But I don't believe (or at least, try not to, whether I actually can is a different question), I merely think and act.
That is a thing you are asserting, but it is clearly a false proposition.
Not at all. If you offer me a fair chance to bet $1 with a 90% chance of winning $2, I think about the odds of how likely this is to produce a favorable result. Finding they're in my favor, I act by betting. I never hold the belief that I'm going to win. I just believe, based on strong evidence, that the odds are in my favor.
Likewise, I believe the sun is probably going to rise tomorrow. I don't know for sure it will and don't claim to. There's always a particle of doubt injected into everything I expect will happen, commensurate to my lack of perfect proof (even my memory may be unreliable after all).
If you can demonstrate I believe anything with more certainty than is warranted by the evidence, I'll dial back my certainty. That's how this works.
@Lithl
It just depends on what you mean by belief. I would say that I believe things, but in a somewhat different sense than is often meant. I believe things as in 'I think it is justified to think them' but not as in 'I think that they are absolutely true'.It's not that I think all that differently to most people, who aren't concerned with such ideas, or that I act differently, it's just the understanding of certainty and meaning that differs in perspective.
EDIT: tl;dr- don't mind my insanity
Not at all. If you offer me a fair chance to bet $1 with a 90% chance of winning $2, I think about the odds of how likely this is to produce a favorable result. Finding they're in my favor, I act by betting. I never hold the belief that I'm going to win. I just believe, based on strong evidence, that the odds are in my favor.
Yeah, what's the key word in that last sentence, Stairc? It's "believe," isn't it?
Likewise, I believe the sun is probably going to rise tomorrow. I don't know for sure it will and don't claim to. There's always a particle of doubt injected into everything I expect will happen, commensurate to my lack of perfect proof (even my memory may be unreliable after all).
... I don't think you understand what we're discussing. DJK is stating that he does not believe anything at all. I'm saying that is an absurd claim. You are responding to my statement with, "Not at all. Here are instances in which I believe things." Which makes no sense.
@Lithl
It just depends on what you mean by belief. I would say that I believe things, but in a somewhat different sense than is often meant. I believe things as in 'I think it is justified to think them' but not as in 'I think that they are absolutely true'.It's not that I think all that differently to most people, who aren't concerned with such ideas, or that I act differently, it's just the understanding of certainty and meaning that differs in perspective.
It sounds like we're basically in agreement. Belief is what you think is true (regardless of reason), not what you know is true, and you can't know most things with absolute certainty. That you try to believe things for good reasons is a good thing, in my opinion.
Not at all. If you offer me a fair chance to bet $1 with a 90% chance of winning $2, I think about the odds of how likely this is to produce a favorable result. Finding they're in my favor, I act by betting. I never hold the belief that I'm going to win. I just believe, based on strong evidence, that the odds are in my favor.
Yeah, what's the key word in that last sentence, Stairc? It's "believe," isn't it?
... so? What's wrong with believing things? I believe the Sunkist can in front of me contains a sugary caffeinated liquid that my neurologist has told me I should drink less of. I don't believe the can contains grapefruit juice. I justify my beliefs by my past experiences with other cans of Sunkist, my memory of discussions with my neurologist, and the fact that I've already drunk half the contents of this one.
"A wise man apportions his beliefs to the evidence." -- Hume
Sorry HR. DJK clearly differentiated between "belief" vs "thinking and acting". You calimed this was false, thereby granting the differentiation. The only meaningful issue at quesiton here is whether someone beliees something more strongly than warranted by the evidence. Otherwise the implied conversation goes like this:
"Based on the evidence, I think the sun will probably rise tomorrow. However, I could be wrong. It's not like I have 100% demonstrable proof that the sun will definitiely rise tomorrow."
"Ha! You believe something that you can't prove!"
"... Um, yes. I said that."
This isn't a meaningful objection. Nothing illogical or unreasonable is happening here. If that's the conversation you want to have, that's fine. I doubt it meaningfully addresses DJK's position though.
It sounds like we're basically in agreement. Belief is what you think is true (regardless of reason), not what you know is true, and you can't know most things with absolute certainty. That you try to believe things for good reasons is a good thing, in my opinion.
Basically, but not exactly. The reason for my tangent on belief is the in the problem of truth, so I wouldn't use the word belief in the way that you did. You could say a belief is 'a principle under which one conducts their thinking' or a belief is 'a justified thought (regardless of how good the justification is)'. I would under a definition like that say, I do believe. But under the definition 'what you think to be true' I don't because I'm too skeptical of truth.
but in a somewhat different sense than is often meant.
Yes. And that's been the problem. You're using the term "belief" to encompass more than one meaning of the word "belief."
