Although we may not think that we do, we all live with faiths – ideas that we take for granted that appear so obvious that we do not feel a need to re-examine them – ideas that we do not usually want to re-examine. At points in life we make up our minds about things that we decide that we believe in and these beliefs have consequences perhaps for what we do, for who becomes our friends and colleagues, for how we earn a living or perhaps even for how we die. These faiths may be, but are not necessarily, about the ideas espoused by religions. They may be political ideas, about science, or they may be ideas about economics. If we stop for a minute to think what the consequences would be of abandoning our faiths, we typically find the prospect unappealing. For one thing, if and when we were to abandon our faiths, we would have to unlearn and rethink a lot of what we thought that we knew and know. The people with whom we have relationships based on similar beliefs may be dismayed, horrified and then perhaps hostile or sarcastic. Worse still, because our faith’s structure – not just beliefs but our purposes; the things that we do; the direction of our lives; the structure of our days and weeks the loss of our faiths could leave us with the frightening prospect of being without a life altogether – losing relationships, purposes and day to day structure. Loss of faith in some circumstances would mean being alive in the sense of still being able to breath, still being able to eat – and yet all the important relationships and activities that we had would evaporate. Unless we could in some way step from one belief system into another, at the same time step into another pattern of meaningful and purposeful relationships, perhaps also into another way of earning a living, we would find ourselves living in an empty life, in a limbo.

~Brian Davey, from Credo Economic: beliefs in a world in crisis