What Do Your Beliefs Create?

I was speaking to a friend the other day about belief. Not a general discussion about what they believed in, but whether or not those beliefs were harmful to others. 

Does it make them kinder, more open, more compassionate?

Or does it give them permission to judge, exclude, shame, or treat someone as less worthy?

That’s the part that matters.

A belief can sound holy and still cause harm. You can dress it up in spiritual language, quote scripture, wrap it in tradition, but if it needs someone else to be pushed down, it probably isn’t love.

A loving belief should not require someone else to be diminished.

This does not mean we have to throw away everything we were taught. Many beliefs are beautiful. They can give us strength, comfort, and direction.

But inherited beliefs still deserve an honest look.

I have written about this previously; I feel it’s really important. I have recently witnessed a situation of a parent ranting and degrading his son, who is gay. It offended me. It led me to write this.

His father’s beliefs were religious. Honed to a fine edge by masculine energy, environment and culture. 

What if he had someone direct him to asking himself about his beliefs. Where did they come from, and be looked at with an open heart.  Not the ego.

So, where do you think his father received his beliefs from? Did he question them, or blindly follow because it was too hard not to?

I believe that is the purpose of the Church of Unreasonable Happiness, we are not interested in telling people exactly what to believe. We are more interested in asking what those beliefs create.

Do they make us softer or harder?

More curious or more certain?

More loving or more afraid?

We need to keep the beliefs that help us love more deeply. And question the ones that teach us to love less.

– Gregory