Yes and no, I am using different meanings for belief, but not at the same time and not in relation to each other, but merely exploring different meanings to the same central concept being defined in each case.
It sounds like we're basically in agreement. Belief is what you think is true (regardless of reason), not what you know is true, and you can't know most things with absolute certainty. That you try to believe things for good reasons is a good thing, in my opinion.
Basically, but not exactly. The reason for my tangent on belief is the in the problem of truth, so I would use the word true in the way that you did. You could say a belief is 'a principle under which one conducts their thinking' or a belief is 'a justified thought (regardless of how good the justification is)'. I would under a definition like that say, I do believe. But under the definition 'what you think to be true' I don't because I'm too skeptical of truth.
I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say. It seems like there might be a few words missing from your post and I'm a little confused.
I think the issue here is that DJK is coming from the angle of people stating, "I believe X on faith". And when the term Faith is broadened the way HR does, that becomes the same statement as, "I believe X based on evidence". And clearly, they're not intended to mean the same thing.
Also, belief usually has a degree of certainty attached to it. It doesn't have to, but since this is the religious debate we're dealing with... This is the kind of belief commonly referred to.
@Lithl
Read about philosophical skepticism. See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/
And such. That seems to be what you are confused about, when I said I was skeptical of truth. Right? The essential problem lies in where you start, what can you start with in order to determine truth? There is a need for a foundational truth, but it's essentially impossible to properly justify such an idea. My solution is not to choose ideas based on truth, and accept the mystery of existence.
No, that is not what I'm confused about. When parsing your previous post, it seemed to me that some words were missing, potentially changing the meaning of your sentences.
But I don't believe (or at least, try not to, whether I actually can is a different question), I merely think and act.
Is pretty 'lol' on a number of levels.
I mean, does anyone NOT act and think? It's pretty much the only two things humans can do....
Additionally, I'm pretty sure at this point that DJK3654 isn't into reading links, but someone really should look into the epidemiological definition of 'belief.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief
In light of your edit, we do agree when using the definitions I'm relying on (which was a precondition for the claims that I made). As for your definition of belief: how do you define truth?
Truth is normally defined as something like 'propositions that describe the actual state of affairs'. The problem can be seen just from this definition: how do we know what the actual state of affairs are? The point is that I don't know what the actual world is like, how would I even know the difference between the actual world and an illusion? And importantly, how much does it even matter?
I disagree with thinking of things as true because we don't know anything about truth- it's unnecessary to actually seriously consider something as true. Instead, we should be concerns with the consequences of our actions and thoughts rather than whether they follow a standard that we can't determine.
"Based on the evidence, I think the sun will probably rise tomorrow. However, I could be wrong. It's not like I have 100% demonstrable proof that the sun will definitiely rise tomorrow."
"Ha! You believe something that you can't prove!"
"... Um, yes. I said that."
This isn't a meaningful objection.
DJK was arguing he didn't believe anything. So yes, it's a perfectly valid objection to point out he believes things.
It's technically true, but not particularly meaningful or interesting. DJK is just using a more specific term of belief that assumes a degree of certainty he isn't comfortable with. The question isn't over the word "belief" really, it's over the word "true".
But let's talk about definitions. As I said before, your use of the broadest possible terminology renders the wholde discussion meaningless. If we take faith as "belief not based on proof" and belief as "anything someone thinks is probably true, even if they aren't absolutely certain" and proof as "100% incontrovertile certainty" you end up with two sentences:
"I believe X based on faith"
"I believe X based on sufficient evidence"
And they both mean the same thing in this context. Clearly not a very useful set of definitions for this discussion. If someone says, "You need faith to believe in god" they don't mean the scientific method.
And your initial objection of the "belief without proof" thing is still not meaningful. Unless you just consider proof "sufficient evidence to rationally justify belief". In which case, please give me your best example for something I probably believe without this definition of proof. I've been waiting for a while, unless I missed it. If that's the case, I appologize.
If we take faith as "belief not based on proof" and belief as "anything someone thinks is probably true, even if they aren't absolutely certain" and proof as "100% incontrovertile certainty" you end up with two sentences:
"I believe X based on faith"
"I believe X based on sufficient evidence"
And they both mean the same thing in this context.
Welcome to the conversation. Yes, anything less than 100% proven is within the realm of belief. As such, to say one does not believe in things is ridiculous given how absolutely small the amount of things that can be 100% proven is.
And your initial objection of the "belief without proof" thing is still not meaningful.
You just answered your own question.
DJK is saying he doesn't believe in things. The answer is yes, of course he believes in things.
