Distinguishing between truth and belief

[Basileos Leandros I]

Little essay I've made.

Distinguishing between something that is true and something that is believed to be true is something that we may be confronted with every day and yet we may or may not acknowledge it's existence. However, the truth/belief dichotomy is a knowledge issue that may not be wholly distinguishable. The knowledge issue that I intend to engage is the assumption that all truths are based on beliefs, and some truths are based on researched and highly documented beliefs, such as the cases of science and history.

Through the application of reason, emotion, perception and language as ways of knowing we may achieve a better understanding of the distinction between truth and belief. It appears to be impossible to draw such distinctions between them without encountering areas of controversy or debate which invariably cause lengthy discussions. This essay will seek to identify the difference between something that is true, or something that is accepted to be true, and something that is believed to be true by examining the conditions of truth and belief.

Truth is something that carries different connotations and meaning in all of the knowledge areas, but what we define as truth may or not apply for each respective situation. Belief on the other hand signifies that if you do know something, then what you claim to know must not only be true, but you must also believe it to be true. Eventually, while truth is an objective requirement for knowledge, belief is a subjective requirement for it.

Truth in our days is considered to contain different ways of knowledge such a language, perception, reasons, knowledge and above all, belief. Religion can only be considered as belief as nobody can possibly prove the existence of God, but there are many people who believe in his existence. Whatever you believe, supporting your beliefs with evidence and being able to consider and respond to criticism of your own views can be seen as a clear defining line between truth and belief. We cannot draw a clear difference between an accepted truth and truth. It is to everyone's latitude whether to accept a truth or not. In this case we need to mention the need for distinguish between objective and subjective truth.

A relevant example using the different ways of knowing illustrates the belief that something is true based on our perception. For example, the violent confrontation in 1972 between British troops and Catholic demonstrators left a death toll of thirteen Catholic protesters. The British troops opened fire because they claim they were attacked by terrorists. However, the Catholic witnesses said the army opened fire – this indicates that what we see, we believe. And what we see in one way we can consider it as truth, because we saw it happening. We have the utmost trust in our senses, so our perception cannot be changed unless there is a supernatural force acting upon us. Here we can clearly distinguish between truth and belief. Our perception makes it truthful for us, rather than being a simple belief that what we saw is true. We believe what we see, so it must be a truth.

Reasoning can be effectively used to distinguish between truth and something believed to be true as well. However, we cannot put logic for example in a precise, clear-cut category, as we do not know exactly when “day” begins and “night” ends. Some believe that the day starts when the sun rises, others believe the day starts when they wake up. Logic, in this case reasoning, attempts to draw a line where the day starts, but we cannot distinguish in this case whether what we believe regarding the start of the day is actually the truth whether it actually is the way we perceive it.

Considering the even deeper implications of truth and belief, we can consider simple intuition as part of this debate. Sixth sense hunches can be used to delve into the nature of belief. Intuitions stem from the simple belief that what you feel, or think, at that very moment is true. It may or may not turn out to be true after all, based on our perception, emotion or reasoning, but in this case we can clearly distinguish between the belief that we have and the truth.

The moment when intuition springs to our mind, not even scientists know the mechanism of the mind that triggers such moments, so the idea of having intuition as personal belief or personal truth cannot be considered. We can distinguish between each other, but we cannot place our intuition, therefore our emotion, in the category of either belief or truth.

Differencing between something that is true and something that is believed to be true must be compared using two specific examples. By analysing history, we can argue that Stalin had indeed committed mass murders in the Soviet Union, but how reliable are those sources? Can we consider them truthful and unbiased? However although this is an accepted truth, because it conforms with reality as defined in the dictionary and in the historical books, it is in the end our choice whether to accept it or not despite the fact that it is accepted as the general truth, an objective truth. This after all is reasoning from one's part, that Stalin's actions were exactly as they were presented in the historical documents. From this stems the belief that historians are right – this is truth by authority.

Examining the ways of knowing eventually leads to a through analysis of the areas of knowledge that make a clear distinction between belief and truth. There are problems arising when there is a clear difference in specific areas of knowledge such as trying to distinguish whether science is truth and religion is just belief; we can point out that in a sense in which not only religion but also science is based on belief. It can be argued that there are elements of faith built into all knowledge claims, which makes the hypothesis argued true. Religion is defined as the belief in the existence of a particular God; this definition however upholds the belief in pantheism, or pluralism regarding gods, that all religions point to the same underlying truth. The nature of God cannot be proved my traditional methods of existence, therefore the “truth” behind God cannot be verified.

By analysing the language used in religious statements we can clearly see the universality of a message that is trying to make people believe but many phrases and words are ambiguous and can apply to almost everything. In this case the language used in religion can be considered meaningless as it does not tell us anything about the nature of God, and therefore we can clearly use language and meaning as one of the ways of knowing to distinguish between belief and truth. However the issue regarding this “belief” is that it completely discredits religion to the status of just a collection of meaningless statements without any value whatsoever. Faith is difficult to define in a neutral way, but we can consider it as a mere belief with strong emotional commitment attached to it that enables us to form our own ideas regarding the world around us. In essence, it is a belief that may or may not apply to our definition of truth, and that we cannot distinguish in this case something that is true and something that is believed to be true.

The question that arises is regarding scientists, or conscientious objectors towards simple belief without ration and judgement. “Can a scientist pray? Well, it depends a bit on what is meant by a prayer.”1 While discussing religion an inevitable question arises – how do we distinguish appearance from reality? We may misinterpret what we see, such as miracles, but if we do trust our senses it may well be that our beliefs in miracles may actually be accepted truths.

