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Since believing is not knowing, knowing positively... it involves
trust and expectation.
I don't know that the leg of the chair is sound...but, I expect that it is and
trust that it is...but I could be wrong.
Once I sit in it...then, I know...there is no need for belief any more.
Since believing is not knowing, knowing positively... it involves
trust and expectation.
I don't know that the leg of the chair is sound...but, I expect that it is and
trust that it is...but I could be wrong.
Once I sit in it...then, I know...there is no need for belief any more.
Good one.
You write "believing is not knowing"; I might add "believing' is often knowing what ain't so".
You write; "once I sit in it...then I know...there is no need to believe any more".
Once we believe, we have a tendency to "save" our beliefs. Some people 'harbour' several beliefs.
Once you believe the chair is sound , you don't update it, and the chair can be wearing out and it might collapse when you sit in it and boy your surprised that you,maintained your old belief. The belief didn't change but the chair did.
Great; unlike Wmsn4Life, you 'do' understand.
I'm writing about 'secular believing'. Everytime I search the net for "believing", I only find 'religious beliefs'.
There's more thoughts than only religious thoughts we believe. I suggest we need to be discerning, (aware of believing instead of believing automatically, and not even recognize when we believe; no wonder so many 'false' thoughts are believed),
quote: " No fear based beliefs left in me". unquote.
The way I see it, you don't believe thoughts that would elicit fear in you.
Ah, freedom and empowerment. Thank you for letting the readers know what I write about is possible for them too.
Have you considered the distinct possibility that you have suffered some type of stroke or traumatic brain injury?
There are no boxes, only circles. And I'll restate my previous post, secular humanism.
Not all the readers are familiar with "secular humanism",(I googled it so I would have some idea of what your talking about.) Not all readers are in your "circle", so please expand your circle.
(earlier I used the term, "box", as in "think outside the box". There are no boxes, that's used as a metaphor to indicate definitions have boundaries/limits, inside/outside,etc).
The topic of 'believing' is important to me. I hope we can keep our exploration/investigation of 'believing' congenial; collegial. I hope we can go beyond the dictionary definition of 'believing'. (The dictionary definition is like a skeleton, let's 'flesh' it out together.)
Would (some of) you tell us what you know about 'believing' from your own experience?
By doing so, we can find the 'common thread', of usage and purpose of 'believing', (and become better users).
For example; if we did that with cars, we would agree that the common denominator/purpose of using cars is as a means of travel; transportation; conveyance. Then we would get to the differences; color; make and model; age; condition; etc. We can learn from each other.
There might be more to 'believing' than what we individually believe about 'believing'. (let's find out).
Dacey; would you share what you know and believe about believing?
I'm deviating from your reply and taking six of your words out of context and putting them into mine.
"Believing" is something we all 'do'; whether intentionally or unintentionally.
My question is "What is the nature of 'believing', what is the process of 'believing' we claim we do.
Can we ask, "What is the mechanics of 'believing'? If it's not mechanical or,is it organic/physiological or 'mental'?
I can say; 'I grow my hair", but that's not accurate because "I"/'ego'/'persona'/ 'self-concept' is not involved.
When we say; I 'believe', what exactly do we 'do'? 'Believing' can be very 'consequential'. Life or death. For example: if I see a clear liquid in a bottle and I "believe" it's medicine and I want relief, and take a spoonful but in fact it's strychnine, it does not cause relief. (I take the placebo effect to the extreme).
It seems to me ,'believing' and 'what' thoughts we believe is very important to be aware of.
The point I was making was that those six words are applicable in a very limited number of circumstances. In most cases, I do not "believe or not believe", because whether I believe it or not is immaterial. When I am convinced that a belief or disbelief is necessary, I then enter into a complex analytical process in which I weigh a number of factors that will lead to either belief or disbelief, or more often, suspended deermination.
I'm mot trying to evade your question, but only to explain that it is quire rare in my life to be faced with a situation in which I must judge whether or not to believe. Far more often, it is satisfactory to just accept that a certain proposition has been asserted and then get on with my life, and maybe remember it for future consideration alongside another assertion.
When I used to read Bob Ripley's "Believe it or Not" feature in the daily papers, it was completely immaterial to me whether snakes have hips or not. I just went like "OK, there is a school of thought that vertebrate physiology defines hips as certain skeletal processes that snakes vestigially possess." (Sorry -- "went like" because I can't remember if I said it or thought it, or in exactly what words. So, "went like" works.)
That's actually a pretty straight forward insult. Anyway.
I see beliefs as something like the logical conclusion drawn from a valid argument. In a spin on your medication example, sakoz, the premises would be that the prescription bottle has my name on it, it has a medication listed (X) that I know I'm prescribed, and the pill looks like that medication. Those premises lead me to conclude (believe) that the medication is X. In a similar manner, I know I have condition Y, and that medication X is a relatively safe treatment for condition Y, so I conclude/believe that taking medication X is appropriate for me.
Beliefs about how the physical world works require more layers for me to arrive at them. I don't have much of an understanding of physics, for example, but I through a similar process described above I generally trust or conclude or believe that our university system trains people to design things based on their sound understanding of those principles. I still look at a large jet and part of me thinks it can't possible fly, but my eyes tell me otherwise, and my belief in the processes that led to the development of flight and the design of that plane convince me.
It gets murkier with beliefs about people. I spend a lot of time in the relationship section of this forum because my beliefs about how my life has played out socially are based on premises that I sometimes doubt. To use the example above, it would seem absurd to me to "choose" to believe that jets can't take off and fly, because they do. It would seem silly to attribute that flight to some cause other than the workings of the jet engines, the design of the plane, and so on. To believe that the plane flies due to the alignment of the stars or the prayers of a few passengers would not be a choice for me. But with reference to something like falling in love, there are no principles anything like aerodynamics or jet propulsion to look at and draw inferences from. So in a sense, it makes sense to "choose" to believe that love is spiritual, or otherwise that it's a chemical (hormonal) reaction, or otherwise again that it's a product of compatibility, or some combination of all of those things and other factors in the soup. All of those choices have some validity.
So in the realm of things not known with confidence, we can believe what works best for us in our circumstances. I can believe that love is a combination of physical and spiritual phenomena, and I can respect someone else's belief that love is an outgrowth of choosing to build a life with someone like minded. If I understand your original question, that's may be an example of regulating my beliefs. If jets start falling out of the sky with regularity, I would update my beliefs there, and so I guess that's a matter of regulating beliefs, also.
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