Our beliefs are our personal version of the Truth.  Beliefs act as our internal filter and navigation system through which we experience and direct our lives.  Good beliefs based on the truth lead us to success and happiness while bad beliefs grounded in falsehood lead us to failure and unhappiness.   

I am convinced that there is a “Belief shaped hole” within us, instead of the “God shaped hole” attributed to Pascal.  Since nature abhors a vacuum, our “Belief shaped hole” is filled with either our own beliefs or those of others which have found their way in surreptitiously.  And it is through these beliefs each one of us lives our life irrespective of whether we are theists, atheists, agnostics, blacks, whites, scientists, artists, fat, thin, rich or poor. 

So, if beliefs are at the core of our existence what do we know about ours?  What proportion of our beliefs are inherited, cultural, rational and irrational?  Do we know if our beliefs are founded on true or false assumptions?  If truth sets us free  falsehood must surely enslave us.  Doesn’t this make acquisition of good beliefs almost a prime imperative for all of us? 

If we accept truth as the essential ingredient of good beliefs than we must find ways to identify truths in everything we do or think.  Sound difficult?  Not really if we develop our thinking muscles and skill. The raison d’etre of Muse Week is to encourage our thinking habit – the mindful kind which is focused and directed.   

In Muse Week we will examine a range of widely held beliefs every week including topics which fall under one of the following categories: Science & Technology; Religion & Culture; Philosophy; Politics; Political Correctness; Media & Intellectual Bias.

Using the principles of Socratic Questioning Muse Week will examine some holy cows of commonly held beliefs in an attempt to discover the truth.  This will force us not only to think but also help sharpen our cognition faculty to easily smell out fact from fiction and truth from falsehood.   

Let us be guided by the following words of Buddha, as our mission statement: