Belief. What is belief? Linguistically- it is a noun meaning- trust, faith or confidence in someone or something. Similarly, belief system means- a set of mutually supported beliefs which could be classified as Religious, Political, Philosophical, and Ideological to name a few. Today in the 21st century, every single person has a strong set of beliefs which could be because of one’s religious orientation or a person’s family values or a person’s political opinion. My question today is aimed at how our belief in a certain ideology in turn colours our belief towards certain co-related or co-dependent beliefs in different contexts. To answer this question I would be looking into firstly, the different types of belief systems one can have like Religious, Political, and Philosophical and secondly into how each belief system affects the other.
ISSUE 1
Today we live in a world where we have accepted the fact that all of us are different and all of us do have different views, opinions and beliefs. These “beliefs” and especially in context of “belief systems” first occur to us at a small age with the littlest of things like participating in a religious prayer or listening to your parents talk about a specific political party or by following a simple familial value based on a mutually accepted philosophy. I would be looking into each of these “systems”, that is Religion, Politics and Philosophy, in order to be able to incorporate different aspects of “belief systems” and thus be better able to answer my question.
1. Religious
Religion may be defined as a cultural “system” of designated behaviors and practices that relates us humans to believe in specific or personal transcendental or spiritual elements. The moment I say a “cultural system” it means that it is specific to a particular group and may vary from people to people. This is something that we all are familiar with. Different people have different views, beliefs, ideologies and approach towards life and thus have different religions. The reason as to why there are so many religions is still not clear but the one I believe to be true is something like this. Because of the evolutionary theory, we know that over a period of time we face, along with physical changes, some behavioral changes. And due to this evolution, a lot of variations are caused in our adaptation, resulting in a lot of different variations in religions. To further clarify this explanation theory, let’s take an example of something similar- Languages. Millions of species live on the Earth. Out of all those only us, humans use languages and an important thing to observe here is that we have and have had thousands of languages. The same question could be asked here- “Why so many languages?” The answer to this could be that the details of the language do not affect or are not relevant to the communication. All that really matters is that the language has sounds which have specific meanings and that the language follows some sort of grammar. These are very loose restrictions, which furthermore gives a scope for the birth of variation. Thus, due to these loose constraints languages vary heavily in their sound, structure and compositional meaning. The same is the case with religion. Religion by its true nature is an evolutionary adaptation primarily meant to keep groups and tribes together. This is can be achieved in a huge variety of ways which is the answer as to why we have so many religions.
Now that I have established that the reason why so many religions exist is due to firstly, difference in the basic ideology or faith and more importantly because us humans have this innate need of staying together. I would now be looking at how one’s religious orientation affects one’s beliefs in a completely different context or rather in another “belief system” like politics. As I have lived all of my life in India, I would be taking the situation in India as my example for such a scenario; belief in one belief system influencing belief in another such system.
India’s population is divided into various sects on the bases of religion and castes. This very differentiation affects Indian politics greatly as these various religious sects act as “votebanks” which every political party tries to appease in order to win rather than appeasing the entire community with their ideology. The reason behind this approach is twofold. The reason being that the majority of Indian population lacks an overwhelming sense of nationalism and that the general Indian population is very short sighted. Hence the common population is more focused on the wellbeing of their own particular sects and castes and religions that a political party which aims for the betterment of the nation is compromised due to the lack of support from such “votebanks”. Furthermore, one’s religious orientation also affects one’s political beliefs in a sense of basic ideology. For example, Buddhism believes in good for all and living a pure life hence a person with this ideology would support a political party which might work on such principles. Hence the basic diversity of religions in India causes Indian politics to transform from its policy of good for the nation to rather a game of appeasement or religion politics. Thus one’s religious orientation influences one’s belief in a political party due to the basic nature of humans to mutually support each other in one context on the basis that the support extends to a parallel context. This can be classified as a basic “cohesion” theory. Like the “negative cohesion” which helped German dictator rise to power in his early years just because of the fact that he shared the fear of common man (fear of communism) and this resulted in him gaining support from this “votebank”.
2. Political
In today’s world, politics proves to be a very important aspect in the lives of the people. This is because politics is about how and by whom do the people want to be ruled. Moreover politics aims at governing a particular area and the people in it for the “betterment” of that area and this can be achieved in a lot of ways which is why there are a lot of types of governments and political parties. Now different people have different thoughts about politics. People prefer to have Democracies or Monarchies or Dictatorships according to what they feel is the best for a country. If one believes that a country is to be run by one person then a dictatorship is the right option. If one feels that power is to be with an entire social class then an Aristocracy is the option. If one feels that power is to be with small number of people from different areas like nobility, military, religion etc. then an Oligarchy is one that suits best. Moreover if one has rational beliefs and feels that anybody should have the right to be in power and that those in power should be elected after an electoral procedure, Democracy is the best fit type of government. This basic dissimilarity in what people want for themselves and for the nation leads to the formation of various political parties. And this causes people to choose between parties according to their choice of method of governing.
