Philosophy Now Forum

Recently I have this ridiculous encounter with 'Age' where he claimed;
'I do NOT have any Beliefs'.
I BELIEVE the above statement from Age is delusional.

I have argued the faculty of believing and its resulting beliefs are inherent within all human beings.

Here is an interesting article re What is Belief;
http://changingminds.org/explanations/belief/belief.htm

Articles on belief include:

• What Is Belief?: Gives a simple definition.
  Adaptive Beliefs: Beliefs that can change.
  Beliefs About People: Very much affect how we interact with them.
  Belief, Faith and Commitment: The effects of particular belief.
  Care-Behavior Matrix: How different beliefs lead to different interpersonal behaviors.
  The Confidence Trap: Too much belief can be bad for you.
  Denialism: Choosing to avoid the truth.
  Doublethink: Orwell's holding of contradictory beliefs.
  Ellis' Irrational Beliefs: Dysfunctional beliefs that many of us hold.
  Enabling Beliefs: Beliefs that help you.
  Health Belief Model: A useful model from healthcare work.
  Language in Belief: The language we speak changes what we believe.
  Limiting Beliefs: Beliefs which constrain us.
  Kahler's Drivers: I must be perfect, strong, etc.
  Sacred Beliefs: Which can never be contradicted.
  The Decay of Belief: How beliefs fade and change.
  The Formation of Belief: Describes how we find our beliefs.
  The Need for Belief: We have an internal driver to believe.
  The Samson Principle: Building and breaking beliefs.
  Three-Stage Belief Change: A method used by cults and others.
  Tolerance and Action in Belief: How tolerant we are of other beliefs.
  Types of Belief: Classifies the sorts of things we believe in.
  Strengths of Beliefs: Discusses strong, weak and blind beliefs.
  Superstition: Beliefs that drive rituals.

I have processed the links to 3 titles as convenience.
Each Title has its own link to its own access in the above main article, i.e.
http://changingminds.org/explanations/belief/belief.htm

Has any one any strong argument on there is no need for beliefs or no such thing as beliefs?

Personally I believe there is no way we can do away with beliefs because the faculty of believing is inherent in all humans.

Views?

Here is an interesting article re What is Belief;
http://changingminds.org/explanations/source/belief/belief.htm

Articles on belief include:

• What Is Belief?: Gives a simple definition.
  Adaptive Beliefs: Beliefs that can change.
  Beliefs About People: Very much affect how we interact with them.
  Belief, Faith and Commitment: The effects of particular belief.
  Care-Behavior Matrix: How different beliefs lead to different interpersonal behaviors.
  The Confidence Trap: Too much belief can be bad for you.
  Denialism: Choosing to avoid the truth.
  Doublethink: Orwell's holding of contradictory beliefs.
  Ellis' Irrational Beliefs: Dysfunctional beliefs that many of us hold.
  Enabling Beliefs: Beliefs that help you.
  Health Belief Model: A useful model from healthcare work.
  Language in Belief: The language we speak changes what we believe.
  Limiting Beliefs: Beliefs which constrain us.
  Kahler's Drivers: I must be perfect, strong, etc.
  Sacred Beliefs: Which can never be contradicted.
  The Decay of Belief: How beliefs fade and change.
  The Formation of Belief: Describes how we find our beliefs.
  The Need for Belief: We have an internal driver to believe.
  The Samson Principle: Building and breaking beliefs.
  Three-Stage Belief Change: A method used by cults and others.
  Tolerance and Action in Belief: How tolerant we are of other beliefs.
  Types of Belief: Classifies the sorts of things we believe in.
  Strengths of Beliefs: Discusses strong, weak and blind beliefs.
  Superstition: Beliefs that drive rituals.

Beliefs are inherent - I would not deny that in any case. While our perception and interpretation of phenomena and things changes due to temporal and spacial changes, beliefs also change accordingly.
And from a linguistic point of view, the word belief itself confirms that there may be a phenomenon or a process of believing or not. And if it appeared in one culture and then spread as the denotation of mental acceptance of something as true, then "mental" representation of a process was rendered through the word belief.

Veritas

Are you at all aware that the definition of a word could be just an 'opinion' - or a purely subjective thought?

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:00 am Recently I have this ridiculous encounter with 'Age' where he claimed;
'I do NOT have any Beliefs'.
I BELIEVE the above statement from Age is delusional.

You may BELIEVE it to be stupid. You, however, have yet to provide just one example of a BELIEF, which you BELIEVE I have.

Until you provide at least one example, then you do NOT even have any thing to base your BELIEF on. You also do NOT have any thing to base any support upon and "argue" for.

