Why Should I Care about My Beliefs?

Everyone has a worldview, and our thoughts, choices, goals, priorities, and responses to life are directed by it. We navigate life, and potentially the afterlife, based on this map. Consider the components that add up to form who you are:

a. What you are born with and born into
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b. What life brings to you
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c. Your thoughts, choices, responses, priorities, goals
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d. You — the sum total of all your experiences and destinations,both in this life and beyond.

Notice, the only variable able to be determined by you is c, which is dependent on your worldview beliefs. Further, whether your experiences lead to expected, positive outcomes or result in unexpected, harmful consequences depends on whether your beliefs align with reality or not.

While different worldviews may share some similarities, they contradict each other on the most crucial, life-shaping questions. Since only one worldview map, at most, can truly align with reality, worldviews that do not will inevitably lead you to consequences you did not intend or anticipate—both in life and potentially for eternity.

We spend great effort seeking truth and making well-informed choices about our careers,

relationships, family, and health. Yet, many people lack well-supported beliefs about the most important questions in life, unaware of how their worldview has already shaped their present and will continue to impact their future.

What map are you using to guide your worldview? What evidence assures you that your worldview is accurate and reliable enough to lead you to what you seek? Is there a more accurate map to follow?

QUANTITY

Worldview questions arise constantly throughout life. Whether it is something you see in a movie, read in a book, or experience personally, your beliefs about reality are challenged regularly. You might see a newscast about violence and your child might wonder, “Why do bad things happen?”; A TV show like The Simpsons may make a joke about a belief system, odds are it will be funny as they have good writers, but you wonder whether the point the writers are pushing is accurate or not. In a moment of thought away from the daily grind, you wonder whether this life is just about the things you pursue, or if there is a purpose that pursues you.

Endless occasions throughout life bring up, or depend upon beliefs, and you will either have supported answers and confident steps forward during those times, or have lack of awareness, anxiety, discomfort, defensiveness, doubt, and only vague hope and understanding, with a lingering uncertainty of whether the ground you step forward on is solid or not.

Conclusion: The quantity of times your worldview impacts your life is very high.

QUALITY.

Your worldview has a comprehensive and directing influence on your life. It’s the foundation

from which endless thoughts, decisions, actions, priorities, and directions you set stem. The path you take in life—and the outcomes you experience—are largely shaped by your beliefs.

If your worldview is flawed or misaligned with reality, it can lead to consequences you didn’t

anticipate. If it’s grounded in truth, it leads to positive growth and a more purposeful life.

Conclusion: The quality of impact from your worldview is also very high.

Probability

The likelihood your beliefs will impact your life is 100%. Every choice you make is

influenced by your understanding of life’s big questions—whether you realize it or not. You will experience extensive good or bad through life due to your standing on accurate or inaccurate beliefs.

And when it comes to what happens after this life, the potential consequences are immeasurable. The decisions we make based on our beliefs could influence our eternal destiny. An eternal, or never-ending existence, dwarfs all the good and bad this life could possibly bring. Consider what eternity means. Anything you ever have done, or may someday do, will be only a drop in the ocean of consequences that flow from either meeting the Creator and being welcomed by the truth, or being on the wrong side of truth. And the probability of something beyond this life is determined the same way we determine how likely something is in science, or in our everyday lives – we have to consider the evidence. This is where the real amazing stuff comes in, which we will start in the Show Me the Evidence section of the blogs.

Conclusion: The probability of your worldview shaping your life is 100%, and if the impact goes beyond this life, then the impact is immeasurable.

If you can take a step back to see the big picture of your life, you will notice the immensity of how often and how deep your beliefs (or worldview map) guide, support, and bring consequences good/bad to you. It is the most significant choice you will make in life, having far & away the highest QQP value.

We invest time and effort based on how important something is to us: money in a house, time in a career, effort into health or relationships. But how much time do we invest in understanding the beliefs that shape our entire life?

If your worldview is the most important map you follow, doesn’t it deserve the greatest investment? When it comes to beliefs, the return on investment could dwarf anything else in your life.

For example, what happens if you invest deeply in beliefs about God and there is no God? Simple, it would be like putting much of your resources into an investment, which turned out to be a scam. That would be disappointing.

What happens if you fail to invest in understanding God, and it turns out He exists? Then even if you have your life’s checklist met, financial security, freedom, great house, great family, health, whatever treasure you hope for, not only do you hold these in a wet paper bag, as these can fall away at any time, or at best, are as temporary and fleeting as life, but also these must be weighed against the negative results of rejecting proper investment in God. The loss would be catastrophic—both in this life and in eternity.

A more familiar comparison: It’s like studying for an exam and mastering only a small portion of the material, while the real test covers so much more. Failing to grasp the whole picture could lead to a failing grade, just as having an incomplete worldview can lead to undesirable consequences in life and beyond.

Investing time and effort into beliefs may not provide as much happiness right now as maybe shopping, or the surfing the internet, but it may, and additionally has the probability of paying off unimaginably overall. At any point in life, even when experiencing great fun or contentment with your life, with such massive quantity and quality wrapped up in the issue of your worldview choice, there is no escaping the question: Am I missing out on something more? Am I missing the investment that will make all the difference?

A Step-by-Step Approach

By exploring your worldview, you’re engaging in a methodical, step-by-step process. This approach is similar to the scientific method—one you’ve naturally used since childhood to make decisions. You can use it for choices as minor as “Should I ask that person out?” to as significant as “What is the purpose of my life?”

This process allows you to navigate the maze of information surrounding life’s big questions with clarity, avoiding common pitfalls and misunderstandings. You’ll move at your own pace, reaching conclusions based on careful thought and evidence.

Additional Benefits

Is This Worth My Time?

It’s all about investment and return. The more significant the outcome, the greater the investment should be. What areas of your life have a higher QQP value than your worldview beliefs? What could be more deserving of your time and energy? Are you investing appropriately in understanding the beliefs shaping your life and future?

• Common objections to the importance of beliefs are addressed in the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) section of the website.
• The next article, “The Box Score of Your Life,” will provide an overview of your life’s journey and help you reflect on the path you’re on by providing an overall view of your life, a summary, what you will see about your life when you are at the end, and clearly through the binoculars of logic.
• Once you recognize why this choice of beliefs is as serious as it gets, and logically demands equally serious attention, the next logical question is: Is there truth, and how can we determine what worldview beliefs are actually accurate and reliable to build upon?