Moving on, I will now be talking about how one’s views and beliefs in a particular system of government like democracy or aristocracy in turn affects his religious choice or philosophical beliefs. For example if a person believes in a dictatorship where there is one “supreme leader”, that person would in turn tend to choose a religion which would have the faith or belief directed towards one named leader (God) like Christianity or Hinduism or Islam. However if a person believes in a system of fair governing or doing the right thing like a democracy, believers might choose a religion like Buddhism where the faith is directed towards living a pure life and doing the right thing. Furthermore in cases of philosophies, one who believes in a system of dictatorship would believe in philosophies of absolutism, authoritarianism, fascism etc. A person who would believe in democracy would believe in philosophies like egalitarianism, individualism, libertarianism etc. Thus, one’s belief in a specific political system does affect one’s belief in a different system of faith like religion or philosophy.
3. Philosophical
Every human by nature has some core concepts or rather philosophies that he believes in. These concepts are inculcated by basic moral or familial values, through education, through personal experiences, by secondary sources like movies or newspapers and lastly by forming personal opinions. Hence one’s philosophical beliefs actually the very different and usually cannot be predicted. However as I mentioned above, these beliefs are formed according to one’s family background, education as well. So, in case of a common man, one who has had good education and was well parented and has had no devastating encounters (physical or psychological) then we can assume that the child may believe in some rational ideologies like Egalitarianism, Ethics, Realism, Utopianism etc. However, on the other hand, given that a person has not had good or unbiased education or hasn’t been well parented we can expect the person to believe in extreme philosophies like Ableism, Eugenics, and Absolutism etc. Hence one’s belief in such philosophies shapes the person as to what he would be and what he would believe in the future.
For instance, a person who believes in egalitarianism and rationalism is to support a governing system like a democracy and would tend to choose a religion where there is no fixed definition of “God” as an entity and at whom the entire faith is centered. Instead, they would choose a religion like Buddhism or Zoroastrianism where the faith is centered towards doing well for the society. Moreover, a person with belief in extremist philosophies like Absolutism would opt for governing systems like dictatorships and a religion which would be just as extreme, focused at proving themselves as a superior belief. A person who has beliefs as Relativism and Rationalism would probably choose a fair governing system like a democracy and (if) a religion which is centered towards betterment of the world and at living in purity like Taoism or if not, then would adapt a philosophy of Ignosticism or in case of total disbelief in God, would chose Atheism.
Thus, I believe I have proved how belief or disbelief in certain philosophies affects one’s decisions in religious or political orientation.
Conclusion and Reflection
After looking at three major belief systems- Religion, Politics and Philosophy, I believe that each of these belief systems are related and belief in one concept acts as a causation for belief in a similar concept in another context. However, what I cannot oversee is that this relation is not a hard and fast rule. Exceptions are there in each of these cases. There might be several Hindus or Muslims in this world who may not necessarily support a specific religion supportive party. There may be or rather there are lots of people who despite their orientation in one belief system do not let this correlation cloud their decisions regarding other belief systems. In a brief that this interdependence exists but not necessarily applies in every situation. In generic terms, this correlation applies when including majorities (population). But looking at the bigger picture, I feel it is safe to say that belief systems are all co-related and also interdependent because belief in one directly causes belief in a similar idea but in another context. Hence, my basic belief in equality would trigger my choice to be of a democratic government in politics and my religion would probably affect my basic principles and values, causing my belief in equality. The reason for this co-relation is twofold and very simple. We humans have this tendency to develop trust ever since a small age. This trust helps builds our views and beliefs. For example, a small child “believes” that lying or stealing is wrong because he trusts the concept of right and wrong which possibly the parents have imparted. Similarly when we trust one thing or rather a core concept, we tend to choose to form our other beliefs around this one core concept that we strongly believe in. This core concept is also the one for which one can let go off other beliefs. Hence our strong belief in one core concept compels us to from our other beliefs around that one belief. This is also because the world is unknown to us all and one can only survive in this world if one has strong morals and beliefs. Due to this, ever since a small age we are inculcated with morals. And the one moral that has our strongest faith is the one that we live by; it is the one that defines us. Because it has our strongest belief, we psychologically feel safer with this belief and hence tend to shape all our other beliefs around this one concept. The second fold of this causation is because of the moral compass that we develop since our birth. It occurs through a series of processes which are described hereafter. As soon as we are born; a particular religion is imposed upon us until we decide to change. At the same time we are also taught moral values by our parents or through education. Meanwhile as we get older, we get exposed to other forms which help develop our views and beliefs like newspapers, movies, books, articles etc. This process goes on for a long time. By the time we are mature enough to take decisions involving politics, we have developed a moral compass which drives us. Now this moral compass may be influenced by our belief in a particular philosophy or religion or both. Furthermore, our moral compass more or less stays the same but with time our views and beliefs might change which is when even our political orientation starts to play a role in our belief in a religion or philosophy. Thus, I believe that through my exploration of different belief systems and their effect on beliefs in other systems and the causation behind such an occurrence, I have proved that to a major extent, different belief systems are co-related and interdependent.
Written By:-
Eeshan Yashvardhan Mehrotra
