Dont we all believe in something?
Posted on: February 15, 2008 - 1:58am
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Dont we all believe in something?
I was entertaining an idea tonight. I'm looking for insight about it from everyone. I've always thought I believed in absolutely nothing. However, dont all of us at least believe the universe exists? It seems like the only thing we can say absolutely is that "I know I exist". So are we all forced with this one belief that there is just no way to get out of? How do we know that everything around us is actually real? Peace to everyone
Doubt is the root of all wisdom. - Unknown
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I believe a lot of things, I just don't take them on faith alone.
How do we know what's around us actually real? We rely on the only tools we have at our disposal to determine that.
Yes, most of us believe that the universe exists. Most of us, when a professor or scientist teaches us something new, we believe they are telling the truth. But faith and belief are two different things. I have no faith that anything good is going to happen in my life unless I make it happen, but I do believe this cheeseburger sitting in front of me is going to taste good.
We dont. We could be in the matrix. But im pretty damn sure its real.
"I may be going to hell in a rocketship, but at least I get to ride in a rocketship. You have to climb those damn stairs. " - Katie Volker
This is a common argument from theists, and it comes down to equivocation. There are different meanings to the word 'belief,' and in one case it refers to a notion based on experience, and in the other it refers to a non-contingent certainty (faith, in other words).
I believe that if a truck hits me squarely as I stand in the middle of the street, it will hurt. I believe this because I have tons of evidence that trucks are heavy, that people are fragile, and that my mass is insufficient to absorb the momentum. I can look up the data, and I can perform an 'experiment' by standing in the middle of any highway. We believe many things in this sense, and if we're honest we allow that we could be mistaken.
It's often said by theists, or snooty agnostics, that you can't disprove gods. Is this not equivalent to saying you have absolutely no proof? That's what faith, the other use of the term belief, means: believing without evidence, and making a virtue of unjustified convictions that don't acknowledge new data (as in the lack of evidence of any kind).
ancient Buddha it is written said, when asked , what about a GOD? , He said who the fuck cares ! ....
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Its not like we have a other option and we cant be shore of this (The matrix , hallucination).
However assertion we are a part of a dream or a computer program brings us nothing !
So we can follow the rules of this matrix game even if it’s a simulation because we aren’t coming out of it
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Warning I’m not a native English speaker.
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I often ask myself
What if everybody I have ever known does not exist?
What if I am the only being that exists in the universe and everybody else is just a figment of my imagination?
What if every single thing I have ever seen, done, felt, experienced has been experienced solely by me and I am not really me?
What if I am God and everything around me is something I have created yet I have been here so long I forgot I created it?
What if I am the only living entity in the universe and everything I know to exist only exists in my mind?
What if all this is just a dream?
I can never truly disprove the possibility that those thoughts are true. I could very well be a God and this thread of yours could be really a thread I created with my subconscious. I may have created it trying to make me aware again that I am God, that this world is mine and that I have to awake from this dream I have thrust myself into.
The only thing I truly know is I exist, you might exist to or you might not.
If Jesus was born today he would be institutionalized as a schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur.
Oh no, only not that pre-Matrix shit again...
It's one thing to believe something, but quite another to believe in something. Believe in is very much like faith in. Basically what a lot of theists can't seem to grasp is, I don't believe in the universe, I believe the assertion that the universe exists, and for good reason. If it doesn't exist then that fact would tell me nothing useful or important. I do know that I exist. Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum. At the very least my consciousness exists and that I can prove deductively and with absolute certainty. Beyond that everything I just choose to believe based on the fact that it's true for all intents and purposes, or because, taking as axiomatic what is true for all intents and purposes, it can be verified as very likely true or partially true using the scientific method.
As an aside, and because I've been wanting to explain this to someone, and I wonder if anyone has any input, there's a difference people seem to miss between faith in the character of someone or something and faith in the existence of someone or something. For instance in many a debate with theists they have brought up the fact that I have faith in my family. That's funny to me because it's true, I have faith in the character of my family based on experience, however, I do not need to have faith in their existence. So my faith in my family is not at all comparable to anyone's faith in god. I just thought that was pretty funny stuff. It's tangentially related to the OP and some of the responses, so I thought I'd just throw that out there
Knowledge, philosophically speaking, is very well justified belief.
Belief is the condition of accepting something as true, and doesn't have anything to do with the objective reality of the belief. Knowledge, on the other hand, requires more objectivity.
In other words, I can believe that my car keys are on the counter, whether they are or not. For me to know that they are on the counter, I must have empirical evidence of this.
So, to be precise, everyone has many beliefs. Anything for which you would nod your head in agreement, you believe. It is philosophically possible, I guess, that someone could only have one piece of knowledge -- that being his own existence -- but that get's tricky, for if I ask myself, "Do I know that I exist?" I now have two pieces of knowledge. I know that I exist, and I know the answer to the question, "Do I know that I exist."
This is probably about ten times more than you were looking for, but this is the answer to the question. Of course, when theists ask, "But don't you believe in something?" they are asking if we believe in something supernatural, or something 'bigger than ourselves.' In other words, they're asking if we're sure we aren't really theists. The answer to that, of course, is no. We don't believe in something bigger than the natural universe.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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That's so buddha buddha carx ! quote "So we can follow the rules of this matrix game even if it’s a simulation because we aren’t coming out of it "
.... giggles , .... lots of RRS buddhas, cool.
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I believe I'll have another beer.
me too, Now if we could get the buddhists drunk ! ye haw .... heaven at last ....
I believe that Big is a fantastic movie.
Hmm... interesting... but, I don't think I agree that there's a difference. Faith is faith, regardless of what you have faith in. In the case of one's family, one would presumably have some experience to draw conclusions from... and if those conclusions are based on reasonable consideration of the experience, it's not a matter of faith. If, on the other hand, those conclusions are based on ideas of what family members should be, or on how one wants them to be, then it is a matter of faith. To have faith in the existence of a family member would require some atypical situation, e.g. an adopted child has faith that his/her parents are alive somewhere.
Faith is just trust in the truth of something assumed. Faith is not necessary for something proveable. Thus I don't require faith in the existence of my family, but i would require faith in the existence of a god. On the other hand I do have to have faith in their character because I can't prove that I'll get consistent results from my family but I can look at past experience with them and determine whether or not I should trust them. That faith is contingent on experience, however faith in the existence of anything is not contingent upon experience. It's an assumption that is trusted based on nothing at all. The difference isn't in the word or the use of the word, but in what is required to hold the respective faiths, and the likelyhood that the respective faiths will be confirmed or shown false. In the case of faith in the character of a family member the chances are greater due to their certain existence that they will either confirm your faith or give you reason to question or abandon it at some point in your life, but in the case of faith in the existence of god, you will never in your life see confirmation, most likely, and at the same time it will be a matter of choice and choice alone to question or abandon it, at least most likely.
Is the question you are really asking:
"Don't we all believe in something without evidence?" ??
I think I mostly agree with you, but I think degrees of confidence need to be taken into account. For example, I have a certain level of confidence in certain attituedes and beliefs that my family members hold, and I have a certain confidence that they will behave in a manner consistent with those attitudes and beliefs in the future. I consider my confidence to be fully justified by my experience, and without faith. To have a greater confidence than what my experience justifies would be a matter of faith, to the degree to which that confidence extended beyond what was justified by experience. A strong belief in a God with little or no evidence to support it would require considerably more faith than would be required to have that extra confidence in the characteristics of my family. So, I acknowledge a difference in magnitude, but not a difference in nature.