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There are no sources, but searching Google returns a lot of academic paper hits for the topic, so it is almost certainly notable.- h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 09:47, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
The computer hardware analogies should be exchanged with some analogies that can be comprehended by more readers. Computer hardware is an above average topic and this article would be better served with less narrow analogies.
Neillithan ( talk) 13:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Removed from the article: "To believe something can be interpreted as assigning a probability of more than 50% that something is true."
(also removed "The rule of the thumb from a school of epistemology that says that certainty should be as big as the corresponding evidence is called evidentialism.", which is useless without the preceding "definition")
This has little to do with evidentialism, which is a theory of justification, in any case.
Who said that? In what book? Is it so widely accepted among scholars that it deserves mentionning so high in the article? This is not only unsourced, it also looks pretty preposterous to me. When you say "X has a probability of more than 50%", you don't believe that "X", you believe that "X is more probable than not"; this is entirely different. Jules LT 19:13, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
I seem to recall something about the application of Gödel's proof to beliefs, to demonstrate that one's beliefs cannot, taken as a whole, be logically self-consistent. It seemed very interesting at the time, but I can't pull up a cite -- can anyone help? (Yes, I know that Gödel's proof actually demonstrates "incomplete or inconsistent", but the argument did something plausible at this point...) -- Karada 07:57, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Gödel's incompleteness theorem#Misconceptions about Gödel's theorems: "The theorem only applies to systems that are used as their own proof systems"; it follows that the theorem might imply that you can't be consistent if you justify your beliefs with other beliefs; on the other hand if, as most people, you justify your beliefs from one or several external referrents, the theorem does not apply. Jules LT 19:36, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
The introduction:
Belief is usually defined as a conviction of the truth of a proposition without its verification; therefore a belief is a subjective mental interpretation derived from perceptions, contemplation(reasoning), or communication.
is simply wrong. At least, there is no such definition in my SOD, and if it were the case, one would not be able to believe a verified proposition. Nor is "1+1=2" a "subjective mental interpretation" (Can you think of something that is subjective and yet not mental? Interpretation of what?), yet it is something one might believe.
What is it about introductions to philosophical articles that attracts such stuff? Banno 07:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
"Most philosophers hold the view that belief formation is to some extent spontaneous and involuntary.
Most philosophers!? That's a bold and sweeping statement. I'm not sure if to just suggest that is radically POV or ask for some kind of verification. For now I've added a "citeation needed" tag and left it.
Maybe "many philosophers" would be a better choice of words, and easier to add a few references for. The word "most" suggests that nearly all philosophers past-and-present agree about this - somehow, I seriously doubt that... - Neural 03:42, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I have put up a "weasel word" tag, for this purpose. Even stating "many philosphers" would still be using weasel words, because the actual supposed philosphers have not been verified. "Weasel words" do not mark the accuracy nor the inaccuracy of such a statement. Please help us discover which particular philosophers agree with the statement. 69.245.172.44 18:52, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
The spiritual section is very odd. It sounds like someone's opinion and not at all like an encyclopedia. It is mostly incoherent. Someone smarter than myself should fix it. 129.1.31.197 ( talk) 17:53, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the above. There's no frame of reference nor sources cited to represent a consensus of noted spiritual thinkers. The Spiritual section is entirely op/ed stuff. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.247.0.253 ( talk) 15:58, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Whomever is attempting to make a case for either "justified true belief" or "false belief" please either specifically cite your sources or stop reverting my changes/corrections. There is no such thing as a true or false belief. Logical errors made in antiquity can NOT be used to justify your personal point-of-view. Thanks. -- PiPhD 07:07, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Plus, who is deleting the recent entries from the history section of Belief?! -- PiPhD 07:07, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
The paragraph:
In the religious sense, "belief" refers to a part of a wider spiritual or moral foundation — generally called faith. Historically, faiths were generated by groups seeking a functionally valid foundation to sustain them. The generally accepted faiths usually note that, when the exercise of faith leads to oppression, clarification or further revelation is called for.
has been removed. I can;t see a reason to give prominence to religious belief. Someone may wish to insert it into a new section within the article. Banno 07:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
In English the words "belief" and "faith" are treated as different concepts but in some languages (like Dutch) they may translate to the same word "geloof". I am trying to prove that the "faith" referred to in Hebrews 11:1 ('Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.') may also be seen as "belief" and therefore Hebrews 11:1 may be a good definition of "belief". 41.242.228.137 ( talk) 06:02, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
This is an English language encyclopedia. English language scholarship treat belief and faith as different concepts, therefore this encyclopedia should. Therefore the above definition, which refers to faith, should not be used as a definition of belief. MartinPoulter ( talk) 11:34, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
A belief, in its varying degrees, can be a guess, a dogma, a hope, an intuition, a leap-of-faith. Belief is to make an hypothesis which then must pass the test of Cash Value—bringing Peace of Mind. Yesselman 20:35, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
(edited to correct it in a way)
-> To belief is diffrent from the word believe, believe is to trust and see something in another person. But belief is like to imagen to trust and have faith into a higher being. Belief can't just be put out in words it comes from you and is within you.
I think what you ment was believe and even there is a mistake in that. If you believe in a person you either do it or not you can not just believe have trust and faith in them her him or what ever just 50% else what kind of person would you be?
Belief is not limited to its ineffectuality. Belief does not depend on one's ability to defend their belief. Even with being able to prove their belief as fact, it is still a belief. Whether or not someone agrees is extraneous and should not be in the definition. Belief is simply what one holds to be true. Changed. NewCanada ( talk) 01:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
It seems that the epistimology section contradicts itself, saying that belief is a deductive process, but the building of the belief system is an inductive one. Am I missing something? I'm in favor of stating all belief systems are inherently inductive, and that all deductive processes used in the belief system are based off of premises that require induction.
140.233.44.55AME 2/21/07
Done 1Z 17:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. We should improve the article. Oh! as to your question. I believe they are both. Deductive and inductive. But the question is which would come first?-- 71.184.11.46 ( talk) 18:50, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
"If one has an external inducement to belief, such as a prospective marriage partner, he may be unable to drastically change his true belief in order to obtain the desired reward. The best he might do would be to pretend at belief. There is a possibility that with study, he would come to change his belief, depending on his earlier sources and his confidence in the validity of new ones."
I believe this paragraph needs rewritten, because the example is unclear. What I mean is the relevence to the example given in connection with the topic does not adequately correlate. (Yes, I know the connection is implied. Yet an encyclopedia is meant to give information and describe, not imply. see: implicature) The paragraph also did not seem consistent with the section it was previously in and probably needs moved. If no one else does, I hope to rewrite this, but I'll have to research how beliefs play roles in marital relationships (and since I am not married, well, I'll have to trust sources that are plausibly verifiable.) 69.245.172.44 18:19, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Perphaps the belief in a lasting relationship and trust?-- 71.184.11.46 ( talk) 18:51, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
This section reads like something from a pop self-help book rather than academic research - or maybe it's research I'm unaware of: impossible to tell in the absense of references. It gives a contrary impression to what would be given by summarising actual research, e.g. on cognitive bias such as illusory superiority. I intend to remove this section when I next pop by, unless the author has inserted citations. MartinPoulter ( talk) 21:02, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Thats why it's a "wikipedia" and not an "encyclopedia" (unlike an "encyclopedia" we can improve and fix at any time).-- 71.184.11.46 ( talk) 18:53, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
Beliefs can be acquired through perception, reasoning, contemplation or communication
This statement is plain incorrect, How on Earth can resoning be related to 'belief' . Infact they have completely opposite meanings. Obviously if you can reason(or if there is a logical explanation) to something, then there won't be any 'need' to believe because that 'thing' would be undeniable fact(like a maths equation). The point of belief only arises if there is an absence of resoning!!
