Belief

Post by **Shaalae** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 7:35 am

In another thread in this forum we discussed if we humans were on the moon or if it all was a fake. In the discussion we were confronted with the concept of believe. I thought that believe has no place in such a discussion, but because i'm also very interested in religion and belief and their influence i'm oping this new topic to learn from each other and to discuss different points of view.

Post by **Shaalae** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 7:37 am

If you don't believe in something- you will fall for anything.

For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe, no explanation is possible."
(For the believer, no evidence is necessary. For the non believer, no evidence is possible.
-- Ed Warren)

First: the following is not an attack on religous belief. I am talking about belief in general.
I would like to begin the discussion with these two quotes. They state that belief is an integral part of the process of reason. It seems you have to belief to form an adequate opinion. But i say that belief contradicts the very foundation of reason. It is not enough for a scientist to believe in his theory he has to prove it with an experiment. One principal of science is to always question yourself and that is impossible if you belief in your theories - it stands in the way. The very concept of belief is founded on non-facts, that is why you believe in the first place. In belief you have to sometimes ignore facts.
Someone said that one of these quotes is from an UFO-Believer. A good example: Exactly that is the problem with all the fringe-fields of science - belief. When you believe in UFOs you are not open to evidence against or for them - all is changed into a conspiracy to fit your world view. The belief hinders you to see what is really there and belief gives you the chance to just change facts and ignore facts at will. That is what i call fanatism. I'm certainly not saying that everyone who believes in something is a fanatic but the very concept of belief bears the seed of fanatism in itself.
Belief has to stay outside of the process of reason, it is far more important to always question yourself and your actions.
(Annotation: Believing in yourself is something entirely different. It has nothing to do with belief but with self-assurance!)

Please respond and post your thoughts (and my mistakes) on that!!

Post by **Knightmare** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 6:36 pm

The very concept of belief is founded on non-facts,

Perhaps. But it's those facts that, in most cases, lead directly to the belief.

Scientists say that interstellar space travel is impossible at this point because they believe in the laws of physics. All ideas of space travel between the stars by alien life forms is disregarded because of that belief.

But yet, science still doesn't know for a FACT that it's impossible. Mainly because they have yet to define all things that are possible.

They just base their belief on the facts that are available at this time, without taking into consideration that at some point, they may find out they are wrong.

You will hear very few scientists say something along these lines " At this point, we don't believe this to be possible. However, we may be proven wrong in the future ".

Instead, they will issue flat out statements like " It's just not possible ".

Post by **Shaalae** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 5:38 am

I also don't think that it is possible to believe in the laws of physics - they are there after all (until we dicover that everything is false ;-)). Our entire view of the universe is based on postulates but we (as humans) need something to start with after all...
You are of course right with your criticism about scientist.
Perhaps our difference of opinion is really a semantic difference. I am a bit against the word belief and its meaning over the history of mankind. Therefore i can't really accept the term belief when dealing with facts. But when you look closer at our process of thinking there is always a kind of uncertainty, which i try to overcome with what i call reason and common sense. But because there is this uncertainty it is in principal impossible to really reason. Perhaps there is constantly a kind of 'leap of faith' happening in our brains.
But that would also mean that this is another kind of belief, than what is usually meant by that term.

(About space travel and science: I think that is not true. I've recently read a book by the physicist Kaku who said that space travel is entirely possible and within the laws of physics - it is just not really practicable or it takes too much energy to get anywhere.)

Post by **MzSnowleopard** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 6:15 am

interesting convictions

Post by **Shaalae** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 5:43 am

Indeed.

Post by **Gavin Shaw** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 11:30 am

Shaalae wrote:Indeed.

Wasn't that phrase that Teal'c always said?

Post by **Shaalae** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 1:11 pm

Indeed.
(

I'm currently watching Sg-1.)

Belief

<t>How important is belief (not necessarily religious belief) in your life?</t>

Belief