My Philosophy of Life and Human Existence

“What do you believe in?” It’s a relatively simple question but it is an immensely important question to ask as often as you can.

To truly understand the world we need to be asking ourselves, our peers, our neighbors, and our communities “At this moment, what do you believe in?” all the time.

This is because belief systems dictate and structure every single moment of human existence. Every single hour, minute, and second of human existence- for every human that has ever existed- is completely dictated and structured by belief systems.

When you really slow it down, it is very clear that our belief systems dictate and structure every single human thought, feeling, and action. Everything any human has ever done physically, mentally, and emotionally is because of a belief system.

You might not be fully aware of it or aware of it at all. Many of our belief systems are subconscious and many of our thoughts, feelings and actions feel automatic. Sometimes you have to really slow down your thoughts, emotions, and actions to be able to fully analyze and understand what belief system and associated definitions are in control and dictating your thoughts, emotions, and actions in any particular moment.

We also shift between different belief systems without even realizing it and these shifts can happen rapidly. For example, one moment we are eating, the next moment we are talking to someone you live with, the next moment we are leaving for work, the next moment we are driving, and the next moment we are working.   

There can be any number of belief systems for each of these actions. For example, you are eating. Why are you eating? What is the reason you are eating?

Is your belief system saying, “I believe my body needs nutrition” or “I believe it is time for breakfast” or “I believe I might get hungry during my morning meeting so I will eat now.”   Maybe it is one of these, maybe a combination of all three, maybe something else.

When talking to some you live with, why are you doing this?

Is your belief system saying, “This is how to be kind” or “I need to talk to this person about something” or “Talking and having a relationship with this person is important.” Maybe it is one of these, maybe a combination or all three, maybe something else.

For individuals, objectively, when examining what is happening in your life there is no correct or incorrect universal answer to any question like “Why am I doing this?” or “Why am I thinking this??” or “Why am I happy/sad/mad etc?” But there ALWAYS is an answer. There is always an answer to these “why” questions. There is always a belief system behind any human thought, feeling, or action.

What makes your internal, personal belief systems “right or wrong” or “correct or incorrect" is asking yourself- is this the belief system and thus thoughts, feelings, and action I want at this moment? If at any moment, you are thinking, feeling, and acting as you truly desire then that particular belief in that particular moment is correct and right for you. However, if at any moment you are thinking, feeling, or acting in a way that you do not desire- then that particular belief likely should be replaced with a more correct belief so you can think, feel, and act accordingly.

Sometimes our belief system needs to be adjusted slightly and sometimes we need entirely new belief systems. Sometimes we are not thinking, feeling, and acting as we desire in a particular moment so we need an entirely new belief system. Sometimes we are acting as we desire but our thoughts and feelings are not what we desire. Sometimes we are thinking and feeling as we desire but our actions aren’t as we desire. Any combination is possible.

Furthermore, the fact that belief systems dictate and structure every moment of human existence is true for all humans individually and collectively as a society, group, community, and country. Some people call these shared belief systems cultural belief systems. Some people call these shared belief systems social constructs. Those are synonymous terms in my opinion…. So the answer to any question like “Why is that human doing X?” or “Why is that community/group/ state/country doing X?” is the same: a particular belief system.  

It is also important to note that we can all evolve our belief systems and ascend to higher levels of consciousness at any moment. All of humanity, with no exceptions, have this same potential within ourselves to consciously evolve all of our belief systems. Humans with generally more positive belief systems can consciously ascend faster and easier through the ups and downs of life, our many successes and challenges, and our many moments in 3D reality. But every human being is always changing and always has the potential to consciously ascend once they realize what thoughts, feelings, and actions they truly desire and commit themselves to those belief systems that will produce the desired thoughts, feelings, and actions.

In other words, every individual human being you see is just a puppet on strings. The puppeteer behind every human thought, emotion, and action is our belief systems and associated definitions. In a functional society, when the puppet, when any individual human does well they should be praised and rewarded accordingly. When the puppet, when any individual human makes a mistake and does something evil to any extent they should be punished in accordance with our laws and social contracts. This obvious. However, what is not obvious to many is that punishing evil doesn’t prevent it from happening in the future. Punishing evil is an important part of society and maintaining a sense of justice but it’s reactionary. To truly to change the world for the better and prevent evil from occurring we must work individually and collective to evolve humanity’s belief systems/puppeteers.    

I just explained what belief systems are and how important they are to every moment of human existence. Now I would like to share some information about my personal belief systems, my personal life philosophy.

What are my personal belief systems? Well, there are hundreds, if not thousands. But I will share my most important belief systems. I try to apply these virtues to all different parts of my life.

My biggest and most important life philosophy and belief system is that I am Interfaith.

Identifying as Interfaith is a relatively new label for me and it unites all the labels that I have previously identified with when I have been asked “What do you believe in?” At various points in my life I would have named the belief systems of: Catholicism, Non-denominational Christianity, Buddhism, Agnosticism, Biology, Chemistry, Psychology, Physics, Astronomy, Engineering, Geometry, Mathematics, Social Work, Philosophy, and others.   

But now, wonderfully, the label of identifying as Interfaith has allowed me to collect all of these belief systems under one label.     

To put it as clearly and concisely as I can, for me being Interfaith means that:   

I believe there are a great diversity, many, various scientific and spiritual practices and traditions that reveal and can connect us to eternal truth and knowledge.

My FAVORITE thing about being Interfaith and defining it accordingly is that it is OBJECTIVELY reflective of how our country and how our world operates. We objectively live in an immensely beautiful and incredible Interfaith country and world.

Just look around the room that you are in or take a walk around your neighborhood. So many things we use or encounter every day are brought to us or created by the truth and knowledge of so many scientific traditions and practices. Our roads, traffic patterns, and buildings are incredible and are produced from the knowledge and truth inherent to architecture, civil engineering, and electrical engineering. All of our phones, TV’s, computers, and other electronics are created by the truth and knowledge of computer engineering and other scientific practices. Almost every part of our material world involves at least one, if not many different branches of the immense, wonderful, and astounding tree of science.

Similarly, for thousands and thousands of years humans have devoted themselves to innumerable spiritual traditions and practices. Billions of humans for centuries find immense truth and knowledge through spiritual practices and traditions like prayer, meditation, visualization, manifestation, affirmations, mantras, positive self-talk, and opening chakras.

Humanity has always been and always will be Interfaith.

Putting all of this together and understanding how Interfaith the human experience has been since our very beginning all the way up to current time, resulted in one of the most powerful moments of my life when I realized the completely false dualism between science and spirituality.

This perceived dualism, fight, and perpetual disagreement between science and spirituality is a deeply engrained but clearly false belief system within in the dark, misleading dogmas of both science and spirituality.

Having this false dualism between science and spirituality completely fade away has been so liberating! I am no longer forced to reject any source of truth or knowledge. I can just compile a never-ending list of truths and knowledge that I can apply to myself and the world around me.    

Furthermore, science and spirituality are VERY, VERY different paths to the same destination. Humans all start in the same place: ignorance. And perhaps following scientific traditions and practices requires us to climb mountain after mountain. And perhaps following spiritual traditions and practices require us to swim through river after river. But when done correctly, scientific and spiritual practices and traditions when done correctly have objectively led humanity to the same destinations: the oasis of truth and knowledge about existence.

To put this conclusion as clearly and precisely as I can:

I believe that scientific and spiritual practice and traditions overall share the same goals of: attempting to discover, understand, and participate in what has always been true.

To test this conclusion about the immense similarities between scientific and spiritual traditions and practices I created a thought experiment called the 10 Belief Systems thought experiment.

In this thought experiment, we are going to put 10 people into one room. Each person is completely stuck in ONLY ONE belief system. Unlike most humans that consciously or subconsciously switch between dozens of belief systems every day, these humans in this thought experiment are completely stuck in only ONE belief system. They cannot see or understand the world via any other belief system. (Side note: Other names for belief system are “truth framework” or “pathway to truth.” Some people seem to understand it better with those names.)  

For the first 5 humans in this room, choose the scientific belief systems that you know the best. I would choose: Biology, Chemistry, Psychology, Social Work, and Philosophy.

For the next 5 humans in this room, choose the spiritual belief systems that you know best. I believe spirituality is very different than religion and I will briefly outline my thoughts on that dynamic at the end of this essay. But for now, I will choose the spiritual belief systems present in the 5 major religions of: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

See these people very clearly in your head. What are they wearing? What do they look like? What do they sound like? Again, I am placing a biologist, chemist, psychologist, social worker, philosopher, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu in room together for this thought experiment.   

Then for this thought experiment, these 10 humans have one task. They must talk together and come up with statements that ALL 10 of them will agree are true.  

In other words, what universal truths can ALL 10 of these humans agree to?  

Again, ALL 10 of them have to agree and ALL 10 of them are completely stuck in their one belief system.

Now take a moment and truly think for yourself. What can ALL 10 of these humans agree to about the world? (Pause here. Take a moment.)

