At work today, someone told me “you can’t argue with belief.”  He also indicated that rational arguments do not work when someone is coming from their belief system no matter what that system is.  I agree.  When we rely on our beliefs to argue, we have closed ourselves off from inquiry and dialog.  And, by dialog I mean exchange of meaning and the search for mutual meaning through our interaction as David Bohm talks about.  It’s as Sam Harris says, belief becomes a cultural singularity beyond which rational discourse is not possible.

Why?

I’ve been reading some books about Heidegger and other existentialist philosophers.  Our being is inherent in everything we do, say, think and believe.  Our very nature is to interact and share our thoughts and beliefs.  Hiding behind a particular belief system simply cuts us off from exchange of ideas and interactions.  This is how wars are started between individuals, groups and societies.  When will we set our egos aside and begin to listen to each other with the intent to understand instead of replacing “their ideas” with our own.  We are all in this together whether we believe or not.  It’s about time the species called humans begins to let our egos go, listen and work together to foster a better future.

I can’t say this so bluntly on my www.bizofyou.com blog or even the www.thebubblingspring.com blog.  However that is ultimately my intent with both of those websites.  By focusing on our biz we naturally come to the conclusion our biz is interdependent with the biz of those we interact with.  Martial Arts is all about interactions with our environment and learning about ourselves so we don’t have to come to blows about this or that impasse with others.