Beliefs and the Alpha-belief

The whole of our lives can be expressed in terms of a series (perhaps one with many parallel branches) of actions, intended choices that mesh together to, hopefully make up something greater than some arbitrary list of events and responses. In psychology, we have had behaviourist theories rejected in favour of the cognitive approaches of today perhaps for this same reason. Of course, such an 'accusation' would be readily rejected on the grounds that behaviourist theories required an 'unnecessary complexity' to make everything fit together. However, this complexity is entirely superficial, even in instances such as Chomsky's criticism of Skinner regarding language, there were core, deterministic principles that governed the behaviourist approach. Likening this to a computer system, while the code may like an intricate maze one cannot hope to escape, the underlying principles can be simplified. And it is sometimes because this simplicity leads to the girth of the whole that a false impression of complexity is drawn up. This however, is not an attack on the attitudes of the psychology of today, rather, it is an illustration that there may be an arbitrary number of paths to the same conclusion, and hence, an arbitrary number of ways to expand on something.

In that case, what guarantee IS there that is isn't all randomly generated? That the sum of the events of our lives could well be the sum of events taken from any number of possible sets of events is a depressing prospect. We need it all to have meant something, something that guided it through, something that can't be bogged down by the seemingly inherent random nature of the world. It all boils down to our beliefs. These serve to guide our intentions and we let them, for they offer us that solace which we long for more than any other- the sense of belonging. Beliefs that get us through the menial chores of life however, are often seen as mere facticities, without any saving graces to mark them as truly remarkable. And so we arrive at something else we long for- the need for things to be permanent, which they seldom are. Such inductive reasoning does not prevent us from holding on to the hope that our innermost beliefs are indeed permanent and indeed, immortal. This allows us to formulate the simplest of notions that has existed perhaps ever since man has possessed coherent thought- the notion of an immortal soul. But the beliefs that are to shape this immortal soul need be just as transcendent, etched in stone, words of power- the word of God. This is the culmination, perhaps (for the many at least) of all those beliefs; the idea of a being, a being in their own image, but no- vice versa, for He is eternal, for He is almighty. There is both the need for recognition and incomprehension, and thus the God is born smack in the middle of this controversy. We shall call this belief in God the Alpha-belief. For to many, anything further begins here, and all paths diverge from this admission.