🙏 How you believe is more important than what you believe

The Book of TREE 1.19

I don’t care what you believe about

• the existence of God, gods or other spiritual entities

• the meaning of life.

What I think matters is what kind of person your beliefs are causing you to become.

If you organise your life around principles of astrology and it’s helping you become a kinder, healthier, more integrated human, fine.

I’ve known atheists whose lives are full of depth and meaning and Christians who are empty and shallow. And vice versa.

I’ve known conservatives who are open and generous. I’ve known progressives who are narrow and small. And vice versa.

I’ve known complete loonies who do loads of practical good in the world and useless rational materialists. And vice versa.

Here’s a historical example. In the period leading up to the American civil war about half the Christian churches in the country argued from a position of faith against slavery. The other half used their faith to argue for slavery. They all had roughly the same beliefs about God and Jesus. But the same beliefs pushed half of them towards freedom for all people and half of them towards continuing oppression and dehumanisation.

It’s like there’s an even corier core operating inside our core beliefs. When a person gets that right, they turn out fine. They do good. They live lives of significance no matter what they happen to believe about Life’s Big Questions.

What matters is not what you believe but how your beliefs are shaping your life.

New Emmeline with a beat that will make your head nod.

Happy weekend
Jeff