Then you came in saying stuff about belief without evidence or whatever, which has no bearing or relevance on what we're talking about. A belief with or without evidence is a belief as long as it is not 100% proven, as you've stated, which makes DJK's statement that he doesn't believe anything still incorrect.
@Highroller
Define truth, belief and faith- and preferably in a manner which distinguishes faith as some sort of subset of belief and not just a synonym for it, because nobody uses it that way.
@Highroller
Define truth, belief and faith- and preferably in a manner which distinguishes faith as some sort of subset of belief and not just a synonym for it, because nobody uses it that way.
... Well that's clearly incorrect. People do use belief and faith in that way because they are synonyms, or at least can be. Indeed, dictionary definitions of the words "faith" and "belief" will use the other word.
Again, this feeds back into the core problem with your statements. "Belief" and "faith" have multiple meanings, and treating them like they only have one meaning, or switching between two different meanings of the word, doesn't work.
And why would truth be a synonym of belief or faith? That doesn't make any sense.
@Highroller
When I say 'synonym' I mean 'pretty much literally the same' and not 'related words that express similar ideas', synonym was perhaps a poor choice of word. Faith can certainly be fairly defined as a very large subsection of beliefs, but faith is clearly not a word that describes all or even the vast majority of belief. I'm sure there are some who would, but not enough, I haven't seen any dictionary define it like that and all have strong implications that faith isn't particularly justified from a purely logical standpoint, but rather in some more emotional, moral or 'spiritual' sense.
But words are just words, if you want to use it that way, fine, but that won't really change anything because it's the meaning that words are defined by that matters. So all this talk of definitions is not very relevant- the only significant bearing on the definitions of words is society.
The reason I am 'only using one meaning' is because I don't care what you call something, I care what that things is. I want to discuss specific concepts, not specific terms that may or not describe the concepts relevant depending on how you define them. I'm not interested in having a long and ultimately pretty meaningless conversation about what definitions are best. Hence, if you want to keep discussing, either define terms yourself or accept others definitions and move on.
I will propose these definitions, take them or leave them:
Truth- propositions that describe the actual state of affairs
Belief- something which is thought to be true, or something that is thought to be justified as a useful guide for decisions.
Faith- something which is believed under justification which is known by the individual with the belief to be notably questionable (but not necessarily indefensible) in a purely logical sense.
What does Stairc's use of the word "believe" have anything to do with DJK, who is using a very strict and narrow definition of belief when he says he doesn't believe anything? Stairc isn't using that definition of belief, nor claiming that he doesn't believe anything, so pointing out his use of "believe" is nonsensical.
Belief is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, with or without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief
@Highroller
When I say 'synonym' I mean 'pretty much literally the same' and not 'related words that express similar ideas',
From dictionary.reference.com:
Synonym
noun
1.
a word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another in the language
synonym was perhaps a poor choice of word.
Yes.
Faith can certainly be fairly defined as a very large subsection of beliefs, but faith is clearly not a word that describes all or even the vast majority of belief.
They can be pretty interchangeable, actually. "I believe in you." "I have faith in you." Both express confidence.
But again, that goes back to which definition of the word you are using.
I haven't seen any dictionary define it like that
Dictionary.reference.com
Belief
3.confidence; faith; trust:
But words are just words, if you want to use it that way, fine, but that won't really change anything because it's the meaning that words are defined by that matters. So all this talk of definitions is not very relevant-
No, this talk of definitions is extremely relevant. There's the old adage of, "If you can't say what you mean, you cannot mean what you say." We've demonstrated this by pointing out that you did not mean what you say, speaking against belief when you clearly believe in things.
Further, definitions are important because without clear senses of definition, we might run into equivocation, as you have demonstrated.
Your posts are becoming incoherent HR. You're even citing definitions now that contradict your own assessment. How is "a word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another in the language" NOT fitting DJK's own usage of "pretty much literally the same"?
Your cherry-picking of definitions is meaningless when it isn't what the other people in the conversation are referring to. You might as well be going up to an atheist and saying "I can prove that Jesus is real and loves you. Look, this is my hispanic friend named Jesus. He's real and he's had a crush on you for a long time." This is technically true. Not meaningful in the discussion. As I've repeatedly demonstrated, this broad use of the term in this context ends up with "belief based on faith" and "belief based on sufficient evidence" meaning the same thing. And that's not how the terms are used in skeptical contexts. Faith in these contexts usually means "Belief in excess of what is waranted by the evidence". This includes degrees of certainty.
