Assumptions

These past few days reminded me of what Steve Pavlina was getting at in a previous podcast released at http://www.stevepavlina.com in which he spoke of only being able to know that he was conscious at any given moment. Steve asks, "how do you know that your not just a part of a computer simulation where your past experiences never really happened?" Personally, I can't prove that this isn't my reality. If one can't prove this to be false it must then be possible. If even past experience is based off of an assumption, or as religious people, such as myself call it, faith, how can one then expect anyone to know that God truly exists or not?

Consider a person placed in some environment. This environment, through the person's perception, provides clues as to his/her reality. The person must certainly have the ability to seek out these clues, but can s/he create the clues? S/he could convince him/herself that the clues were so and so, but I don't believe that one can create them. I could say that gravity will instantly reverse itself, but that doesn't mean it will. Perhaps it just means I'm doing a handstand instead. It is therefore outside of one's ability to know anything that is assumed or that faith is put into, as religious people would say once again. Personally, I wish it were possible to know more things absolutely but there just aren't very many in the end. Most common knowledge "proof" eventually falls apart as it is traced back to an assumption somewhere back along the line of so-called logic that created it.

So where does knowing almost nothing get someone? Not very far! This is where assumptions come in. I don't know that my past really existed at one point in the past. I don't even know there is a past as I understand it at this split second, but I choose to assume that there is. Why? Because by assuming that I have experienced a past I gain confidence in my perceived experience of it upon which I can act in the present. In the same way, I have faith that my God is real because then it's easier to passionately try to follow his ideals. At this point, I openly admit that I don't know if he exists or not. I sure believe he does though. There are simply too many assumptions that haven't fallen apart yet for believing otherwise to make more sense.

Is it possible to fully believe something without knowing it? Yes! Beliefs are based off of assumptions. Knowing is based off of facts from the surrounding environment, which must go through one's perception to be consciously realized. Anything that goes through one's perception may be distorted by other assumptions and therefore becomes another assumption itself. With every new idea that packs itself into my mind, I can choose to assume it's true or doubt it. This is my conscious choice to make! Because I can choose to assume something to be true, I no longer have to play the game of "oh... I can't know for sure about whatever because of this tiny possibility that..." This game continues forever. At the end of the day there will always be some aspect of something that allows me to doubt or assume just one more thing.

Since it's my choice to either doubt or assume, I can assume that everything I haven't already realized about God is true just like the things that I believe already are. This makes God my personal number one! At the same time, since I can't change the facts of what I know, which so far isn't that much, if there is ever something to prove to me that God isn't real, there will be no amount of assumptions that could tell my mind otherwise. Again, I can't choose what I know, only how actively I look for it. Because of this, I can continue assuming that God is real without having to worry that I'll ever be mislead by false thinking. I just need to be honest to myself about what I'm assuming so that I don't confuse it for knowing. When I begin to know something new, anything I have marked as an assumption in the past, which contradicts what I know, will instantly fall apart.