I have already queried you about when I asked you; When did BELIEFS arise within human beings? Remember you have NOT yet answered that question.

Also remember there was a stage of evolution that there were obviously NO beliefs, (unless of course you are going to TRY TO argue from a certain perspective, but until you do, which can be countered anyway), human beings have survived and are still surviving and existing. Therefore, BELIEFS WERE once NOT necessary for human beings continual survival. If beliefs WERE not necessary for survival, and human beings are sill surviving and existing, then beliefs ARE still NOT necessary now. If human beings can exist and survive BEFORE, then they can still do it NOW.

This ability to exist and survive can also be very simply and easily evidence AND proven, nowadays, through young human beings. Young human beings do NOT have any BELIEFS.

IF, however, you can prove with evidence that human babies are born WITH beliefs, then that gives your BELIEF more weight, but it is still NOT evidence and thus still does NOT prove that your belief is true, right, and correct.

IF, unfortunately, you have NO proof that human beings are born with BELIEFS, then you will have to inform us at what stage of a human being do BELIEFS start to arise? AND, if a human being can live, survive, and exist up to that stage, then that is enough EVIDENCE and PROOF, to me, that human beings do NOT need BELIEFS.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:00 amI have argued the faculty of believing and its resulting beliefs are inherent within all human beings.

You might accept YOUR, attempt at, "arguments" but I do NOT. To me that are neither sound nor valid.

You have already contradicted the title of this thread;

What is Belief?

To just to be able to LOOK AT any responses given, you would have to be OPEN to what those responses are. 'LOOK AT', here, means to be able to learn and understand, from another's perspective.

If, however, you/a person already BELIEVES that you/they KNOW What Belief IS, then obviously you/they are NOT open.

You, veritas, BELIEVE you already KNOW what Belief IS.

You had and held this BELIEF even before you made this thread. Therefore from the very onset of writing this thread title you are NOT, and NEVER were since you had that BELIEF, going to be OPEN to any thing that is put forward here, which is contrary to what you already BELIEVE is the Truth. To be OPEN, to a contrary view, would be to be in contradiction of a BELIEF, itself. But, of course, you will be "OPEN" to THAT what you are in agreement with.

NOT being OPEN is what Belief entails. By the very nature of BELIEVING, which is how a BELIEF works, you BELIEVE you KNOW what the truth IS.

A person only has a BELIEF of some thing if they BELIEVE that thing is true.

Surely you are NOT going to now TRY TO suggest that you BELIEVE in things that are not necessarily true and COULD actually be not true, are you?

If you were, I would then ask you, Why would you BELIEVE in some thing that may not even be true anyway?

By just asking the very question in the title here, with the BELIEFS that you already have, you have contradicted your self. You are going against What Belief IS.

If, however, you are at all truly OPEN, then you will give others a chance to give their definition/s, and either accept them for what they ARE or dismiss them and just disregard them. But you can NOT successfully argue against WHAT definition another gives for the word BELIEF nor HOW they define a word. To even imagine/think you could argue against that would be a rather foolish mistake.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:00 am Here is an interesting article re What is Belief;
http://changingminds.org/explanations/belief/belief.htm

Articles on belief include:

• What Is Belief?: Gives a simple definition.
  Adaptive Beliefs: Beliefs that can change.
  Beliefs About People: Very much affect how we interact with them.
  Belief, Faith and Commitment: The effects of particular belief.
  Care-Behavior Matrix: How different beliefs lead to different interpersonal behaviors.
  The Confidence Trap: Too much belief can be bad for you.
  Denialism: Choosing to avoid the truth.
  Doublethink: Orwell's holding of contradictory beliefs.
  Ellis' Irrational Beliefs: Dysfunctional beliefs that many of us hold.
  Enabling Beliefs: Beliefs that help you.
  Health Belief Model: A useful model from healthcare work.
  Language in Belief: The language we speak changes what we believe.
  Limiting Beliefs: Beliefs which constrain us.
  Kahler's Drivers: I must be perfect, strong, etc.
  Sacred Beliefs: Which can never be contradicted.
  The Decay of Belief: How beliefs fade and change.
  The Formation of Belief: Describes how we find our beliefs.
  The Need for Belief: We have an internal driver to believe.
  The Samson Principle: Building and breaking beliefs.
  Three-Stage Belief Change: A method used by cults and others.
  Tolerance and Action in Belief: How tolerant we are of other beliefs.
  Types of Belief: Classifies the sorts of things we believe in.
  Strengths of Beliefs: Discusses strong, weak and blind beliefs.
  Superstition: Beliefs that drive rituals.