Once more, the truth regarding religion is very ambiguous and differs from every person. The difference in belief from each person stems from their upbringing and religious instruction the person has received as a child. Logical positivists argue that a statement is meaningful only if it can be empirically verified, or falsified for that matter. The scientific laws which we all consider and read about are based on a specific, often limited, number of observations, and in this case we can never be completely sure that they are in fact true. In the end, every truth stems from the belief that the scientists in that case have verified the hypothesis, and therefore it is true, at least according to their seemingly unbiased and well prepared research and testing.

The ways of knowing help us distinguish between something that is true and something that is believed to be true only to a certain extent, and even in that case it may not fully answer the question posed. The hypothesis proposed therefore can be considered as being true, that all truths, whether subjective or not, are based on beliefs. What we perceive we believe it is true. What we think logically therefore we believe it is true. Our intuition is based on our perception, so therefore we believe it to be true until either it becomes true or it is disproven. If it does become true, then the knowledge issue presented is true.

[Helm]

*is crushed beneath a sheer wall of text*

Arrgggh!

*with his last dying breath*

Truth is backed up by evidence but belief holds the same is in spite of the absence of such evidence.

*dies*

[Basileos Leandros I]

*is crushed beneath a sheer wall of text*

Arrgggh!

*with his last dying breath*

Truth is backed up by evidence but belief holds the same is in spite of the absence of such evidence.

*dies*

I'm glad I managed to convey the essence in a very efficient manner

[Himster]

*is crushed beneath a sheer wall of text*

Arrgggh!

*with his last dying breath*

Truth is backed up by evidence but belief holds the same is in spite of the absence of such evidence.

*dies*

Truth may exist independent of evidence.

Belief is the human claim of truth, often we call our beliefs truth: when it suits us.

Despite toying on the edge of solipsism and crushing me under a wall of text, Basileos Leandros I: + rep.

[Basileos Leandros I]

Truth may exist independent of evidence.

Belief is the human claim of truth, often we call our beliefs truth: when it suits us.

Despite toying on the edge of solipsism and crushing me under a wall of text, Basileos Leandros I: + rep.

It wasn't my intention.
I tried to convey both sides of the argument as objectively as possible.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Basileos,

So reason and logic can distinguish between "truth" and "belief"?

Let me open my Nietzsche, my glorious Nietzsche. The one who dared to look at Western culture, morality and foundations, and denounce it in a manner that none has dared or been clever enough to realize before, or after !

Origin of the Logical. — Where has logic originated in men's heads? Undoubtedly out of the illogical, the domain of which must originally have been immense. But numberless beings who reasoned otherwise than we do at present, perished ; albeit that they may have come nearer to truth than we ! Whoever, for example, could not discern the " like " often enough with regard to food, and with regard to animals dangerous to him, whoever, therefore, deduced too slowly, or was too circumspect in his deductions, had smaller probability of survival than he who in all similar cases immediately divined the equality. The preponderating inclination, however, to deal with the similar as the equal — an illogical inclination, for there is nothing equal in itself — first created the whole basis of logic. It was just so (in order that the conception of substance should originate, this being indispensable to logic, although in the strictest sense nothing actual corresponds to it) that for a
long period the changing process in things had to be overlooked, and remain unperceived ; the beings not seeing correctly had an advantage over those who saw everything " in flux." In itself every high degree of circumspection in conclusions, every sceptical inclination, is a great danger to life. No living being might have been preserved unless the contrary inclination — to affirm rather than suspend judgment, to mistake and fabricate rather than wait, to assent rather than deny, to decide rather than be in the right — had been cultivated with extraordinary assiduity. — The course of logical thought and reasoning in our modern brain corresponds to a process and struggle of impulses, which singly and in themselves are all very illogical and unjust ; we experience usually only the result of the struggle, so rapidly and secretly does this primitive mechanism now operate in us.

Logic itself is an illogical impulse. Reason is a mere form of emotion.

The deification of "Logic" and "Reasoning" as the deciding criteria for the worth of a proposition is supreme philistinism. It has resulted in a singular unrealistic view of the world as consisting merely in the reduction of the sphere of the true to the sphere of rational, and has thus resulted in a single distinctly parochial form of thinking - and one, that as correctly stated by Nietzsche, resulted in the dominance of overwhelming negation in all our fields of inquiry. I have a nice little book, "Philosophies of Negation and Affirmation", which further exposes this critique.

The fact is - the rationality of an idea has nothing to do, whatsoever, with its truth, and validity.

[kesa82]

Truth in our days is considered to contain different ways of knowledge such a language, perception, reasons, knowledge and above all, belief. Religion can only be considered as belief as nobody can possibly prove the existence of God,

In "our days" is correct. Someone elses religion is so narrowly pigeon-holed.
Someone tells me they don't see any evidence of a creator. That's a claim, and a highly improbable claim. To err on the side of caution then is to assume they are making it up or lieing.
Animism is defined as religion or religious, but Animism generally does not have Gods. It has myriad spirits, good, bad, or indifferent.

[justicar5]

Someone tells me they don't see any evidence of a creator. That's a claim, and a highly improbable claim. To err on the side of caution then is to assume they are making it up or lieing.
.

What? You believe in a creator? And so everyone who doesn't must be lying?
Surely you see that religion is the greatest and most harmful fraud ever commited? Leading to deaths in the billions, wether thru direct violence or the repression of new ideas that could have saved lives.