Whats The Definition Of "Believe"?

[Subfallen]

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I'm happy with Dawkins' definition of God.

There exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us.

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That's hardly the Christian God. But, you may not be a Christian in the dogmatic sense. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] And then we don't have any problems anyways.

[.Alex.]

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Isn't it just that you think it is more likely than not? That certainly is true in non religious connotations.


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Nah. In most situations "believe" is used the same as "think." For example, "I believe people are naturally good" or "I believe I did well on the last exam." This requires much more than the 50% threshold of certainty that "more likely than not" is based on. You don't hear many people say, "I believe I'll win my race with 22 vs AK."

Obviously this varies, but I'd say most people would only use "believe" if they are at least 80% sure of something.

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So what do you call people who think there was a 70% chance that Jesus was ressurected?

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I don't know. I don't think "believe" and "don't believe" are complementary though, similar to the way that feeling "good" and "not good" today aren't. There probably isn't a good word to describe them since so few exist.

[MidGe]

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I'm happy with Dawkins' definition of God.

There exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us.

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Hey godboy, I have no longer any arguments with you, since your god is possibly neither benevolent, nor omnipotent. nor personal. I greatly misunderstood your position in my arguments with you. Sorry.

[yukoncpa]

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Hey godboy, I have no longer any arguments with you, since your god is possibly neither benevolent, nor omnipotent. nor personal. I greatly misunderstood your position in my arguments with you. Sorry.


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Please say it ain't so. The great Godboy, Midge debates have sustained me, entertainment wise, for, well, maybe a year.

[godBoy]

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I have no longer any arguments with you, since your god is possibly neither benevolent, nor omnipotent. nor personal.

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Would you like me to give you God's weight and favorite food also?

[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.

[MidGe]

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I have no longer any arguments with you, since your god is possibly neither benevolent, nor omnipotent. nor personal.

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Would you like me to give you God's weight and favorite food also?

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I have no idea... But I do know that a benevolent, personal and omnipotent god is totally denying or at odds with existence as it is, so it cannot be.

As far as weight is concerned I would expect it to be very lightweight to no weight at all, in every meaning of the word! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] As far as favorite food I would not even hazard a guess, could be dependent on its digestive system if he has one! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Siegmund]

I would define believe as "accept as truth," with an implied undertone of "...without proof it actually is the truth."

One can believe there's a 70% chance that Jesus was resurrected, but that's something very different than believing Jesus was resurrected.

Its one of the things the Bayesians do quite well - identifying situations where some degree of belief is required, and forcing you to make some assessment of what your beliefs are before they'll give you odds of anything. Not saying they have all the answers - but I think the idea of a prior sums up the idea of belief well.... operating from there onward as if something were true (perhaps retaining some awareness that it may not be - but usually you have committed to not revisiting that assumption anytime soon.)

[J. Stew]

belief = a thought that provides meaning or something to get transrationally 'mean' about.

for example, i believe in the freedom that comes from transcending the mind so if someone told me i had to think in a certain way that doesn't coincide with natural creativity i would get mean about it because this freedom is mean-ing-full to me and is also just what is, coincidence? i don't think so.

[PairTheBoard]

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Isn't it just that you think it is more likely than not? That certainly is true in non religious connotations.

And if you agree with that it means that atheists believe there is no God. Its not just that they have no reason to believe in God. Because as with godboy's red keyboard, if there is in fact no reason to believe in God or the existence of that keyboard, than they are giant underdogs to be true. Even theists would agree with that obvious fact.

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I don't think this is an easy question. I read the Wikipedia entry for Belief as well as an online Philosophy Encyclopedia entry for Belief. They talked about it as being a psychological state whereby a conviction in the truth of a proposition is held. They talked about it as an Attitude toward a proposition. There is evidently controversy over whether the psychological state is arrived at the same way by everybody so as to cast doubt on whether neuroscience can hope to identify it. Nowhere was the concept of probability or probability estimates mentioned in relationship to it.

So I reread the Wikipedia entry for Baysian Probability where I remember it being mentioned. It looks like Baysian Probablists define their concept of probability by way of Belief. They define their probability as a "degree of conviction" or "degree of partial belief". So this is something peculiar to the Baysians. And I think it's important to note the direction of the definition. It's not the other way around. Belief is not defined according to Baysian Probability. And I did not see Philosophers of Belief using Baysian Probability to define Belief.

I think if Sklansky tried to program a Robot to express Belief about the truth of propositions according to probability estimates he would end up with a Robot making some very un-human like statements of belief. What threshold would he use as a cutoff? 80%? 90%? So the Robot would say, "I believe the next roll of the dice will not be boxcars". I don't think humans say that. A human would say, "I believe the odds against boxcars are 11-1".

Furthermore, I'm not convinced that Baysian probability statements are even meaningful for all propositions. I'm especially dubious about their application to Spiritual Propositions where no objective evidence nor objective outcome in this world is possible. Sklansky and his followers cavalierly apply them to such propositions, but I have yet to see any theoretical foundation on which to do so. At best I see them as vacant of meaningful content and at worst I see them as highly misleading when applied to such Spiritual Propositions.

So all things considered, I think Belief is a Psychological or possibly Spiritual State arrived at by way of a complex of information, possibly including taking someone's word for it, and/or subjective or spiritual experience, which crosses some kind of personal threshhold, or enters some kind of personal qualifying aura, whereby a conviction is formed about the truth of a proposition.

Edit: However, this is open to revision.

PairTheBoard