I try not to believe in things. I either know something or I don't.
I look at contradictory beliefs as the same reality seen from different perspectives. We're all looking at the same thing, but we each have a preferred language to express what it means to us. Over time, I've learned to talk about the things that are meaningful to me in a variety of languages. I speak Buddhist, new age, Christian, and scientific materialist, to name a few. I can usually have a conversation with people of various spiritual and political leanings without anyone wanting to strangle me. There have been some epic exceptions to this, but mostly when rigid dogma was involved.
I mention this because I generally choose to use the language of the person to which I'm speaking. I let them begin talking while my inner babel fish does some fancy translation. "Ah, I see we're talking nihilistic agnosticism. Ok."
However, now that I have a blog and am speaking to an audience, however small, I find that I don't know what language to use. Is it time to settle down and pledge loyalty to a single language? Maybe using multiple languages, in the spirit of the awkward he/she acrobatics of gender-neutral literature, is the best thing to do.
I think some of the reason I'm not writing regularly is that I'm afraid I'll use Discordian language that offends a Sufi, or existentialist philosophy that offends a Jungian, or street jargon that offends a bibliophile or...
You see the dilemma here?
The truth is, I have no freaking idea what reality is or why we're here or what our purpose is. I realize that a lot of you do, and I'm very happy for your certainty in the face of terrifying ambiguity. It must be a much easier way to live. For me, I just can't seem to get to the point where I "know" anything beyond a doubt, except the undeniable truth that my cat will eat the toilet paper roll if I leave it on the counter.
I have a rich inner life, and I try to give those experiences labels, but for the most part, spiritual or inner world labels are interchangeable to me. You can call it intuition or the subconscious or higher self or guides or ESP or the voice of the divine. I'm fine with all that. I have no idea what it is and see no point in arguing about something I don't fully understand. I know what science has to say about it, and I know what religions have to say about it, and I still don't know. So I'll just speak to you about it in your preferred language, so we're on the same page. Unless "you" are an invisible audience that could be speaking any language at all. In that case, I'm left with no option but to lay it out on the table and let you decide whether or not you want to translate my writing into your language or click the X at the top of the page.
In my mind, beliefs are things we don't know. If we knew them, we'd call them facts. I like to use a scale I stole from Robert Anton Wilson for these things. Everything I know is true is rated at 10, and everything I know is not true is rated at 0. For the most part, the only things at these levels are the certainties I'm forced to rely on to go about daily living. The rest of the scale is like a field day, with things I don't know running wildly all over it, depending on the information I have, who I'm talking to, and my mood. I have friends who just being in their presence can move the likelihood of unicorns from a 1 to a 4. In that spirit, if you find me having a hearty discussion about ghosts, it's unlikely they have made their way to 10, unless I have become one.
To be clear, I'm not saying beliefs are bad. I just don't feel comfortable having them. The ones I do have are stealthy and tend to hide in the back of my head where they think I won't notice them. I'm also not saying your religion is true or not true. I'm saying I don't know. I have the same spiritual experiences many people do, I'm just less inclined to trust that my interpretation of them is the "right" one.
In the long run, I don't think it matters. These are concepts that live in our heads and are too insubstantial to use as weapons for judging each other. I'm interested in what you do. In how you treat people. In how we interact with each other. Regardless of what concepts you hold about it, life is what it is. The labels are just a way of communicating our experiences to other people. When we fight about the labels, we lose the beautiful and immediate reality of each other. And to me, that's just not worth it.