Robert Strock and Ken Blanchard discuss faith and spirituality, arguing that humility about what we actually know creates peace across belief systems. They share stories about loss and death to show why choosing life-affirming beliefs matters more than certainty about what happens after we die.
Robert, you know, we've been talking about faith and spirituality, and I think so often life is about choices. You know, Norman Vincent Peale taught me when you wake up in the morning, you got two choices. You can either feel good about yourself or you can feel lousy. He said, why would you choose to feel lousy about yourself? And I'll never forget when my mom died at 95, I had this Jewish couple came to see me who knew my mom and loved her. And they weren't going to be around for the funeral. So they came by and the woman had a 95 year old mother that she said, I'm really worried about her because she's 95 too. And I said, what's your belief about life after death? She said, I think when life is over, it's over. I said, well, I don't believe that. I think my mom's probably having her greatest day. You know, she loved flowers and I can't imagine how beautiful it is and all. And she said, how do you know that? And I said, I don't know it, I just believe it. And I like my belief a lot better than yours. I mean, why would I choose a lousy belief, which is a little judgmental and all, but that whole concept. I loved your thoughts on the difference between knowing and believing because I think that's maybe where we get in trouble when we get judgmental. We act like we know.
I think that's exactly it. And I think that when we act like we know anything, we get in trouble. And when there's enough room to allow the other to have a belief as well, and recognizing that it's really our best intuition or guess, and when we have a bridge point where we can have some humor or playfulness, where we get to say, I don't really know anything, to me that's just an incredibly peaceful place. And I like my belief in reincarnation better than I like your belief in heaven. So we're both happy.
Sure.
Yeah. But the uniting point, I think for us and for, I believe, for Christianity or any other religion, is to be able to say, I don't absolutely know anything. And that's just a joy and a joiner. And when we say I believe so and so, oh, it's only a belief that you personally hold dearly, perhaps, perhaps more dearly than anything else, but you don't want to inflict your belief on anyone else. And that not knowing, humility becomes a bridge and a bond. And it's so beautiful.
Yeah. My wife, Margie is wonderful. You Know, because we've lost some really good friends that passed away in the last, you know, year or so. And she said, you know, I always feel that the loss is ours, but they're really doing well. And she says, and I want to be the last one to know that we were wrong, you know, which I think is a really wonderful, you know, I mean, if suppose really life is over and all, she really said, I just want to be the last one to know that we were wrong. Because what's really interesting is that if we knew everything, then what would our life be more than just be kind of robots here rather than, you know, our friend Charlie Tremendous, who died. He was so excited about where he was going, and in the end he lost his voice because the tumor was going. I said to him, charlie, you're going to tell us what it's like when you get there. And he said, I wouldn't have the words to describe it if I did. You'd probably commit suicide. And Martin says, my God, what a fabulous belief. Now, suppose it wasn't true. Did it help Charlie live the most incredible life right to the end? You better believe it did, you know. And so that's why I really love that a friend of mine, Erwin McManus, who has a wonderful church in LA called the Mosaic, and he said, because we all are broken and his congregation are druggies, alcoholics, prostitutes, if we come together in a community of love, we can create a mosaic. He said, a lot of times as Christians, we want to pull the hell card right away. And he said, with my congregation, more of what's not working isn't really attractive. So he says, I pulled abundantly life car, which Jesus said. He came and he said, and then later on, if there's a fringe benefit, then that's really a powerful thing. So it's so often about how you maneuver all this thing, and I think, as you've said, is the minute you know something and you're convinced, you know, like, we want our kids to know this and all, now you're into win lose confrontations rather than. This is what I believe. Son, I don't think this is really going to be helpful to you.
And I think the hardest thing for me, which has only come in recent years, is not even to know that my not knowing is for sure right. It could be that your faith is right. I have a strong conviction on a very personal level that not knowing is really the healthiest way to be. However, I recognize if I impose that on you, I've created a division and my belief has now become a knowing. It might be a not knowing knowing. And so I really feel that it's allowed me or allows anybody, when you recognize you don't know anything to merge with any faith or any non faith for that matter, that's sincere, that has integrity and has goodness in it.
I know somebody said to me, he said, why are you just so strong in your belief? And I said, well, you know, I've heard a lot of people whose lives were not working and all of a sudden they got the Lord in their lives and they turned their lives around. I just haven't heard anybody say my life wasn't working. And then I became an atheist and my life turned around or ever since I've been an agnostic, my life has gotten better. And so that's why I say, you know, I think some of that important relationship with something bigger than yourself is so important because I just haven't heard the people say I don't want to believe in anything that has pulled themselves out of the ground or I question everything that's really pulled them. I think at some point having some belief, whether it's the belief that you don't know, that you feel strongly, but you don't have to jam down somebody else gives you some peace.
And the only thing I would say to that is that you do have to have, I believe something beyond yourself because ourselves aren't that interesting. And it's the merger that really there's some kind of expansion. And I've met some very good atheists that really are dedicated to going beyond themselves. And so it really has to do with not believing. Just our little ego is going to satisfy us if we just get everything we want alone and separate from everybody else. But of course that's just my belief. It.
