[TheEkim]

Belief is a state of conviction. You have to "know" something is true to believe it.
Its a term used to describe certainty and this is why beliefs can be a bad thing, any dogmatic thinking that leads to people refusing to accept alternate viewpoints or consider new information is a negative thing IMO.
It would be nice if people could ascribe to religious theories or philosophy rooted in faith rather then dogmatic sets of belief but I think it will be a long time before we see this type of shift.