The only possibility here is if 'resoning' is being referred to as 'bias' dependent on culture/surroundings etc. Reasonit 00:26, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I think this results from a confusion between belief as an unproven fact and belief as a conviction adopted after a reasonning (for example a political position). The difference between the two of them might be thin in some cases. Just a thought... Fafner 08:01, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes. A belief can be adopted based on a number of criteria: - authority - experience - perceived phenomena - reasoning - discussion (e.g. clarification/debate)
"Beliefs" don't necessarily have any relation to reason. Especially those induced by authority figures. An associated topic might be rigidity of belief systems and conflicts arising therefrom..
Beliefs can stem from observation, perception, reasoning, and logic (let's not forget discussion). Surely the belief that the world was flat came with a "reason", thus I must agree with this statement also: "Yes. A belief can be adopted based on a number of criteria: - authority - experience - perceived phenomena - reasoning - discussion (e.g. clarification/debate)"
-- 71.184.11.46 ( talk) 18:45, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
Anytime I may wish I can believe science is philosophy by deductive reasoning. So I agree with you there my friend.-- 207.68.234.177 ( talk) 01:50, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I disagree with the lead sentence "Belief is the psychological state in which an individual is convinced of the truth of a proposition." This is easily refuted, I and many others believe in God and would agree with a proposition such as "God exists" but would not necessarily argue that it can be proven as "True". In other words you can recognize that you have a belief, such as religion, or race or sexuality, and know that it not necessarily "True" but that you believe it anyway. Tstrobaugh 14:32, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
And does that apply to "2+2=4" or "the sky is blue"? Or is there a difference between mere belief, and Belief with a capital B?
rems. 1Z 19:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
GIT does not stop you being able to prove individual theorems
1Z
19:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Point 1: You can think what you like, Tstrobaugh, but if you can't find your ideas in the literature, then it can't go in the Wiki. Banno 22:00, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Point 2: The implication of your opening statement is that one can believe something while holding it not to be true; for example, that one could coherently say "I believe god exists , but it is not true that god exists". See Moore's paradox. You seem simply to have confused truth with proof of truth. Banno 22:00, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
"Contemporary analytic philosophers of mind generally use the term "belief" to refer to the attitude we have, roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true." That quote comes from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I respectfully ask Tstrobaugh and others who feel likewise to read more about this subject before contributing, because of the damage that can be done by misuse of basic terminology. MartinPoulter ( talk) 21:13, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
I challenge the idea that God is unprovable. God is 100% verifiable and not, as some suggest, a sort of fairy tale. Anyone and everyone who claims otherwise does so without good scientific principles. Beliefs that support the "fairy tale" quality of the argument are made by persons too lazy to do the work- or their current belief system makes it impossible to do the work... only the person himself knows. Either way, the work of proving God or disproving God is nothing more than 'parroting' other's assumptions. Up until 1999, I spent my life bashing God/Jesus/Buddah/Muhamad/etc. and mocking any and all that believed in such nonsense. I learned how to belittle them, and confound them with my words, much to my delight. I knew however that I really did not know what I was talking about- I just acted like I did. Part of my deception was getting others to believe I knew what I was talking about, the other part was getting myself to believe it too. I decided to find out for myself, once and for all time. I committed 1 year of my life to studying and researching if God was "real". I determined that for one year I would not only read, but study the Bible- like I was studying for a college final. What ever the Bible said to do- I would do, what ever the Bible said not to do- if I was doing it, I would quit it. I would apply myself to the teachings found there with all my efforts. If at the end of one year, my life hadn't somehow "improved", or if I could not say "God exists" then I would know the truth instead of spewing whatever I had "learned". It was during this time that God revealed Himself to me (just like He said He will in Jeremiah 29:13). I have now spent the last 10 years refining my abilities to love God and love everyone else and have never looked back with regret. Nothing on earth compares to the riches found in Christ Jesus. I have had many opportunities to "test" His promises, and in every way, He is Faithful to His promises. Find out for yourself or continue to bask in mockery of fools.
BTW: I submit that the definition of belief be changed to:
A belief is a choice a person makes consciously or unconsciously that has some pre-set parameters, exclusions, actions, procedures, and positions that stem from culture, teachings, experiences, facts, and or assumptions that work together with the intention to guide, protect, and or promote the believer. A belief therefore, is a mini- “program” that a person ‘installs’ that executes when a specific circumstance arises and with the intensity by which the belief is held. Each mature person has thousands of beliefs of varying degrees of intensity that execute continuously without much if any effort. For example, if a person believes that heroine is very harmful to all people and highly addictive, and if this person believes there is no room in their life for a heroine addiction, then they will be “protected” from carelessly using heroine. New, contradictory, or more strongly held beliefs, a change in the state of the person’s life or some other form of coercion would have to be accepted before the person would willingly use heroine. To illustrate, suppose the person in this example believed that their life “was over” and nothing mattered any more, whether or not it is a valid belief, they choose to run the new overriding program. There now would be “room” to give it a try. Beliefs can be healthy or unhealthy, dependant on the way in which the choices made manifest; fervently held or loosely held, based on the degree to which the person accepts contradictory information; true or false, based on reality. Due to the time involved in the discernible outcomes, it is sometimes difficult to diagnose the root cause for mishaps associated with living out particular beliefs. For instance, if a man believes that all women desire a strong man for a husband and if he further believes that strength is determined by getting one’s way at all costs, then when he lives this belief out, he determines, sometimes years later, that the women he has selected “just have problems” because they do not value his ‘strength’. It is not until a friend, therapist, or some concerned person uncovers the belief that has led to his undesirable behaviors, and can get him to see and change his belief with respect to marital relations, that he can function properly in the relationship. What a person believes can be the difference between joy and misery, elation and depression, even life and death. Robb Miller January 14, 2009 10:44 AM —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.137.19.54 ( talk) 16:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Does the "Believe in" section belong in this article? It seems to me that the first meaning for "believe in" (i.e., have confidence in) refers to a non-psychological sense of the word, and the second meaning is either religious belief (which is covered in a separate article), or can be restated as "belief that something exists." AndyBloch 19:15, 20 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by AndyBloch ( talk • contribs)
The believe-in section clearly does belong here (IMO) since it makes the necessary distinction between believe-in and believe-that. It is, however, incomplete and incorrect. The problem is that it describes the existential claim as implying a need to justify the existence of the thing being believed-in. This is clearly not true. I believe in the concept of freedom of speech, and see no need to justify its corporeal existence. The same is true of love, justice and equality, beauty and trillions of other things people can legitimately believe-in but which have no objective existence. For an encyclopedia to claim that belief-in any of these things implies a need to justify their existence is bizarre to say the least. 87.112.18.13 ( talk) 05:59, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
A class I had in symbolic logic had us translate reject as belief in the negative. So rejection would be the belief that another belief is incorrect. Rejection is in itself a belief. Comments: 97.85.163.245 ( talk) 00:10, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Belief, as a method of acquisition of knowledge, is usually associated with religion. But belief is also used for acquisition of knowledge of other truths. That which a human observer remembers is the result of either a quantitative change from not knowing to knowing or knowledge is the result of analysis of some truth and absorption of its description. Quantitative method is an instant change while description is a change in small dozes over a limited period of time. KK ( 178.43.134.184 ( talk) 19:39, 14 June 2012 (UTC))
Please help with the belief system entry at Talk:belief system. Thanks. Adraeus 02:06, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Note: This entry needs work.