As for going off topic... No. I have repeatedly been addressing your initial post here in which you claimed that we need to believe things outside of proof, observation or experimentation in order to function. The fact you seem to want to push this topic away doesn't suddenly make it off topic. I continue to contend that your definition of "proof" here is either so strict that it's a meaningless statement in the context (if it's 100% certainty proof) or your statement is just plain wrong (if by proof you mean enough evidence to rationally accept the claim with a proportional degree of certainty based on the evidence). If it's the first, it's almost as meaningless as the Jesus deal. If it's the second, it's just wrong. You can get along just fine in society without ever believing in anything more strongly than the evidence supports.
Not at all. If you offer me a fair chance to bet $1 with a 90% chance of winning $2, I think about the odds of how likely this is to produce a favorable result. Finding they're in my favor, I act by betting. I never hold the belief that I'm going to win. I just believe, based on strong evidence, that the odds are in my favor.
Likewise, I believe the sun is probably going to rise tomorrow. I don't know for sure it will and don't claim to. There's always a particle of doubt injected into everything I expect will happen, commensurate to my lack of perfect proof (even my memory may be unreliable after all).
If you can demonstrate I believe anything with more certainty than is warranted by the evidence, I'll dial back my certainty. That's how this works.
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It just depends on what you mean by belief. I would say that I believe things, but in a somewhat different sense than is often meant. I believe things as in 'I think it is justified to think them' but not as in 'I think that they are absolutely true'.It's not that I think all that differently to most people, who aren't concerned with such ideas, or that I act differently, it's just the understanding of certainty and meaning that differs in perspective.
EDIT: tl;dr- don't mind my insanity
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... I don't think you understand what we're discussing. DJK is stating that he does not believe anything at all. I'm saying that is an absurd claim. You are responding to my statement with, "Not at all. Here are instances in which I believe things." Which makes no sense.
Oh good, progress.
Yes. And that's been the problem. You're using the term "belief" to encompass more than one meaning of the word "belief."
... so? What's wrong with believing things? I believe the Sunkist can in front of me contains a sugary caffeinated liquid that my neurologist has told me I should drink less of. I don't believe the can contains grapefruit juice. I justify my beliefs by my past experiences with other cans of Sunkist, my memory of discussions with my neurologist, and the fact that I've already drunk half the contents of this one.
"A wise man apportions his beliefs to the evidence." -- Hume
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"Based on the evidence, I think the sun will probably rise tomorrow. However, I could be wrong. It's not like I have 100% demonstrable proof that the sun will definitiely rise tomorrow."
"Ha! You believe something that you can't prove!"
"... Um, yes. I said that."
This isn't a meaningful objection. Nothing illogical or unreasonable is happening here. If that's the conversation you want to have, that's fine. I doubt it meaningfully addresses DJK's position though.
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Basically, but not exactly. The reason for my tangent on belief is the in the problem of truth, so I wouldn't use the word belief in the way that you did. You could say a belief is 'a principle under which one conducts their thinking' or a belief is 'a justified thought (regardless of how good the justification is)'. I would under a definition like that say, I do believe. But under the definition 'what you think to be true' I don't because I'm too skeptical of truth.
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Yes and no, I am using different meanings for belief, but not at the same time and not in relation to each other, but merely exploring different meanings to the same central concept being defined in each case.
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Also, belief usually has a degree of certainty attached to it. It doesn't have to, but since this is the religious debate we're dealing with... This is the kind of belief commonly referred to.
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Read about philosophical skepticism. See
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/
And such. That seems to be what you are confused about, when I said I was skeptical of truth. Right? The essential problem lies in where you start, what can you start with in order to determine truth? There is a need for a foundational truth, but it's essentially impossible to properly justify such an idea. My solution is not to choose ideas based on truth, and accept the mystery of existence.
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Good, that's what I thought.
Also, Is pretty 'lol' on a number of levels.
I mean, does anyone NOT act and think? It's pretty much the only two things humans can do....
Additionally, I'm pretty sure at this point that DJK3654 isn't into reading links, but someone really should look into the epidemiological definition of 'belief.'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief
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I disagree with thinking of things as true because we don't know anything about truth- it's unnecessary to actually seriously consider something as true. Instead, we should be concerns with the consequences of our actions and thoughts rather than whether they follow a standard that we can't determine.
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DJK was arguing he didn't believe anything. So yes, it's a perfectly valid objection to point out he believes things.
But let's talk about definitions. As I said before, your use of the broadest possible terminology renders the wholde discussion meaningless. If we take faith as "belief not based on proof" and belief as "anything someone thinks is probably true, even if they aren't absolutely certain" and proof as "100% incontrovertile certainty" you end up with two sentences:
"I believe X based on faith"
"I believe X based on sufficient evidence"
And they both mean the same thing in this context. Clearly not a very useful set of definitions for this discussion. If someone says, "You need faith to believe in god" they don't mean the scientific method.
