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+--- Thread: On the nature of belief (/thread-12951.html)
On the nature of belief - Ostronomos - Sep 29, 2022
[b]On the need to believe as a starting point of truth...[/b]
This, my confused friend, moreso speaks to the veracity of human nature than the validity of individual interpretations (which are always parts of a whole). It more reflects the need to believe in something as the motivation behind a life of truth, whether that be the belief in atheism or the knowledge of God. Only a life of truth leads one to God. As we are products of our conditioning and genetics, conditioning and genetics almost always leads one to truth, unless you're evil or atheist.
RE: On the nature of belief - Magical Realist - Sep 30, 2022
And what if you're an agnostic and simply acknowledge you don't know enough to form a belief about the beyond? Can we be so dishonest with ourselves that we will believe just in order to gain some sort of benefit? What kind of self-blindedness would that require?
RE: On the nature of belief - Zinjanthropos - Oct 1, 2022
Better start them when they’re young Ostro. Two year olds & younger lie all the time so maybe you might want to create an age limit. A life of truth is a pretty tall order. Unfortunately that makes a life of truth a lie, sorry about you’re luck especially if you believed you qualified. Right now the only humans that might get consideration are those who haven’t developed language skills, like newborns.
RE: On the nature of belief - Yazata - Oct 1, 2022
(Sep 29, 2022 04:42 PM)Ostronomos Wrote: This, my confused friend
Who are you addressing? What is the context of this post? What does "this" refer to?
Addressing the question implicit in the thread title...
Quote:On the nature of belief
I guess that my definition of belief is that it's a propositional attitude, in which the truth of a proposition is being affirmed.
"Sue believes it is raining outside" means that Sue affirms that the proposition "It is raining outside" is True.
Quote:On the need to believe as a starting point of truth...
Well, since truth and falsity are properties of propositions, one would need to have a proposition before one can have truth or falsity. Humans generate propositions.
But I don't think that there's any need to believe that the proposition is true in order for it to be true. Whether we adopt a correspondence theory of truth or a coherence theory, things that we don't personally believe might nevertheless be true.
I guess that an exception to that might be a pragmatic account of religious truth, where the "truth" of a religious doctrine is the effect it has on a religious individual. (Early Buddhism was like that.) So in that kind of case, the religious doctrine won't have its intended effect on the individual unless he or she believes it.