Adraeus 02:10, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
A belief system (also system of beliefs) is...
Here is my small contribution. It will probably need lots of works,
but after all we have to start from somewhere ;-)
I don't know if the comparison has been used somewhere, but a belief
system really looks like a mathematical logical system with a set of
axioms (unproved beliefs) and inferring rules (reasonnings).
Axioms (beliefs) are very debatable since it usually involves beliefs
in God(s), supernatural, or even science after all (how many people
among you has ever seen and verified an experiment in quantum
mechanics? probably not the majority, certainly not my case but I
believe in quantum mechanics) ;-)
Inferring rules (reasonnings) are usually common to most people.
Deduction is the most reliable, induction is used to assert probable
conclusions (although I met someone acknowledging only induction
as reliable and rejecting deduction).
Fafner 08:05, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
See also
belief,
worldview,
paradigm,
model
External links
On Belief and Belief Systems by the late
Bob Eddy (Institute of
General Semantics)
Belief Systems by
CognitiveBehavior.com
Eric
Herboso 04:16, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I think its VERY information to look at the dictionary definition. "Faith is belief without evidence." This contradicts completely with how theists use "faith" and "belief" interchangeable.
Nothing is happening there in 2.5 years, still looks like an advertisement for somebody's research. Unless somebody wants to run the gauntlet of creating a full blown article on the topic, a quick merge of all the content and pluralform titled as a 1st level subsection here seems the best way forward for now, maybe come back later with a standalone article. 108.183.102.223 ( talk) 08:23, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Looks like the right thing to do here is go ahead and complete this so will do shortly. Lycurgus ( talk) 09:00, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
Per his page/IRC statements QoF isn't doing anything with the bot soon so went ahead with this. Haven't looked at Atelfa's changes yet, intend to merge them as well after review. Lycurgus ( talk) 00:24, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
It looks like there's a shakeout of the archivebot occurring so doing nothing, assume it will follow conventions of prior implementations so far as I know the parameters here are correct given that assumption. 108.183.102.223 ( talk) — Preceding undated comment added 19:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
In Formation: neither sex, love or beauty are emotions. Proposals: "sex, love, beauty or strong positive emotions"; "sex, love, beauty and other strong positive concepts" (unsatisfactory).
Also, a case can be made that not only strong *positive* emotions influence beliefs => "sex, love, beauty or strong emotions" might be the best phrasing.
Vinnie2k ( talk) 13:59, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
There is no etymology of the word belief, which is strange because its quite an interesting word.
Here is what I found on the etymologicaldictionary.com and an article called Carnival of the Etymologies, both sources listed.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=belief
http://vernondent.blogspot.com/2005/11/carnival-of-etymologies_10.html
Want to explicitly distance myself from it as a major restructuring of the body of the article was performed by me a while back. That belief has not been treated generally in a variety of disciplines, is just flat false, the worst kind of thing you see often enough here, the basis of a justly deserved bad rep. Lycurgus ( talk) 11:21, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
No, I really wanted to know. I can't think of any other article where the first sentence is contradicted by the first reference. Rick Norwood ( talk) 20:46, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
I deleted the section in the intro referring to the Nazi thinker Martin Heidegger whose "philosophy" has never been taken seriously by philosophers who study the concept of belief. He's more known among those who study the concept of being within the field of ontology among continental philosophers. And recently he's even been discredited in that field as fraudelent by his most ardent adherents. At least he should be considered too controversial in general, and too marginal in the field of the Philosophy of Mind to warrant such a promiment place in the intro of such a generic subject as this – beliefs. Perhaps a widely accepted psychologist, neurologist or a classical philosopher such as Plato would be better suited?
If contemporary views in Philosophy should be noted, than Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy could serve as a guide. As a point of reference, Heidegger is never once mentioned in the entry on Belief. In fact, it would be considered quite bizarre to do so by most reputable scholars. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/belief/
Best Regards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.220.23.165 ( talk) 11:22, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
I put it forward that epistemology's border between justified Belief and knowledge is blatant, it is ' Proof'. Without out proof it is belief, with proof it is knowledge. Justified belief is a calculated guess, when belief is just a guess. Belief is something we use when something is unknown, once known its no longer a belief. The discussions that come from this should be about what is ProofItalic text' .Not how much belief equals knowledge, this is erroneous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NeilEdwards22 ( talk • contribs) 12:04, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Hello,
I just removed this passage below, and have no argument against anyone returning it to the article (i.e. I presume it is valid), but it is rather difficult to understand, and also would be much improved if the reader had at least reference to a source to see the context it is written in. Also I think people would benefit from not having to dig around for definitions of the word sentential, plus the statement is based on a discussion of belief in the context of one source MacIntosh, J. J. (1994). "Belief-in Revisited: A Reply to Williams". Religious Studies 30 (4): 487–503. doi:10.1017/S0034412500023131 (belief-in and belief-that), which surely is a view-point which is reasonable, but is only one view on belief, and shouldn't dominate the article.
Insofar as the truth of belief is expressed in sentential and propositional form we are using the sense of belief-that rather than belief-in. Delusion arises when the truth value of the form is clearly nil.
Delusion arises when the truth value of the form is clearly nil surely is an interesting and curious statement and maybe enlightening and insightful should someone understand it, eventually, but an encyclopedia is meant to inform people, not leave them intimidated by the sense someone else has a vastly superior intellect. "the truth value of the form is clearly nil" really is just a pile of nonsense to someone who doesn't have at least a degree in what-ever subject is necessary to understand (philosophy, psychiatry, psychology, or a everyday degree of mastery of psycho-babble or what-ever) Antrangelos ( talk) 21:35, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=2424028&fileId=S0034412500023131 - this is the only actual source material I could find in the link provided (the described link just shows a main page and no relevant information what-so-ever). Plus the article is actually categorized as Religious belief, which doesn't encompass belief period I think. Antrangelos ( talk) 21:35, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
I suspect the problem may have been with the rather technical "sentential and propositional form". Rick Norwood ( talk) 13:57, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
The section bellow was once in the
religion article together with the material that was mover here. The text is interesting, I wonder if it fits into the article. --
Leinad ¬
»saudações!
17:28, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I am not surprised to find speculation of signs of hard-wired neuronal activity regarding belief. There have been some discussions amongst anthropologists regarding social evolution and survival of early man exhibiting burial rites and early religious rituals . Whether there is a genetic component in this behavior certainly can not be excluded by the imaging findings. It would be very interesting to see subjects with various degrees of religious belief and find differences in imaging. Is there a possibility belief is a biological trait.
If it were true, and belief is hard-wired in the mind of modern man, than religious belief should not be viewed as a product of the conscious mind but an innate emotion. If religious belief is an innate emotion, it certainly is the significant scientific breakthrough of today. It would even shed some perspective regarding conflicts among various faiths.
The University of Oxford is conducting a three year study since 2008
"Scientific study into religious belief launched" regarding this specific question, and what ever the outcome is, it should put rumors to rest once and for all...I believe.
-- William Magdalin ( talk) 17:19, 16 October 2010 (UTC) __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The sections on reasons for adherence/rejection should be referenced in accordance with Wikipedia:Verifiability as well as Wikipedia:Citing sources, which reads, "The need for citations is especially important when writing about opinions held on a particular issue. Avoid weasel words such as, 'Some people say…' Instead, make your writing verifiable: find a specific person or group who holds that opinion, mention them by name, and give a citation to a reputable publication in which they express that opinion." I don't think we need to cite individuals by name, but each claim should have at least one reference, even if it seems obvious. Citing sources will help us avoid straw men, and the process of looking for sources should reveal which aspects of religion most influence the respective stances of believers and unbelievers.
