starling

This belief thing, is it trust or knowledge? My Random House dictionary defines belief as "confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof." It also adds that belief is "confidence, faith or trust." The root of confidence is confide, which implies that a belief is based on being confided with, perhaps receiving spiritual knowledge and guidance.

But trust is slightly different. This question came to mind when listening to an Evanescence song that mentioned what it was like to be a child: "Believing everything and knowing nothing." Is belief truly confidence? Is it the word of $deity spoken in our hearts? Does it really imply some inner knowledge that there is something out there, some inner conviction of our place in the universe?

It's like the song says, kids believe in everything: Santa Claus, monsters under the bed, angels living on top of clouds. Yet the belief comes not from knowledge or inspiration, but from lack of knowledge. They haven't seen their parents putting "Santa"s presents beneath the tree, they haven't gone for years and years without some fearsome beast leaping out at them from the darkness. They have learned clouds are floating bits of condensed vapor, not much more than fog up in the sky, and that angels, if they exist, show no evidence of their existence. 20 years without magic can make a nonbeliever out of most anybody I'd say.

Perhaps belief is more a matter of trust though. I'll never forget the sinking pit in my stomach when my kid brother came home singing, "Yes Jesus loves me. The bible tells me so." He simply believed what that awful day care made their kids practice because he didn't know any better. Indeed to this day he's still having problems trying to justify the fact that "Jesus loves everybody." Not that Jesus doesn't, but the reson my brother believed it was because he hasn't seen the state of the world, not because he has seen God.

Has anybody really seen God? Or do we just accept things without question, trusting our superiors, our guardians, our families that what they say is the unvarnished truth? I have heard that people who question their religion emerge with a stronger conviction to their faith. Some people out there have claimed to be visited by God and granted otherworldly knowledge giving them a new look on the world. But am I right in saying most people have never seen anything magical, cannot perceive a greater order in the universe, have no evidence even inwardly that there is some powerful being watching over us, but simply trust that such things somehow exist?

For me it might be an issue of trust. I can't really trust anything that has no evidence supporting it. Which would explain my lack of beliefs. How do you trust in something that you've never seen before, and never will see until the day you die? Or is it some form of knowledge, that believers have been taken into God's confidence?


Starling

exnihilo

Just a random comment:
The great Romanian philosopher E.M. Cioran once said "In everyman sleeps a prophet and when he awakens there is a little more evil in the world."
Belief is a very dangerous thing as this quote implies. For when one person attempts to impose their beliefs over others then we have a very serious problem on our hands. Belief is little more than our own subjective response to the world in which individuals live. Unfortunately, sometimes people would rather accept the beliefs of an outside force than trust their own judgements. This, of course, is much easier and gives more security, but also requires a higher cost through the giving up of some intellectual freedom. I think there is little difference between trust and belief, both appeal to an outside authority. As for knowledge and whether knowledge is possible, people much more able than I have struggled with this question for centuries. It does seem that true knowledge is only possible through direct experience with the world, and I would definitely delineate that from what is simply accepted as belief based on culture, tradition etc. However, knowledge is subject to some of the same flaws too, it seems.
--exnihilo

Vorhis the Wolf

I am borrowing this from a movie I saw last night. The line was " Belief is the antithesis of proof". That sounds pretty good to be because a lot of the time people will say "You just have to belive" when they have no proof or facts to back them up.

VivaHedone

Trust? Knowledge? More blind hope than anything if you ask me.

DBT

It seems to me that belief is a form of self deception,there is always motive to believe based in self interest,it can be the desire for salvation,any variety of fear or desires may trigger the need to believe as a form of comfort.
It also gives the believer an illusion of knowledge.

Keith Russell

I think we're discussing semantics.

One can base a belief solely on evidence, and yet the evidence may not support a claim of 'knowledge' (certainty).

One can believe solely on 'faith'--on no evidence whatsoever.

I contend that the former is a rational belief, and thus justified--until further evidence is discovered which would either contradict the belief (in which case one should abandon such a belief) or justify a claim of 'knowledge', rather than belief.

But, I contend that the latter is an arbitrary (irrational) belief that is not justified in any circumstances.

One should, IMO, never believe to greater--or lesser--degree, than a rational evaluation of all the available evidence supports.

K

Bob Stewart

Suppose that a child, a child five years old, asks her mother what the name of the highest mountain is. Suppose that her mother tells her that it is Mount Everest and the child believes her mother.

Suppose shortly after this a second five year old child asks the first five year old child the name of the highest mountain. The first child has no other source than her mother for the answer that she gives. The seocnd child believes that the highest mountain is Everest simply because she has been told this by the first child.

Does the first child know that the highest mountain is Mount Everest? Does the second child know that the highest mountain is Everest? Or can one say only that each child believes that Everest is the highest mountain? Does either child have evidence for her belief or is the belief, in each case, merely based on trust? ???

Bob Stewart

Jamie_L

The problem is that the word "believe" is legitimately used with meaning different meanings attached to it. It the course of philosophical arguements, one definition is often swapped for another when it is convenient (i.e. equivocation).

Likewise the word "faith" and even the word "knowledge".

Jamie

Keith Russell

Bob, in my opinion, neither child in your example possesses 'knowledge'.

They have only heard their mother 'claim' that the highest mountain is Everest, but they certainly don't 'know' that her claim is correct.

K

DBT

Jamie_L,
Yes I think that is true,I would use the word belief to mean accepting something to be true for which there is no real evidence,based on faith alone.
Otherwise if you are changing your view based on evidence its a hypothesis or a theory.