And your initial objection of the "belief without proof" thing is still not meaningful. Unless you just consider proof "sufficient evidence to rationally justify belief". In which case, please give me your best example for something I probably believe without this definition of proof. I've been waiting for a while, unless I missed it. If that's the case, I appologize.
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Welcome to the conversation. Yes, anything less than 100% proven is within the realm of belief. As such, to say one does not believe in things is ridiculous given how absolutely small the amount of things that can be 100% proven is.
You just answered your own question.
DJK is saying he doesn't believe in things. The answer is yes, of course he believes in things.
Then you came in saying stuff about belief without evidence or whatever, which has no bearing or relevance on what we're talking about. A belief with or without evidence is a belief as long as it is not 100% proven, as you've stated, which makes DJK's statement that he doesn't believe anything still incorrect.
Define truth, belief and faith- and preferably in a manner which distinguishes faith as some sort of subset of belief and not just a synonym for it, because nobody uses it that way.
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Again, this feeds back into the core problem with your statements. "Belief" and "faith" have multiple meanings, and treating them like they only have one meaning, or switching between two different meanings of the word, doesn't work.
And why would truth be a synonym of belief or faith? That doesn't make any sense.
When I say 'synonym' I mean 'pretty much literally the same' and not 'related words that express similar ideas', synonym was perhaps a poor choice of word. Faith can certainly be fairly defined as a very large subsection of beliefs, but faith is clearly not a word that describes all or even the vast majority of belief. I'm sure there are some who would, but not enough, I haven't seen any dictionary define it like that and all have strong implications that faith isn't particularly justified from a purely logical standpoint, but rather in some more emotional, moral or 'spiritual' sense.
But words are just words, if you want to use it that way, fine, but that won't really change anything because it's the meaning that words are defined by that matters. So all this talk of definitions is not very relevant- the only significant bearing on the definitions of words is society.
The reason I am 'only using one meaning' is because I don't care what you call something, I care what that things is. I want to discuss specific concepts, not specific terms that may or not describe the concepts relevant depending on how you define them. I'm not interested in having a long and ultimately pretty meaningless conversation about what definitions are best. Hence, if you want to keep discussing, either define terms yourself or accept others definitions and move on.
I will propose these definitions, take them or leave them:
Truth- propositions that describe the actual state of affairs
Belief- something which is thought to be true, or something that is thought to be justified as a useful guide for decisions.
Faith- something which is believed under justification which is known by the individual with the belief to be notably questionable (but not necessarily indefensible) in a purely logical sense.
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Belief is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, with or without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief
Synonym
noun
1.
a word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another in the language
Yes.
They can be pretty interchangeable, actually. "I believe in you." "I have faith in you." Both express confidence.
But again, that goes back to which definition of the word you are using.
Dictionary.reference.com
Belief
3.confidence; faith; trust:
No, this talk of definitions is extremely relevant. There's the old adage of, "If you can't say what you mean, you cannot mean what you say." We've demonstrated this by pointing out that you did not mean what you say, speaking against belief when you clearly believe in things.
Further, definitions are important because without clear senses of definition, we might run into equivocation, as you have demonstrated.
Not a damn thing, apparently, which is the problem: he's going off-topic to the conversation, as are you.
Your cherry-picking of definitions is meaningless when it isn't what the other people in the conversation are referring to. You might as well be going up to an atheist and saying "I can prove that Jesus is real and loves you. Look, this is my hispanic friend named Jesus. He's real and he's had a crush on you for a long time." This is technically true. Not meaningful in the discussion. As I've repeatedly demonstrated, this broad use of the term in this context ends up with "belief based on faith" and "belief based on sufficient evidence" meaning the same thing. And that's not how the terms are used in skeptical contexts. Faith in these contexts usually means "Belief in excess of what is waranted by the evidence". This includes degrees of certainty.
As for going off topic... No. I have repeatedly been addressing your initial post here in which you claimed that we need to believe things outside of proof, observation or experimentation in order to function. The fact you seem to want to push this topic away doesn't suddenly make it off topic. I continue to contend that your definition of "proof" here is either so strict that it's a meaningless statement in the context (if it's 100% certainty proof) or your statement is just plain wrong (if by proof you mean enough evidence to rationally accept the claim with a proportional degree of certainty based on the evidence). If it's the first, it's almost as meaningless as the Jesus deal. If it's the second, it's just wrong. You can get along just fine in society without ever believing in anything more strongly than the evidence supports.
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