Also, I think we should try to find sources dealing with religion in general, keeping in mind that the religion English sites will tend to focus most on is Christianity ( "why I am a Buddhist" gives me 64 hits on Google, compared to 42,800 for "why I am a Christian"). And we should probably focus on the deciding factor(s) of adherence and rejection (while mentioning lesser factors as the article currently does). — Elembis 04:17, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Four of the five images in this article are related to Hinduism. That seems a little out of wack given that the page talks about all religious belief.. I will be replacing some of the Hinduism pictures with those of Christianity and Buddhism. -- Jeff3000 17:02, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
There seem to be quite a few errors and ambiguities (e.g. universalism is also a christian belief that everyone gets saved, as believed by most liberal christians). Do we need expert help with the article?
Under "Modern reasons for rejection of religion":
"Childhood indoctrination and ethics": Many atheists, agnostics, and others see early childhood education in religion and spirituality as a form of brainwashing or social conditioning, essentially concurring with the Marxian view that "religion is the opiate of the masses", with addiction to it fostered when people are too young to choose.
There's a lot wrong with this.
First, religion is the opiate of the masses should not be in quotes -- this is a misquote of Marx.
What Marx actually wrote is: "Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."
Second, from that quote, it's clear that by the phrase "the opium of the people," Marx meant that oppressed people turn to religion because it relieves their pain, not that religion is an addiction.
Third, neither the correct nor the incorrect version of Marx here have anything to do with the topic at hand, which is "Childhood indoctrination and ethics." What's being addressed here is the view that religious belief is sustained, at least in part, through childhood indoctrination rather than rational choice. It's a real stretch to call this a "Marxian" view.
Fourth, to call this idea "Marxian" is not NPOV. The call this a "Marxian" view is to call those holding it "Marxists." Given the unpopularity of Marxists, and the fact that the application of the label is so strained, it's hard to see this as anything other than a smear.
I plan to remove this reference to Marx from this section. I may add a section under "Modern Reasons..." about Marx's critique of religion. I wanted to document my reasons in advance, and to hear any counter-arguments offered.
216.162.196.34 08:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I've removed this quote, attributed to GHW Bush, as a blp concern, in response to comment on Talke: Separation of Church and State about its dubious sourcing. -- Vary | Talk 08:39, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I removed the link to IsGodReligious.com because it seems to be the Facebook or MySpace of creating your own religion. The link is to a website with no established resources on faith; it seems to be marketing and was added by someone not logged in. If anyone thinks it's relevant, please note why here rather than simply restoring it without explanation. Tiresias BC ( talk) 22:06, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
The article makes no or a very weak attempt at distinguishing religions belief form adherence or religions faith in general. These concepts are very different indeed. Belief is an intellectual performance found in "literate", codified book religions, diametrally opposed to "pagan" religion where adherence is defined by the performance of rituals. Even in Christianity, you can easily be a practicing Christian (essentially, attend mass, take the eucharist) without any intellectual belief whatsoever. The article needs to be much more explicit about this distinction, and much material that is at present included is in fact offtopic. Many examples given concern religious worship, not belief. -- dab (𒁳) 09:21, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I remeber reading in an interview of Bill Gates that he said something about having better things to do on a Sunday than attend the church. Would it be appropriate to link to Bill Gates in the Opportunity cost bullet of the modern reasons against religion section with a reference? NerdyNSK ( talk) 07:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
who have what this article calls "religious belief" do not "believe" as such. we KNOW GOD IS REAL PRAISE THE LORD JESUS. reference to "religious belief" is tolerated as a polite courtesy to heathens. there will be no such politeness on wikipedia. we will tell the truth about our savior for all to hear. glory glory halleleujiah. Codigo 'll aka Huh? 15:00, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
On religious pluralism the article states: "People with pluralist beliefs make no distinction between faith systems, viewing each one as valid within a particular culture".
I removed quote from Koran, al-Baqara verse 62, as it cannot be interpreted as endorsement of other religions existing after the message of Islam appeared. Islam claims exclusivity of religious truth for all time after the revelation of Koran cf. Sura al-Imran verse 85 and al-Maidah verse 3.
Aksel89 ( talk) 15:45, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
ne how —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.77.6.13 ( talk) 06:33, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I fail to see any points, under the section "Modern reasons for rejection of religion", which are modern in any way. All of them are old. Ancient. About as old as religion, I'd say-- 213.113.53.188 ( talk) 14:11, 11 December 2010 (UTC).
I gave a RS that shows belief is much more than only mental. Yes, it's 100 years old, which shows this is historically founded, and how the English language has used belief in a religious context traditionally. I don't think this is even controversial: for believers, faith is also in the heart (i.e. a conviction or persuasion), which is what the RS shows. I just added this in addition to the mental statement, and think both should be included. Let's not have a battle over every little minor thing, please. :) WP will be much more enjoyable if we all try to work together, which sometimes may require some compromise. WalkerThrough ( talk) 21:08, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
The adherence/rejection sections seem to be heavily biased in favor of atheism/agnosticism. The adherence section seems to talk about the adherents in the third person and what they believe (but the author does not necessarily) while the rejection section seems to argue its points in the first person as if they are absolute truth. It even directly accuses believers of discrimination (with respect to homosexuality and speciesism). The rejection section also gets much more space to argue its points and is far too wordy (especially in the last section). There's even a bullet point repeated verbatim in both sections ("Crisis of faith"). The formatting isn't even up to snuff: the title of each bullet point is just placed in quotation marks instead of set apart (by bolding it or something) from the rest of the text. I wholeheartedly agree with the tags above those sections: they need to be rewritten. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.95.227.77 ( talk) 15:55, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
The final point under the rejection section seems to be a philosophical argument for rejecting religion. Does it belong on this page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.16.230.126 ( talk) 19:35, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
The discussion for this was apparently automatically set to the merge target. Appears small enough to go, intend to carry the current tagging into the target unless whatever the issue(s) are are also addressed with the merge. Belief is belief, doubtless there are faith and other distinctly religion related article spaces too, not looked closely at content here, am familiar with the target. I think the norm is for the discussion to occur in one place but wanted there to be notice here. Lycurgus ( talk) 23:55, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
Since the restructure/merge this been tagged and looking at it it certainly could use a rewrite but what's there could be sourced, maybe belongs in another article. Lycurgus ( talk) 05:06, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
As the author of the current merge will process the requested one in a similar fashion after a due interval. Lycurgus ( talk) 23:23, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
This was reverted before the merge. Spurious complaint asking for what was in the prior subsection. Lycurgus ( talk) 13:06, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, but the word 'doctrine' derives directly from Latin 'doctrina', related to the verb 'docere' = 'to teach'. It's possibly indirectly related to Greek 'δόξα' if one goes back several thousand years and jumps branches in the Indoeuropean language family, but there's no direct etymological relationship. I suggest removing this sentence or using an English word that does derive from 'δόξα' such as 'orthodoxy'. I've therefore replaced 'doctrine' with 'orthodoxy' in the sentence. Tdbostick ( talk) 17:18, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
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The word truth is used a number of times. But it is nowhere defined or explained. Just one example is in the diagram at the head of the page. It seems to me that this diagram is meaningless without a definition or explanation of truth. (And knowledge for that matter) I think this constitutes a serious problem with this page. DouglasBell ( talk) 16:19, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
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Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
There are no sources, but searching Google returns a lot of academic paper hits for the topic, so it is almost certainly notable.- h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 09:47, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
The computer hardware analogies should be exchanged with some analogies that can be comprehended by more readers. Computer hardware is an above average topic and this article would be better served with less narrow analogies.
