Dr. P and Marianne discuss beliefs and what they are and how they are developed.

The best place to start is for people to keep in mind that the human mind is constantly seeking an explanation for their sensory inputs, or what they are experiencing. A belief is an internal state of mind whereby you hold, assume something to be true. People assume reality is true, and this is a good assumption. But. And this is a big BUT. We had an entire episode on how the brain actually predicts reality, and the person’s mind assumes it to be true. However, the brain gives its best guess from the sensory input. they receive. Visual illusions are a good example (the brain perceives a 3D picture image in 2 dimensions; this is real but obviously an illusion of a 2-dimensional state.

Personal beliefs are sort of a group of internal control commands.

Beliefs are used as needed. Someone says abortion is a sin->you might elicit an emotional reaction because of your beliefs. This may sound preposterous to you, but I believe that all of medicine is rooted in part on belief systems. Let me explain.

Go to doctor-> believe doctor can help-> diagnosis belief

Truth is assumed for beliefs. People have a set or group of beliefs. The group of beliefs work together to provide a coherent subjective experience.

Part of the problem is that when beliefs are being formed, people don’t usually do any fact checking. The best word to describe this is Veridical (which means assumed to be true).

The serenity prayer was created in the 1930s by Rev. Reinhold Newberg. He was a minister in a church. During this point in history, there was a lot of pain and suffering and wars. People needed the idea of God or some concept to relieve their minds from the suffering. So, they asked God for help. The original serenity prayer helped a lot of people and is remarkable creativity. This is universal social wisdom. I personally don’t know of any other statement that I would classify as universal social wisdom.

People don’t talk about it except in a religious context, e.g., church, because it was created by a minister. In today’s world, religions are waning in popularity in the West. The general population of Westerners, i.e., People, are relying less on Gods for their daily Serenity. Many people remain mentally attached to God concepts, but many people are not attached.

The important point is that the original serenity prayer is not as useful to as many people today because of how the generations evolved into seeking an understanding of the world. Many things attributed to God are no longer attributed to God. What we believe controls most of our human behavior. Most of your behavior is regulated by what you believe. My version of the serenity prayer is based on the accepted truth that the brain creates consciousness which is the person’s Mind. Whatever is in consciousness resides in the Mind of each person.

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