Same for the Golden rule. In the absence of absolute moral codes or divine retribution for wrongdoing, it makes sense that others will feel justified in treating you as poorly or as well as you’ve treated them.

You don’t have to believe in Tarot for it to ‘work.’ The Tarot, like the I Ching, gives you a new narrative to describe what you’re feeling and what’s happening to you. Getting outside your self-constructed narrative can be, err, constructive.

When people talk about belief it’s impoosible for me to accept anyone’s beliefs as being absolute. What you believe — and more to the point, those things in which you have faith, despite the lack of direct evidence — is a model of the world you use to make decisions about what to do. No one has a 100% accurate view of the world, so all models of the world are provisional.

Given the aforementioned inaccuracy of said models of the world, it’s hard even to say one model is more accurate than another with any certainty. You can judge — provisionally, of course — whether a model allows a person a more or less successful way to negotiate their way through life. But it raises the question: what if a less complete, more faith-based model actually makes someone a better, happier person? Some of the most loving, apparently happy people I know are committed Christians, and to my way of thinking their beliefs don’t stand even first level tests of provability.

Now this kind of reasoning can feel like a hall of mirrors. So I take great comfort in 1 Corinthians 13, which I interpret to be precisely about the limits of knowlege. To me it says ‘we don’t know anything for sure, we don’t even know what we don’t know, so until we do, the thing to do is love and care for each other as best we can.’