Neillithan ( talk) 13:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Removed from the article: "To believe something can be interpreted as assigning a probability of more than 50% that something is true."
(also removed "The rule of the thumb from a school of epistemology that says that certainty should be as big as the corresponding evidence is called evidentialism.", which is useless without the preceding "definition")
This has little to do with evidentialism, which is a theory of justification, in any case.
Who said that? In what book? Is it so widely accepted among scholars that it deserves mentionning so high in the article? This is not only unsourced, it also looks pretty preposterous to me. When you say "X has a probability of more than 50%", you don't believe that "X", you believe that "X is more probable than not"; this is entirely different. Jules LT 19:13, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
I seem to recall something about the application of Gödel's proof to beliefs, to demonstrate that one's beliefs cannot, taken as a whole, be logically self-consistent. It seemed very interesting at the time, but I can't pull up a cite -- can anyone help? (Yes, I know that Gödel's proof actually demonstrates "incomplete or inconsistent", but the argument did something plausible at this point...) -- Karada 07:57, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Gödel's incompleteness theorem#Misconceptions about Gödel's theorems: "The theorem only applies to systems that are used as their own proof systems"; it follows that the theorem might imply that you can't be consistent if you justify your beliefs with other beliefs; on the other hand if, as most people, you justify your beliefs from one or several external referrents, the theorem does not apply. Jules LT 19:36, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
The introduction:
Belief is usually defined as a conviction of the truth of a proposition without its verification; therefore a belief is a subjective mental interpretation derived from perceptions, contemplation(reasoning), or communication.
is simply wrong. At least, there is no such definition in my SOD, and if it were the case, one would not be able to believe a verified proposition. Nor is "1+1=2" a "subjective mental interpretation" (Can you think of something that is subjective and yet not mental? Interpretation of what?), yet it is something one might believe.
What is it about introductions to philosophical articles that attracts such stuff? Banno 07:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
"Most philosophers hold the view that belief formation is to some extent spontaneous and involuntary.
Most philosophers!? That's a bold and sweeping statement. I'm not sure if to just suggest that is radically POV or ask for some kind of verification. For now I've added a "citeation needed" tag and left it.
Maybe "many philosophers" would be a better choice of words, and easier to add a few references for. The word "most" suggests that nearly all philosophers past-and-present agree about this - somehow, I seriously doubt that... - Neural 03:42, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I have put up a "weasel word" tag, for this purpose. Even stating "many philosphers" would still be using weasel words, because the actual supposed philosphers have not been verified. "Weasel words" do not mark the accuracy nor the inaccuracy of such a statement. Please help us discover which particular philosophers agree with the statement. 69.245.172.44 18:52, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
The spiritual section is very odd. It sounds like someone's opinion and not at all like an encyclopedia. It is mostly incoherent. Someone smarter than myself should fix it. 129.1.31.197 ( talk) 17:53, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the above. There's no frame of reference nor sources cited to represent a consensus of noted spiritual thinkers. The Spiritual section is entirely op/ed stuff. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.247.0.253 ( talk) 15:58, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Whomever is attempting to make a case for either "justified true belief" or "false belief" please either specifically cite your sources or stop reverting my changes/corrections. There is no such thing as a true or false belief. Logical errors made in antiquity can NOT be used to justify your personal point-of-view. Thanks. -- PiPhD 07:07, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Plus, who is deleting the recent entries from the history section of Belief?! -- PiPhD 07:07, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
The paragraph:
In the religious sense, "belief" refers to a part of a wider spiritual or moral foundation — generally called faith. Historically, faiths were generated by groups seeking a functionally valid foundation to sustain them. The generally accepted faiths usually note that, when the exercise of faith leads to oppression, clarification or further revelation is called for.
has been removed. I can;t see a reason to give prominence to religious belief. Someone may wish to insert it into a new section within the article. Banno 07:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
In English the words "belief" and "faith" are treated as different concepts but in some languages (like Dutch) they may translate to the same word "geloof". I am trying to prove that the "faith" referred to in Hebrews 11:1 ('Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.') may also be seen as "belief" and therefore Hebrews 11:1 may be a good definition of "belief". 41.242.228.137 ( talk) 06:02, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
This is an English language encyclopedia. English language scholarship treat belief and faith as different concepts, therefore this encyclopedia should. Therefore the above definition, which refers to faith, should not be used as a definition of belief. MartinPoulter ( talk) 11:34, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
A belief, in its varying degrees, can be a guess, a dogma, a hope, an intuition, a leap-of-faith. Belief is to make an hypothesis which then must pass the test of Cash Value—bringing Peace of Mind. Yesselman 20:35, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
(edited to correct it in a way)
-> To belief is diffrent from the word believe, believe is to trust and see something in another person. But belief is like to imagen to trust and have faith into a higher being. Belief can't just be put out in words it comes from you and is within you.
I think what you ment was believe and even there is a mistake in that. If you believe in a person you either do it or not you can not just believe have trust and faith in them her him or what ever just 50% else what kind of person would you be?
Belief is not limited to its ineffectuality. Belief does not depend on one's ability to defend their belief. Even with being able to prove their belief as fact, it is still a belief. Whether or not someone agrees is extraneous and should not be in the definition. Belief is simply what one holds to be true. Changed. NewCanada ( talk) 01:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
It seems that the epistimology section contradicts itself, saying that belief is a deductive process, but the building of the belief system is an inductive one. Am I missing something? I'm in favor of stating all belief systems are inherently inductive, and that all deductive processes used in the belief system are based off of premises that require induction.
140.233.44.55AME 2/21/07
Done 1Z 17:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. We should improve the article. Oh! as to your question. I believe they are both. Deductive and inductive. But the question is which would come first?-- 71.184.11.46 ( talk) 18:50, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
"If one has an external inducement to belief, such as a prospective marriage partner, he may be unable to drastically change his true belief in order to obtain the desired reward. The best he might do would be to pretend at belief. There is a possibility that with study, he would come to change his belief, depending on his earlier sources and his confidence in the validity of new ones."
I believe this paragraph needs rewritten, because the example is unclear. What I mean is the relevence to the example given in connection with the topic does not adequately correlate. (Yes, I know the connection is implied. Yet an encyclopedia is meant to give information and describe, not imply. see: implicature) The paragraph also did not seem consistent with the section it was previously in and probably needs moved. If no one else does, I hope to rewrite this, but I'll have to research how beliefs play roles in marital relationships (and since I am not married, well, I'll have to trust sources that are plausibly verifiable.) 69.245.172.44 18:19, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Perphaps the belief in a lasting relationship and trust?-- 71.184.11.46 ( talk) 18:51, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
This section reads like something from a pop self-help book rather than academic research - or maybe it's research I'm unaware of: impossible to tell in the absense of references. It gives a contrary impression to what would be given by summarising actual research, e.g. on cognitive bias such as illusory superiority. I intend to remove this section when I next pop by, unless the author has inserted citations. MartinPoulter ( talk) 21:02, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Thats why it's a "wikipedia" and not an "encyclopedia" (unlike an "encyclopedia" we can improve and fix at any time).-- 71.184.11.46 ( talk) 18:53, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
Beliefs can be acquired through perception, reasoning, contemplation or communication
This statement is plain incorrect, How on Earth can resoning be related to 'belief' . Infact they have completely opposite meanings. Obviously if you can reason(or if there is a logical explanation) to something, then there won't be any 'need' to believe because that 'thing' would be undeniable fact(like a maths equation). The point of belief only arises if there is an absence of resoning!!
