Created by vs. Descended from?
- Thread starter Carcano
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In one sense, yes, as belief also involves trust, loyalty.
The purely cognitive aspect of belief can be a bit more difficult to explain in short.
What does that have to do with anything? Does that address anything I've said?
I think that having "a belief" is not necessarily the same as simply believing something because it makes sense
at that time.
I think we are capable of believing thing's without incorporating them into a belief system.
jan.
Music about love? Surely not! :-D 
I am sure it is possible to find more exact terms for all these phenomena.
Nothing is wrong with the current term, it just doesn't fully explain what's actually happening.
jan.
I don't follow. Can you give me an example of the meanings and connotations of these terms getting in the way of "precise analysis?"
It doesn't have to be complex, it can be very simple.
Complexity, increases needless confusion IMO.
jan.
They make the difference in whether we understand something (and can then act accordingly), or whether we don't understand something (and then act accordingly).
Some things are complex in the sense that they consist of many elements or factors. That's just how some things are.
We've been over this ...
For example, to one person, "to believe" means 'to hold a proposition as true'; and to another person, "to believe" means 'to be faithful, to be loyal.'
Then, they talk about what they believe in, and they end up in conflict, because each of them means different things by "belief," and until they work out the differences, the conflict will remain.
But the word "belief" objectively does not include the caveats of faithfulness and loyalty; that's something you've invented, and the source of your conflict. There's nothing wrong with the word, it's simply that you've chosen to redefine it in such a way that isn't commonly used. The conflict could be resolved simply by saying that you are faithful and loyal in addition to your belief. What you're essentially doing is saying that "exhausted" isn't an exact enough term because it doesn't include "cranky" and "hungry."
I mean, you can define it that way if you wish, but you can't expect there not to be misunderstandings when you converse with others, and you can't blame it on the word itself.
belief (n.)
late 12c., bileave, replacing Old English geleafa "belief, faith," from West Germanic *ga-laubon "to hold dear, esteem, trust" (cf. Old Saxon gilobo, Middle Dutch gelove, Old High German giloubo, German Glaube), from *galaub- "dear, esteemed," from intensive prefix *ga- + *leubh- "to care, desire, like, love" (see love (v.)). The prefix was altered on analogy of the verb believe. The distinction of the final consonant from that of believe developed 15c.
"The be-, which is not a natural prefix of nouns, was prefixed on the analogy of the vb. (where it is naturally an intensive) .... [OED]
Belief used to mean "trust in God," while faith meant "loyalty to a person based on promise or duty" (a sense preserved in keep one's faith, in good (or bad) faith and in common usage of faithful, faithless, which contain no notion of divinity). But faith, as cognate of Latin fides, took on the religious sense beginning in 14c. translations, and belief had by 16c. become limited to "mental acceptance of something as true," from the religious use in the sense of "things held to be true as a matter of religious doctrine" (a sense attested from early 13c.).
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=belief&searchmode=none
Words have etymologies, and at least some people are not ignorant of them.
late 12c., bileave, replacing Old English geleafa "belief, faith," from West Germanic *ga-laubon "to hold dear, esteem, trust" (cf. Old Saxon gilobo, Middle Dutch gelove, Old High German giloubo, German Glaube), from *galaub- "dear, esteemed," from intensive prefix *ga- + *leubh- "to care, desire, like, love" (see love (v.)). The prefix was altered on analogy of the verb believe. The distinction of the final consonant from that of believe developed 15c.
"The be-, which is not a natural prefix of nouns, was prefixed on the analogy of the vb. (where it is naturally an intensive) .... [OED]
Belief used to mean "trust in God," while faith meant "loyalty to a person based on promise or duty" (a sense preserved in keep one's faith, in good (or bad) faith and in common usage of faithful, faithless, which contain no notion of divinity). But faith, as cognate of Latin fides, took on the religious sense beginning in 14c. translations, and belief had by 16c. become limited to "mental acceptance of something as true," from the religious use in the sense of "things held to be true as a matter of religious doctrine" (a sense attested from early 13c.).
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=belief&searchmode=none
Words have etymologies, and at least some people are not ignorant of them.
If you lived in the 12th century, you'd have a point. But what a word used to mean is irrelevant. "Faggot" used to be an insult intended for a certain kind of woman, but it certainly doesn't mean that anymore, your knowledge of its etymology notwithstanding.
It's ridiculous to argue that a word must mean what it has always meant.
The "something“ to be understood in this case, is inherent. We already understand it.
All things are complex, but we don't need every detail of something to understand the parts that relate to us.
jan.
If that would be so, then how come some people don't agree with what you're saying? How come some people don't think they "already understand it"?
In that case, you end up with one of two problems or both:
One, the problem of how to explain that a perfectly knowledgeable being can fall into illusion, into ignorance.
Two, the problem of being evil by nature.
If people are perfectly knowledgeable by nature, how can they become ignorant, how can they fall into illusion?
That is only possible if by nature, they are also evil.
But if they are evil by nature - well, hopefully you see where the problems are in assuming that we're evil by nature.
I haven't invented it. It is there in its etymology, and it is there in the culture of the religious.
Of course, if you hold that atheists and people who are on principle against any form of faith, are the ones who are the most suitable to be held as authorities on what words like "faith" and "belief" mean or should mean, then ...
:m: