Foundations

Everybody believes something.  As we go through life, I believe each of us builds an ideological house we use as a base for our actions; a philosophical foundation is laid and then we begin the process of building on it and decorating it with various beliefs and assumptions until we have constructed a psychological shelter that we are comfortable with.  In a way, I suppose the mind is not unlike the physical being it belongs to... needing its own place to dwell and its own shelter to retreat to. But what are we retreating from exactly?  Have we got any reason to be afraid? 

I think we need a basis for interpreting the world around us and the actions of those we interact with.  We must have a foundation for our own philosophy, and we will defend that foundation (whether it be especially right or wrong) vigorously from any idea that might crack it and let uncertainty into our minds.

Uncertainty scares hell out of us.

And thus each of us is capable of the most ridiculous zealotry,  having some portion of our own ideological shelter that we are unwilling to doubt or question.  Doubt seems to some to be the philosophical equivalent of having the rug pulled out from under our feet; it opens the door to a frightening place where we might not have answers to the questions we fret over the most, and makes the future seem even more terrifyingly uncertain than it already is.  Doubt is like a stone through the window of our philosophical house, shattering the peace of our faith and exposing us to the harsh elements of criticism and disbelief.  These things can be mortifying, but they are not the devils we paint them to be.

Doubt is the single greatest friend faith has got in this world; without it, our beliefs cannot be tempered in the fires of uncertainty and forged into a solid foundation... true belief, then, cannot exist without the existence of doubt.  If we do not prove something to ourselves then we must cower in the shadow of the unanswered question, casting our fate to the specter of the unknown and praying the chips fall where we hope they might.  I feel that if we must go about the construction of our unique ideological cottages (and I think we all must inevitably do so) then we ought at least leave the door open to the possibility of being wrong... it may be that we need tear out portions of our house and rebuild once and a while to clear out the mold.