The Fundamental Principle.

Human beings derive meaning for their lives based on the beliefs they have. To believe in a higher truth, whether that truth is God or something else, gives human beings a reason for livening that they can reasonably accept. Without a basic belief, a Fundamental Principle as I like to call it, meaning in life is impossible to obtain.

The Fundamental Principle is the most basic of all your beliefs, the one belief from which all others are derived. It is the very end to the question “what do you believe;” keep asking anyone that question and they will eventually reach a point where they can go on no longer either because they are too ignorant to go on, or because they have reached their Fundamental Principle. If that person is learned then they may be able to go on farther than others, but in any case there will be an end, a break in their knowledge and reach that one foundation for their beliefs. THAT is the Fundamental Principle.

The need for a Fundamental Principle, besides finding meaning in life, is that without one a person will have no consistency is thought or belief. Their ideas and convictions will be hopelessly contradictory to one another, undermining all attempts to seek out and debate truth. You cannot win a debate when your ideas conflict with one another. When examining ones beliefs without having a Fundamental Principle one will find their beliefs very often do not match one another. They conflict, and contradiction can be found in abundance. The need for coherent and consistent thoughts and beliefs is what drives people to develop a Fundamental Principle.

Unfortunately this need for a Fundamental Principle also leads many to become fundamentalists who will fight venomously to protect their Principle from skeptics. A rational human being will search for the answers in life and only come to their conclusion on the Fundamental Principle after obtaining enough knowledge of the world to come to an informed opinion. That informed opinion can be defended if need be with reason, logic, and evidence gathered from experience. These beliefs can be passionately defended but are not so set in stone that they can not to altered or re examined. The flop side is an irrational mans desperate leap of faith. Although I do not in any way consider faith of any kind in and of itself irrational (provided it is backed by reason) I do consider blind faith to be the very definition of irrational. The blindly faithful person recognizes a need for a Fundamental Principle and in desperation stretches his arms for the nearest Principle they can find, most often religion. It is this kind of Principle which results in fundamentalism, religious or otherwise. The blindly faithful person will fight tooth and nail against rational arguments against their position. Because their Principle was founded in faith to begin with, and not in reason, that faith cannot be defended. Faith along cannot save your beliefs against a rational argument. An attack on an undefended Principle will either cause the blindly faithful person to reject said principle without examining it, find a reason to believe it (back up faith with reason) or venomously fight back, often violently.

But in the end all Fundamental Principles are based, at least in part, on faith. It always comes down to faith. Faith that ones knowledge is sufficient enough to judge the world, faith that ones knowledge is correct, faith in one thing or another. Faith, however, is not knowledge of truth; faith is merely admitting a lack of knowledge and choosing to believe in what cannot be proven true or false. Faith is not a judge of knowledge and yet all beliefs are based in this leap of faith which we cannot know for certain to be true.

What are you thoughts on this?