The only possibility here is if 'resoning' is being referred to as 'bias' dependent on culture/surroundings etc. Reasonit 00:26, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I think this results from a confusion between belief as an unproven fact and belief as a conviction adopted after a reasonning (for example a political position). The difference between the two of them might be thin in some cases. Just a thought... Fafner 08:01, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes. A belief can be adopted based on a number of criteria: - authority - experience - perceived phenomena - reasoning - discussion (e.g. clarification/debate)
"Beliefs" don't necessarily have any relation to reason. Especially those induced by authority figures. An associated topic might be rigidity of belief systems and conflicts arising therefrom..
Beliefs can stem from observation, perception, reasoning, and logic (let's not forget discussion). Surely the belief that the world was flat came with a "reason", thus I must agree with this statement also: "Yes. A belief can be adopted based on a number of criteria: - authority - experience - perceived phenomena - reasoning - discussion (e.g. clarification/debate)"
-- 71.184.11.46 ( talk) 18:45, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
Anytime I may wish I can believe science is philosophy by deductive reasoning. So I agree with you there my friend.-- 207.68.234.177 ( talk) 01:50, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I disagree with the lead sentence "Belief is the psychological state in which an individual is convinced of the truth of a proposition." This is easily refuted, I and many others believe in God and would agree with a proposition such as "God exists" but would not necessarily argue that it can be proven as "True". In other words you can recognize that you have a belief, such as religion, or race or sexuality, and know that it not necessarily "True" but that you believe it anyway. Tstrobaugh 14:32, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
And does that apply to "2+2=4" or "the sky is blue"? Or is there a difference between mere belief, and Belief with a capital B?
rems. 1Z 19:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
GIT does not stop you being able to prove individual theorems
1Z
19:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Point 1: You can think what you like, Tstrobaugh, but if you can't find your ideas in the literature, then it can't go in the Wiki. Banno 22:00, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Point 2: The implication of your opening statement is that one can believe something while holding it not to be true; for example, that one could coherently say "I believe god exists , but it is not true that god exists". See Moore's paradox. You seem simply to have confused truth with proof of truth. Banno 22:00, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
"Contemporary analytic philosophers of mind generally use the term "belief" to refer to the attitude we have, roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true." That quote comes from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I respectfully ask Tstrobaugh and others who feel likewise to read more about this subject before contributing, because of the damage that can be done by misuse of basic terminology. MartinPoulter ( talk) 21:13, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
I challenge the idea that God is unprovable. God is 100% verifiable and not, as some suggest, a sort of fairy tale. Anyone and everyone who claims otherwise does so without good scientific principles. Beliefs that support the "fairy tale" quality of the argument are made by persons too lazy to do the work- or their current belief system makes it impossible to do the work... only the person himself knows. Either way, the work of proving God or disproving God is nothing more than 'parroting' other's assumptions. Up until 1999, I spent my life bashing God/Jesus/Buddah/Muhamad/etc. and mocking any and all that believed in such nonsense. I learned how to belittle them, and confound them with my words, much to my delight. I knew however that I really did not know what I was talking about- I just acted like I did. Part of my deception was getting others to believe I knew what I was talking about, the other part was getting myself to believe it too. I decided to find out for myself, once and for all time. I committed 1 year of my life to studying and researching if God was "real". I determined that for one year I would not only read, but study the Bible- like I was studying for a college final. What ever the Bible said to do- I would do, what ever the Bible said not to do- if I was doing it, I would quit it. I would apply myself to the teachings found there with all my efforts. If at the end of one year, my life hadn't somehow "improved", or if I could not say "God exists" then I would know the truth instead of spewing whatever I had "learned". It was during this time that God revealed Himself to me (just like He said He will in Jeremiah 29:13). I have now spent the last 10 years refining my abilities to love God and love everyone else and have never looked back with regret. Nothing on earth compares to the riches found in Christ Jesus. I have had many opportunities to "test" His promises, and in every way, He is Faithful to His promises. Find out for yourself or continue to bask in mockery of fools.
BTW: I submit that the definition of belief be changed to:
A belief is a choice a person makes consciously or unconsciously that has some pre-set parameters, exclusions, actions, procedures, and positions that stem from culture, teachings, experiences, facts, and or assumptions that work together with the intention to guide, protect, and or promote the believer. A belief therefore, is a mini- “program” that a person ‘installs’ that executes when a specific circumstance arises and with the intensity by which the belief is held. Each mature person has thousands of beliefs of varying degrees of intensity that execute continuously without much if any effort. For example, if a person believes that heroine is very harmful to all people and highly addictive, and if this person believes there is no room in their life for a heroine addiction, then they will be “protected” from carelessly using heroine. New, contradictory, or more strongly held beliefs, a change in the state of the person’s life or some other form of coercion would have to be accepted before the person would willingly use heroine. To illustrate, suppose the person in this example believed that their life “was over” and nothing mattered any more, whether or not it is a valid belief, they choose to run the new overriding program. There now would be “room” to give it a try. Beliefs can be healthy or unhealthy, dependant on the way in which the choices made manifest; fervently held or loosely held, based on the degree to which the person accepts contradictory information; true or false, based on reality. Due to the time involved in the discernible outcomes, it is sometimes difficult to diagnose the root cause for mishaps associated with living out particular beliefs. For instance, if a man believes that all women desire a strong man for a husband and if he further believes that strength is determined by getting one’s way at all costs, then when he lives this belief out, he determines, sometimes years later, that the women he has selected “just have problems” because they do not value his ‘strength’. It is not until a friend, therapist, or some concerned person uncovers the belief that has led to his undesirable behaviors, and can get him to see and change his belief with respect to marital relations, that he can function properly in the relationship. What a person believes can be the difference between joy and misery, elation and depression, even life and death. Robb Miller January 14, 2009 10:44 AM —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.137.19.54 ( talk) 16:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Does the "Believe in" section belong in this article? It seems to me that the first meaning for "believe in" (i.e., have confidence in) refers to a non-psychological sense of the word, and the second meaning is either religious belief (which is covered in a separate article), or can be restated as "belief that something exists." AndyBloch 19:15, 20 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by AndyBloch ( talk • contribs)
The believe-in section clearly does belong here (IMO) since it makes the necessary distinction between believe-in and believe-that. It is, however, incomplete and incorrect. The problem is that it describes the existential claim as implying a need to justify the existence of the thing being believed-in. This is clearly not true. I believe in the concept of freedom of speech, and see no need to justify its corporeal existence. The same is true of love, justice and equality, beauty and trillions of other things people can legitimately believe-in but which have no objective existence. For an encyclopedia to claim that belief-in any of these things implies a need to justify their existence is bizarre to say the least. 87.112.18.13 ( talk) 05:59, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
A class I had in symbolic logic had us translate reject as belief in the negative. So rejection would be the belief that another belief is incorrect. Rejection is in itself a belief. Comments: 97.85.163.245 ( talk) 00:10, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Belief, as a method of acquisition of knowledge, is usually associated with religion. But belief is also used for acquisition of knowledge of other truths. That which a human observer remembers is the result of either a quantitative change from not knowing to knowing or knowledge is the result of analysis of some truth and absorption of its description. Quantitative method is an instant change while description is a change in small dozes over a limited period of time. KK ( 178.43.134.184 ( talk) 19:39, 14 June 2012 (UTC))
Please help with the belief system entry at Talk:belief system. Thanks. Adraeus 02:06, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Note: This entry needs work.