I have processed the links to 3 titles as convenience.
Each Title has its own link to its own access in the above main article, i.e.
http://changingminds.org/explanations/belief/belief.htm

You can provide as many links and references to "other's" writings/views, and provide as much supporting evidence as you like from "others", but NONE of it has any weight or bearing here in regards to asking a question like;
What is Belief?

Absolutely EVERY link, reference, and so called "supporting evidence" here is just an 'opinion - a purely subjective thought.

Has any one any strong argument on there is no need for beliefs or no such thing as beliefs?

YES, I HAVE, on one respect, but not on the other one.

On one respect;
I am able to neither believe, nor disbelieve, any thing is true, right, or correct, so I have NO BELIEFS.
I found that I am still living and existing.
I can see how human babies have NO, need for, BELIEFS, and that these human babies, without BELIEFS, keep living and existing, some well into adulthood.
I also see that human beings as a species evolve and that at one stage they were living without BELIEFS.
Therefore, to me, there is NO need for BELIEFS.

By the way, I also found I am much more OPEN to seeing things how they really ARE, when I have NO BELIEFS.

On the other respect;
Of course there is such a thing as BELIEFS.
To even contemplate the idea that there were no such things as BELIEFS would be a rather VERY stupid thing to do, to me.

You, veritas, are living proof that there are such things as BELIEFS. As you say, YOU can NOT live without them, and, as evidenced by you, YOU thrive on BELIEFS. You have shown many times already that you are NOT able to LOOK AT things, other than through and from some sort of BELIEF. In fact, if your hypothesis is True that you/human beings can NOT survive without BELIEFS, then 'You', verita, are just one mass, (or mess) of existing different BELIEFS. You have stated that you could NOT live without these BELIEFS, therefore, that could more or less mean that BELIEFS is what you are.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:00 amPersonally I believe there is no way we can do away with beliefs because the faculty of believing is inherent in all humans.

Well, if you did BELIEVE that you can do away with BELIEFS, IF, as you say, and BELIEVE, the faculty of BELIEVING is inherent in ALL humans, then to BELIEVE one when you also BELIEVE the other is, surely even to you, even beyond the absurd.

How do you propose a human being could do away with what is by all means inherent? To even contemplate this beyond foolishness.

I KNOW this is stating the obvious, but the VERY REASON WHY you BELIEVE you can not do away with BELIEFS is because of the very BELIEF that you have, that BELIEVING is inherent to all human beings.

In other words by having any BELIEF at all, this will NOT allow you do do away with BELIEFS. By the very nature of BELIEFS and BELIEVING you are incapable of see and doing some things.

The BELIEF-system, itself, will NOT allow you to let go of any BELIEF, By just having A BELIEF, any BELIEF, that reinforces the BELIEF-system to BELIEVE that BELIEFS are NECESSARY, for own's own survival. So, of course if one has the BELIEF that BELIEFS are inherent in ALL human beings, then obviously, and by the very nature of BELIEFS, it is going to be IMPOSSIBLE to "do away with BELIEFS".

Also, notice HOW even without any evidence nor proof that BELIEFS are necessary for human beings survival, the BELIEF will still EXIST and fight even harder at absolutely any thing that opposes that BELIEF. Of course, you, veritas, will NOT notice nor even be able to LOOK AT, and thus SEE this, but some readers can very easily SEE and UNDERSTAND what I am saying here.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:00 amViews?

How OPEN are you to OPPOSING VIEWS, of yours?

Be careful how you answer this verita, that is if you ever were to, because I have already well explained the contradiction if you were to say that you are OPEN to opposing points of VIEW.

PrfromTexas wrote: ↑Mon Dec 03, 2018 9:18 am

Here is an interesting article re What is Belief;
http://changingminds.org/explanations/source/belief/belief.htm

Articles on belief include:

• What Is Belief?: Gives a simple definition.
  Adaptive Beliefs: Beliefs that can change.
  Beliefs About People: Very much affect how we interact with them.
  Belief, Faith and Commitment: The effects of particular belief.
  Care-Behavior Matrix: How different beliefs lead to different interpersonal behaviors.
  The Confidence Trap: Too much belief can be bad for you.
  Denialism: Choosing to avoid the truth.
  Doublethink: Orwell's holding of contradictory beliefs.
  Ellis' Irrational Beliefs: Dysfunctional beliefs that many of us hold.
  Enabling Beliefs: Beliefs that help you.
  Health Belief Model: A useful model from healthcare work.
  Language in Belief: The language we speak changes what we believe.
  Limiting Beliefs: Beliefs which constrain us.
  Kahler's Drivers: I must be perfect, strong, etc.
  Sacred Beliefs: Which can never be contradicted.
  The Decay of Belief: How beliefs fade and change.
  The Formation of Belief: Describes how we find our beliefs.
  The Need for Belief: We have an internal driver to believe.
  The Samson Principle: Building and breaking beliefs.
  Three-Stage Belief Change: A method used by cults and others.
  Tolerance and Action in Belief: How tolerant we are of other beliefs.
  Types of Belief: Classifies the sorts of things we believe in.
  Strengths of Beliefs: Discusses strong, weak and blind beliefs.
  Superstition: Beliefs that drive rituals.