Now, if you are struggling to find statements or truths all will agree on, I will give you some hints: first, you must realize how different the language, words, and rhetoric of science and spirituality are. This is part of the false dualism between science and spirituality. It is often hard for people with these diverse belief systems to communicate with each other because the words and language of science and spirituality are so different.

Thus, my second hint is to focus on trying to find simple statements. Despite what you might think, many of the most important and most powerful universal truths about our world, existence, and humanity are not that complex. Most children can understand them. So simplify your thoughts. Take another moment to think.

After successfully completing this thought experiment, you now have a potential list of some of your universal truths that can really help guide you and shape your belief systems in very helpful and beneficial directions.

I have worked through this thought experiment many different types with various spiritual and scientific belief systems. Some of the universal truths that I found for myself from this thought experiment include that I believe…

Love is important. Compassion is important. Inclusive community is important. Gratitude is important. Courage is important. Temperance is important. Justice is important. Wisdom is important. Fear is dangerous and leads to evil. Greed is evil. Violence is evil. Hatred is evil.   

Those simple statements are also the guiding principles, values, and virtues of my Interfaith life philosophy.

Now I would like to take a moment to further unpack these guiding principles, values, and virtues of my Interfaith life philosophy.

Philosophically, I understand human consciousness and belief systems in three levels: evil, Goodness, and Wholiness.

The lowest level of consciousness is evil. These are the negative belief systems and the resulting thoughts, feelings, and actions we must evolve beyond within ourselves and within all levels of society and government. Evil, internally and externally, is unlocked by fear and leads to thoughts, feelings, and actions of greed, violence, and hate. I believe everything negative in this world can fit into these three categories; however, I also understand that there can be other synonymous labels for categories of evil and other humans might want more than three categories to fit all of the evil in this world. But those three types of fear based evil- greed, violence, and hate- work for me.

The middle level of consciousness is what I call Goodness. In its purest form Goodness is best explained as an absence of evil. Goodness, both within individuals and groups/collectives/nations, is unlocked by courage (the antithesis of fear), and leads to thoughts, feelings, and actions of temperance, justice, and wisdom. The immense importance and the diverse success these virtues of Goodness have provided humanity over thousands of years is validated through many different scientific and spiritual belief systems.  

Most notably courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom are also known as the Cardinal Virtues. They are a big part of many different Abrahamic religions and a huge part of many different schools of philosophy. My favorite application of these Cardinal Virtues is in the Stoicism school of philosophy. Stoic philosophers and others who possess these virtues have successfully applied these Cardinal Virtues to themselves and to their societies for a very, very long time.    

The highest level of consciousness is what I call Wholiness. This is the label for the highest level of consciousness all humans are able to achieve and ascend to while still in 3D reality/on earth. I have also found that this level of consciousness goes by many other names that include: Nirvana, Heaven, moksha, pure love, pure consciousness, connecting to the creator, connecting to the universe, universal consciousness, Kingdom of God, God, Christ Consciousness, and my second favorite- Heaven on Earth. This ultimate level of consciousness, both within individuals and groups/collectives/nations is unlocked by gratitude and includes thoughts, feelings, and actions of compassion for all, community for all, and love for all.  

The immense benefits of compassion, community, and love for all are a huge part of many different scientific and spiritual perspectives and traditions. Philosophically applying these virtues is also one of the easiest ways that I test other belief systems and philosophies. If a belief system stands against the embracing or promoting of compassion, community, and love for all- I almost always reject it. It is not valid to me. It is not my truth. It is usually some articulation and manifestation of a fear-based and evil belief system.

Let’s explore Wholiness a bit more specifically using the example of Jesus/Yeshua.

I was also always told to “be like Jesus” growing up. I was never told to just “go to church”. My parents of course encouraged me to go to church and explained that our church community was a place of love and support but they never forced or demanded me to go to church. It was explained very clearly that we go to church to be part of a loving community and learn about Jesus. The goal of going to church was to experience a loving community and learn about Jesus and then BE LIKE JESUS everywhere else as much as we could outside of church. Just going to church or doing anything spiritual doesn’t make anyone great or good or even not evil. To be a good person we must apply what we learned about who Jesus was to ourselves and act accordingly.          

These many reasons and perspectives are why I firmly believe that any individual, church, group, collective, state, nation, or organization that speaks or acts in the name of Jesus and their words and actions are not FIRMLY GROUNDED in compassion, community, and a love for all- are doing the Jesus thing wrong! Their words or actions are influenced by evil, dogmatic, and un-wholly belief systems. To accurately and honestly, speak or act in the name of Jesus/Yeshua or Wholiness is to speak or act from a place of…

For full access to all essay content, discounts on merchandise, first looks at all content, and other benefits please become a VDN Subscriber.