Adraeus 02:10, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
A belief system (also system of beliefs) is...
Here is my small contribution. It will probably need lots of works,
but after all we have to start from somewhere ;-)
I don't know if the comparison has been used somewhere, but a belief
system really looks like a mathematical logical system with a set of
axioms (unproved beliefs) and inferring rules (reasonnings).
Axioms (beliefs) are very debatable since it usually involves beliefs
in God(s), supernatural, or even science after all (how many people
among you has ever seen and verified an experiment in quantum
mechanics? probably not the majority, certainly not my case but I
believe in quantum mechanics) ;-)
Inferring rules (reasonnings) are usually common to most people.
Deduction is the most reliable, induction is used to assert probable
conclusions (although I met someone acknowledging only induction
as reliable and rejecting deduction).
Fafner 08:05, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
See also
belief,
worldview,
paradigm,
model
External links
On Belief and Belief Systems by the late
Bob Eddy (Institute of
General Semantics)
Belief Systems by
CognitiveBehavior.com
Eric
Herboso 04:16, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I think its VERY information to look at the dictionary definition. "Faith is belief without evidence." This contradicts completely with how theists use "faith" and "belief" interchangeable.
Nothing is happening there in 2.5 years, still looks like an advertisement for somebody's research. Unless somebody wants to run the gauntlet of creating a full blown article on the topic, a quick merge of all the content and pluralform titled as a 1st level subsection here seems the best way forward for now, maybe come back later with a standalone article. 108.183.102.223 ( talk) 08:23, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Looks like the right thing to do here is go ahead and complete this so will do shortly. Lycurgus ( talk) 09:00, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
Per his page/IRC statements QoF isn't doing anything with the bot soon so went ahead with this. Haven't looked at Atelfa's changes yet, intend to merge them as well after review. Lycurgus ( talk) 00:24, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
It looks like there's a shakeout of the archivebot occurring so doing nothing, assume it will follow conventions of prior implementations so far as I know the parameters here are correct given that assumption. 108.183.102.223 ( talk) — Preceding undated comment added 19:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
In Formation: neither sex, love or beauty are emotions. Proposals: "sex, love, beauty or strong positive emotions"; "sex, love, beauty and other strong positive concepts" (unsatisfactory).
Also, a case can be made that not only strong *positive* emotions influence beliefs => "sex, love, beauty or strong emotions" might be the best phrasing.
Vinnie2k ( talk) 13:59, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
There is no etymology of the word belief, which is strange because its quite an interesting word.
Here is what I found on the etymologicaldictionary.com and an article called Carnival of the Etymologies, both sources listed.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=belief
http://vernondent.blogspot.com/2005/11/carnival-of-etymologies_10.html
Want to explicitly distance myself from it as a major restructuring of the body of the article was performed by me a while back. That belief has not been treated generally in a variety of disciplines, is just flat false, the worst kind of thing you see often enough here, the basis of a justly deserved bad rep. Lycurgus ( talk) 11:21, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
No, I really wanted to know. I can't think of any other article where the first sentence is contradicted by the first reference. Rick Norwood ( talk) 20:46, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
I deleted the section in the intro referring to the Nazi thinker Martin Heidegger whose "philosophy" has never been taken seriously by philosophers who study the concept of belief. He's more known among those who study the concept of being within the field of ontology among continental philosophers. And recently he's even been discredited in that field as fraudelent by his most ardent adherents. At least he should be considered too controversial in general, and too marginal in the field of the Philosophy of Mind to warrant such a promiment place in the intro of such a generic subject as this – beliefs. Perhaps a widely accepted psychologist, neurologist or a classical philosopher such as Plato would be better suited?
If contemporary views in Philosophy should be noted, than Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy could serve as a guide. As a point of reference, Heidegger is never once mentioned in the entry on Belief. In fact, it would be considered quite bizarre to do so by most reputable scholars. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/belief/
Best Regards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.220.23.165 ( talk) 11:22, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
I put it forward that epistemology's border between justified Belief and knowledge is blatant, it is ' Proof'. Without out proof it is belief, with proof it is knowledge. Justified belief is a calculated guess, when belief is just a guess. Belief is something we use when something is unknown, once known its no longer a belief. The discussions that come from this should be about what is ProofItalic text' .Not how much belief equals knowledge, this is erroneous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NeilEdwards22 ( talk • contribs) 12:04, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Hello,
I just removed this passage below, and have no argument against anyone returning it to the article (i.e. I presume it is valid), but it is rather difficult to understand, and also would be much improved if the reader had at least reference to a source to see the context it is written in. Also I think people would benefit from not having to dig around for definitions of the word sentential, plus the statement is based on a discussion of belief in the context of one source MacIntosh, J. J. (1994). "Belief-in Revisited: A Reply to Williams". Religious Studies 30 (4): 487–503. doi:10.1017/S0034412500023131 (belief-in and belief-that), which surely is a view-point which is reasonable, but is only one view on belief, and shouldn't dominate the article.
Insofar as the truth of belief is expressed in sentential and propositional form we are using the sense of belief-that rather than belief-in. Delusion arises when the truth value of the form is clearly nil.
Delusion arises when the truth value of the form is clearly nil surely is an interesting and curious statement and maybe enlightening and insightful should someone understand it, eventually, but an encyclopedia is meant to inform people, not leave them intimidated by the sense someone else has a vastly superior intellect. "the truth value of the form is clearly nil" really is just a pile of nonsense to someone who doesn't have at least a degree in what-ever subject is necessary to understand (philosophy, psychiatry, psychology, or a everyday degree of mastery of psycho-babble or what-ever) Antrangelos ( talk) 21:35, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=2424028&fileId=S0034412500023131 - this is the only actual source material I could find in the link provided (the described link just shows a main page and no relevant information what-so-ever). Plus the article is actually categorized as Religious belief, which doesn't encompass belief period I think. Antrangelos ( talk) 21:35, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
I suspect the problem may have been with the rather technical "sentential and propositional form". Rick Norwood ( talk) 13:57, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
The section bellow was once in the
religion article together with the material that was mover here. The text is interesting, I wonder if it fits into the article. --
Leinad ¬
»saudações!
17:28, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I am not surprised to find speculation of signs of hard-wired neuronal activity regarding belief. There have been some discussions amongst anthropologists regarding social evolution and survival of early man exhibiting burial rites and early religious rituals . Whether there is a genetic component in this behavior certainly can not be excluded by the imaging findings. It would be very interesting to see subjects with various degrees of religious belief and find differences in imaging. Is there a possibility belief is a biological trait.
If it were true, and belief is hard-wired in the mind of modern man, than religious belief should not be viewed as a product of the conscious mind but an innate emotion. If religious belief is an innate emotion, it certainly is the significant scientific breakthrough of today. It would even shed some perspective regarding conflicts among various faiths.
The University of Oxford is conducting a three year study since 2008
"Scientific study into religious belief launched" regarding this specific question, and what ever the outcome is, it should put rumors to rest once and for all...I believe.
-- William Magdalin ( talk) 17:19, 16 October 2010 (UTC) __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The sections on reasons for adherence/rejection should be referenced in accordance with Wikipedia:Verifiability as well as Wikipedia:Citing sources, which reads, "The need for citations is especially important when writing about opinions held on a particular issue. Avoid weasel words such as, 'Some people say…' Instead, make your writing verifiable: find a specific person or group who holds that opinion, mention them by name, and give a citation to a reputable publication in which they express that opinion." I don't think we need to cite individuals by name, but each claim should have at least one reference, even if it seems obvious. Citing sources will help us avoid straw men, and the process of looking for sources should reveal which aspects of religion most influence the respective stances of believers and unbelievers.