Beliefs are inherent - I would not deny that in any case. While our perception and interpretation of phenomena and things changes due to temporal and spacial changes, beliefs also change accordingly.

If beliefs can also change, then why do you have BELIEFS, and maintain them?

If beliefs can change, then that means that they were NOT true, right, nor correct, in the beginning.
BELIEFS do NOT just appear and are uncontrollable.
So, If a BELIEF is NOT necessarily True, Right, nor Correct, and you do in fact control what to BELIEVE and DISBELIEVE, then WHY do YOU choose to have and/or hold some BELIEFS, in the first place?

I control whether I have, and hold, a BELIEF, or not. But of course, you may well BELIEVE that BELIEFS are NOT controllable, and that you have absolutely NO say in what happens here regarding this. So, what do you (choose to) say and/or (choose to) BELIEVE here, in this regard?

PrfromTexas wrote: ↑Mon Dec 03, 2018 9:18 amAnd from a linguistic point of view, the word belief itself confirms that there may be a phenomenon or a process of believing or not.

Of course there has to be some sort of believing process for the word 'belief' to have formed and to have any meaning. I do NOT think any one would dispute this. The process of this BELIEVING takes shape by one HAVING TO believe some thing is True, Right, and Correct, FIRST, in order for the word BELIEF to have or form or meaning about it, correct?

PrfromTexas wrote: ↑Mon Dec 03, 2018 9:18 am And if it appeared in one culture and then spread as the denotation of mental acceptance of something as true, then "mental" representation of a process was rendered through the word belief.

Is this part of an argument for, or are you calling this some sort of, an argument for BELIEFS ARE INHERENT? Or, is this just some thing else?

By the way do you have any sort of actual EVIDENCE that BELIEFS ARE INHERENT, or is that just what you accept and/or BELIEVE is True?

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:00 am Recently I have this ridiculous encounter with 'Age' where he claimed;
'I do NOT have any Beliefs'.
I BELIEVE the above statement from Age is delusional.

I have argued the faculty of believing and its resulting beliefs are inherent within all human beings.

uch thing as beliefs?

Personally I believe there is no way we can do away with beliefs because the faculty of believing is inherent in all humans.

Views?

ILLUSIONS, DELUSIONS, CONFUSIONS

Illusions are often the imaginings we create in our minds taken from interpretations of others. Out of these, we choose meanings that we feel suit our need for expansion into the ethereal; expansion that takes us beyond what our senses show us. It is from these illusions that we get material to create our Delusions, meaning those things that we will insist on believing in spite of an obvious lack of evidence. Our acceptance of these ‘delusions’ creates great conflict in our minds due to our inability to integrate the imagined into a world that operates according to the rules of substance. For this we suffer ‘Confusion.’

If you choose to use atheistic logic, you have to negate all things perceived with our subjective awareness. This we cannot do! To devalue all that we believe, all that was deduced, even though not evidenced, asks us to give up the interests we share with common mortality; our hopes, our aspirations, and our faiths. A purely logical person is someone that openly declares no hope, no aspirations, and no faith. The rejection of these, like beliefs, unfortunately for the Atheist, are also products of the subjective process’ of the mind. Even the very rejection of faith comes from its own subjective influences. Ultimately all of us are subjective beings, whether or not we chose to believe in an Afterlife or not.

Age wrote: ↑Mon Dec 03, 2018 12:17 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:00 am Recently I have this ridiculous encounter with 'Age' where he claimed;
'I do NOT have any Beliefs'.
I BELIEVE the above statement from Age is delusional.

You may BELIEVE it to be stupid. You, however, have yet to provide just one example of a BELIEF, which you BELIEVE I have.

Until you provide at least one example, then you do NOT even have any thing to base your BELIEF on. You also do NOT have any thing to base any support upon and "argue" for.

I have already queried you about when I asked you; When did BELIEFS arise within human beings? Remember you have NOT yet answered that question.

