, or spend years in prison for injuring or killing someone else.

When it comes to religious beliefs, these can significantly influence your outlook on life, how you view the world and other people, what you are willing to do or not do, and what you expect to happen when you die. They may also affect what you believe about God, whether you see God as having plans, intentions, and desires. If you believe in a personal God, this can raise the question of whether God is powerless or unwilling to stop evil. Religious beliefs tend also to influence how much you think human beings resemble God.

Some Christians believe those who have rejected God simply cease to exist when they die. Others believe there will be a reckoning that will depend on whether a person moved toward God, away from God, or against God. Some do not think of God as condemning people but of people condemning themselves, perhaps by refusing to open themselves to God’s love. Except for a minority who believe that upon death everyone, from the most saintly to the most sinister, spends eternity with God, Christians believe their eternal outcomes depend on what their hearts and minds become, whether they came to regard Jesus as their personal savior and redeemer, and if this new perspective reflected itself in transformed behavior.

Adherents of certain other religions, while they do not believe in a personal God do believe their future outcomes will be determined by how they think, feel, and act in this life. They tend to believe there will be many future lives. This stands in contrast to Christianity, whose followers tend to view life as a high-stakes proposition, the outcome of which depends on how they respond to God as revealed in Jesus.

For those who have never heard Christ’s offer of forgiveness, rescue, and eternal life, some theologians believe such people will be judged by what God, who is outside time, knows about their hearts, and how they would have responded had they known the Christian gospel (Romans 2:14,15). A nuance to this view is that many people, even in the western world, may have been turned off to religion by pulpit pounders or religious hatemongers, and therefor have never heard the real gospel, that Christ has paid the price for our rebellious offenses against God and other human beings.

Anyone familiar with different religions knows that they make incompatible claims. You cannot take Jesus to be God, Lord, and Savior (Rescuer) but also treat these claims as blasphemous, which both Muslims and seriously practicing Jews do. Beliefs matter because they condition the mind and heart, sometimes in very different ways.