U turn if you want to - it might be a good idea!

Why do we believe what we believe?

All beliefs have some background, some point at which we experienced, or were told or shown something which shaped our thoughts on a subject. Many of the beliefs we have may have their sources back in a past situation which no longer has any relevance, yet the belief remains.

A few thousand years ago, a tribe of nomadic desert-dwellers made a discovery. They found that if they left cooked beef around for a few days before eating it, they came to no harm, yet if they ate three day old pork, they were sick. We now know that pork goes off more quickly than other meats if not refrigerated, but this was before they had Kitchens, let alone fridge freezers to put in them, and their understanding of biology was less developed.

So some wise tribal elder came up with an explanation, which also served as a deterrent to any hungry child to who thought that pork looked tempting. 

'God does not want you to eat pork,' he would have opined. 'So if you disobey Him, he will give you a tummy ache as a punishment'. Job done. People would avoid three day old pork and the resulting diarrhoea.

I wonder what that tribal elder would think if he could see the wholesale eschewment of pig meat in the 21st Century by two leading world religions? Does it make sense nowadays? But once God has decreed, it is apparently for all time. God appears to agree with Thatcher at least on the subject of U turns.

And don't get me started on rituals involving menstruating women....

Of course, some ancient religious beliefs are still valid, though not necessarily for the original rationale. Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim prayer involves a set of ritual movements which were, I presume, once presented to devotees as simply the only acceptable way to worship. Nowadays our greater understanding of the human body tells us that these postures stretch important muscle groups, help oxygenate the body and are conducive to calming the mind. The benefits we now attribute to health and well being were, I am sure, once seen as the godhead's way of rewarding the devotion of his followers.

So some old beliefs are of use, either for practical purposes or just to give us confidence. But what about those other ideas about ourselves, often inculcated in childhood, that we are for example rubbish at Maths, not good-looking, have fat legs or big ears - what are those beliefs good for, except lowering our self esteem? 

We can challenge, and defeat these baseless thoughts. Once we become aware of them and the damage they are doing us. And realise they are as pointless as refusing to eat meat because it made someone sick four thousand years ago.