Atheism 15. The Power of Belief


The following are not my words- but it is a useful starting point to analyse people's beliefs:

Unless you are willing to take action, your beliefs can remain beyond challenge -- even in the face of undeniable evidence they are not true. Why is this so? It's because our beliefs have little or nothing to do with reality. They are artificially created "reality filters" built by our minds in an attempt to establish a sense of order and meaning in our personal world. And once established, our beliefs then serve as a filter of our perceptions of the world around us.
Suppose you were told you're clumsy since early childhood, and you have come to believe it to be true. I'm willing to bet that if I give you a motor skills test proving you have above average coordination, you will "poo poo" the test as meaningless. Why? Because your deep subconscious belief would run right over the external evidence. If you congruently believe something to be true, your subconscious mind will then automatically filter your perceptions of the world through that belief. In effect, we only experience reality through our own belief filters.
The Power of a Belief
But there's hope. Here's a piece of history that illustrates how exercising the courage to challenge an old belief can actually shatter the limitations of an old belief-created "reality filter." For many years it was universally believed to be impossible for mankind to run a mile in four minutes. The athletes of the time held this belief, and the scientific world totally agreed. But then on May 6, 1954 -- something remarkable happened. It seems there was one man who did NOT believe it impossible to run a "four minute mile." In fact this man firmly believed this barrier could be broken... and that he would be the one to do so. The name of this remarkable rebel was Roger Bannister -- and on that fateful day he did indeed run the first historically-recorded "four minute mile."
Bannister's amazing victory illustrates the power of one man's belief in his own capabilities. But it is even more interesting that just six weeks later, Australian runner John Lundy cut one second off Bannister's record. And in the following ten years almost two hundred people also broke this so-called "impossible" barrier. Why did this happen? Because Bannister shattered the belief that the four minute mile was impossible. And when that belief fell... the 4-minute mile suddenly became possible.
The Only Way to Change Your Beliefs
Your personal beliefs set and define the limits of what you can (and cannot) achieve in your lifetime. If your beliefs are empowering, your "reality filter" will present a world full of opportunities and success. But if you have severely limiting beliefs, your "reality filter" will present you with a lifetime filled with one disappointment, frustration and failure after another. That's just the way it works.



It is my contention that this article was written with a view to advocate belief  -whereas I actually think it fulfills the opposite notion - showing how religious beliefs can be severely limiting - let's look at the muslims who currently are upset over a pile of cartoons - do we not think their beliefs limit their lives? Of course they do.
Whilst it maybe possible to aid healing with the power of the mind - faith and belief can be obnoxious and counter-productive when faced with evidence that refutes the belief - it is not in the person's best interest to continue to believe something which is evidently not true.As Webster's Encyclopedia puts it:
" Although faith can be a good thing under some circumstances, it does not provide any practical way of sorting things out in the physical world."