Also, I think we should try to find sources dealing with religion in general, keeping in mind that the religion English sites will tend to focus most on is Christianity ( "why I am a Buddhist" gives me 64 hits on Google, compared to 42,800 for "why I am a Christian"). And we should probably focus on the deciding factor(s) of adherence and rejection (while mentioning lesser factors as the article currently does). — Elembis 04:17, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Four of the five images in this article are related to Hinduism. That seems a little out of wack given that the page talks about all religious belief.. I will be replacing some of the Hinduism pictures with those of Christianity and Buddhism. -- Jeff3000 17:02, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
There seem to be quite a few errors and ambiguities (e.g. universalism is also a christian belief that everyone gets saved, as believed by most liberal christians). Do we need expert help with the article?
Under "Modern reasons for rejection of religion":
"Childhood indoctrination and ethics": Many atheists, agnostics, and others see early childhood education in religion and spirituality as a form of brainwashing or social conditioning, essentially concurring with the Marxian view that "religion is the opiate of the masses", with addiction to it fostered when people are too young to choose.
There's a lot wrong with this.
First, religion is the opiate of the masses should not be in quotes -- this is a misquote of Marx.
What Marx actually wrote is: "Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."
Second, from that quote, it's clear that by the phrase "the opium of the people," Marx meant that oppressed people turn to religion because it relieves their pain, not that religion is an addiction.
Third, neither the correct nor the incorrect version of Marx here have anything to do with the topic at hand, which is "Childhood indoctrination and ethics." What's being addressed here is the view that religious belief is sustained, at least in part, through childhood indoctrination rather than rational choice. It's a real stretch to call this a "Marxian" view.
Fourth, to call this idea "Marxian" is not NPOV. The call this a "Marxian" view is to call those holding it "Marxists." Given the unpopularity of Marxists, and the fact that the application of the label is so strained, it's hard to see this as anything other than a smear.
I plan to remove this reference to Marx from this section. I may add a section under "Modern Reasons..." about Marx's critique of religion. I wanted to document my reasons in advance, and to hear any counter-arguments offered.
216.162.196.34 08:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I've removed this quote, attributed to GHW Bush, as a blp concern, in response to comment on Talke: Separation of Church and State about its dubious sourcing. -- Vary | Talk 08:39, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I removed the link to IsGodReligious.com because it seems to be the Facebook or MySpace of creating your own religion. The link is to a website with no established resources on faith; it seems to be marketing and was added by someone not logged in. If anyone thinks it's relevant, please note why here rather than simply restoring it without explanation. Tiresias BC ( talk) 22:06, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
The article makes no or a very weak attempt at distinguishing religions belief form adherence or religions faith in general. These concepts are very different indeed. Belief is an intellectual performance found in "literate", codified book religions, diametrally opposed to "pagan" religion where adherence is defined by the performance of rituals. Even in Christianity, you can easily be a practicing Christian (essentially, attend mass, take the eucharist) without any intellectual belief whatsoever. The article needs to be much more explicit about this distinction, and much material that is at present included is in fact offtopic. Many examples given concern religious worship, not belief. -- dab (𒁳) 09:21, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I remeber reading in an interview of Bill Gates that he said something about having better things to do on a Sunday than attend the church. Would it be appropriate to link to Bill Gates in the Opportunity cost bullet of the modern reasons against religion section with a reference? NerdyNSK ( talk) 07:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
who have what this article calls "religious belief" do not "believe" as such. we KNOW GOD IS REAL PRAISE THE LORD JESUS. reference to "religious belief" is tolerated as a polite courtesy to heathens. there will be no such politeness on wikipedia. we will tell the truth about our savior for all to hear. glory glory halleleujiah. Codigo 'll aka Huh? 15:00, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
On religious pluralism the article states: "People with pluralist beliefs make no distinction between faith systems, viewing each one as valid within a particular culture".
I removed quote from Koran, al-Baqara verse 62, as it cannot be interpreted as endorsement of other religions existing after the message of Islam appeared. Islam claims exclusivity of religious truth for all time after the revelation of Koran cf. Sura al-Imran verse 85 and al-Maidah verse 3.
Aksel89 ( talk) 15:45, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
ne how —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.77.6.13 ( talk) 06:33, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I fail to see any points, under the section "Modern reasons for rejection of religion", which are modern in any way. All of them are old. Ancient. About as old as religion, I'd say-- 213.113.53.188 ( talk) 14:11, 11 December 2010 (UTC).
I gave a RS that shows belief is much more than only mental. Yes, it's 100 years old, which shows this is historically founded, and how the English language has used belief in a religious context traditionally. I don't think this is even controversial: for believers, faith is also in the heart (i.e. a conviction or persuasion), which is what the RS shows. I just added this in addition to the mental statement, and think both should be included. Let's not have a battle over every little minor thing, please. :) WP will be much more enjoyable if we all try to work together, which sometimes may require some compromise. WalkerThrough ( talk) 21:08, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
The adherence/rejection sections seem to be heavily biased in favor of atheism/agnosticism. The adherence section seems to talk about the adherents in the third person and what they believe (but the author does not necessarily) while the rejection section seems to argue its points in the first person as if they are absolute truth. It even directly accuses believers of discrimination (with respect to homosexuality and speciesism). The rejection section also gets much more space to argue its points and is far too wordy (especially in the last section). There's even a bullet point repeated verbatim in both sections ("Crisis of faith"). The formatting isn't even up to snuff: the title of each bullet point is just placed in quotation marks instead of set apart (by bolding it or something) from the rest of the text. I wholeheartedly agree with the tags above those sections: they need to be rewritten. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.95.227.77 ( talk) 15:55, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
The final point under the rejection section seems to be a philosophical argument for rejecting religion. Does it belong on this page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.16.230.126 ( talk) 19:35, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
The discussion for this was apparently automatically set to the merge target. Appears small enough to go, intend to carry the current tagging into the target unless whatever the issue(s) are are also addressed with the merge. Belief is belief, doubtless there are faith and other distinctly religion related article spaces too, not looked closely at content here, am familiar with the target. I think the norm is for the discussion to occur in one place but wanted there to be notice here. Lycurgus ( talk) 23:55, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
Since the restructure/merge this been tagged and looking at it it certainly could use a rewrite but what's there could be sourced, maybe belongs in another article. Lycurgus ( talk) 05:06, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
As the author of the current merge will process the requested one in a similar fashion after a due interval. Lycurgus ( talk) 23:23, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
This was reverted before the merge. Spurious complaint asking for what was in the prior subsection. Lycurgus ( talk) 13:06, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, but the word 'doctrine' derives directly from Latin 'doctrina', related to the verb 'docere' = 'to teach'. It's possibly indirectly related to Greek 'δόξα' if one goes back several thousand years and jumps branches in the Indoeuropean language family, but there's no direct etymological relationship. I suggest removing this sentence or using an English word that does derive from 'δόξα' such as 'orthodoxy'. I've therefore replaced 'doctrine' with 'orthodoxy' in the sentence. Tdbostick ( talk) 17:18, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
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The word truth is used a number of times. But it is nowhere defined or explained. Just one example is in the diagram at the head of the page. It seems to me that this diagram is meaningless without a definition or explanation of truth. (And knowledge for that matter) I think this constitutes a serious problem with this page. DouglasBell ( talk) 16:19, 8 September 2017 (UTC)