Also remember there was a stage of evolution that there were obviously NO beliefs, (unless of course you are going to TRY TO argue from a certain perspective, but until you do, which can be countered anyway), human beings have survived and are still surviving and existing. Therefore, BELIEFS WERE once NOT necessary for human beings continual survival. If beliefs WERE not necessary for survival, and human beings are sill surviving and existing, then beliefs ARE still NOT necessary now. If human beings can exist and survive BEFORE, then they can still do it NOW.

This ability to exist and survive can also be very simply and easily evidence AND proven, nowadays, through young human beings. Young human beings do NOT have any BELIEFS.

IF, however, you can prove with evidence that human babies are born WITH beliefs, then that gives your BELIEF more weight, but it is still NOT evidence and thus still does NOT prove that your belief is true, right, and correct.

IF, unfortunately, you have NO proof that human beings are born with BELIEFS, then you will have to inform us at what stage of a human being do BELIEFS start to arise? AND, if a human being can live, survive, and exist up to that stage, then that is enough EVIDENCE and PROOF, to me, that human beings do NOT need BELIEFS.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:00 amI have argued the faculty of believing and its resulting beliefs are inherent within all human beings.

You might accept YOUR, attempt at, "arguments" but I do NOT. To me that are neither sound nor valid.

I'll take a stab at your challenge, italicized above.

You believe that Philosophy Forum provides you an opportunity to express your views.

Although my words could be taken facetiously, I am being serious.

Age wrote: ↑Mon Dec 03, 2018 11:51 am Veritas

Are you at all aware that the definition of a word could be just an 'opinion' - or a purely subjective thought?

A definition of word can be an opinion, beliefs or related to knowledge.
Scientific knowledge is supported by many definitions and proven by Justified True Beliefs.
Scientific knowledge are also conditioned by unproven beliefs, i.e. assumptions.

Age wrote: ↑Mon Dec 03, 2018 1:57 pm

PrfromTexas wrote: ↑Mon Dec 03, 2018 9:18 am

Here is an interesting article re What is Belief;
http://changingminds.org/explanations/source/belief/belief.htm

Articles on belief include:

• What Is Belief?: Gives a simple definition.
  Adaptive Beliefs: Beliefs that can change.
  Beliefs About People: Very much affect how we interact with them.
  Belief, Faith and Commitment: The effects of particular belief.
  Care-Behavior Matrix: How different beliefs lead to different interpersonal behaviors.
  The Confidence Trap: Too much belief can be bad for you.
  Denialism: Choosing to avoid the truth.
  Doublethink: Orwell's holding of contradictory beliefs.
  Ellis' Irrational Beliefs: Dysfunctional beliefs that many of us hold.
  Enabling Beliefs: Beliefs that help you.
  Health Belief Model: A useful model from healthcare work.
  Language in Belief: The language we speak changes what we believe.
  Limiting Beliefs: Beliefs which constrain us.
  Kahler's Drivers: I must be perfect, strong, etc.
  Sacred Beliefs: Which can never be contradicted.
  The Decay of Belief: How beliefs fade and change.
  The Formation of Belief: Describes how we find our beliefs.
  The Need for Belief: We have an internal driver to believe.
  The Samson Principle: Building and breaking beliefs.
  Three-Stage Belief Change: A method used by cults and others.
  Tolerance and Action in Belief: How tolerant we are of other beliefs.
  Types of Belief: Classifies the sorts of things we believe in.
  Strengths of Beliefs: Discusses strong, weak and blind beliefs.
  Superstition: Beliefs that drive rituals.

Beliefs are inherent - I would not deny that in any case. While our perception and interpretation of phenomena and things changes due to temporal and spacial changes, beliefs also change accordingly.

If beliefs can also change, then why do you have BELIEFS, and maintain them?

If beliefs can change, then that means that they were NOT true, right, nor correct, in the beginning.
BELIEFS do NOT just appear and are uncontrollable.
So, If a BELIEF is NOT necessarily True, Right, nor Correct, and you do in fact control what to BELIEVE and DISBELIEVE, then WHY do YOU choose to have and/or hold some BELIEFS, in the first place?

I control whether I have, and hold, a BELIEF, or not. But of course, you may well BELIEVE that BELIEFS are NOT controllable, and that you have absolutely NO say in what happens here regarding this. So, what do you (choose to) say and/or (choose to) BELIEVE here, in this regard?

BELIEFs come in a range from unjustified to justified true beliefs.
Thus a belief can change from 'unjustified' to 'justified' and this is what is happening in Science.
When the apple hit Newton's head, he believed there must be some sort of operating laws behind the experience and event. He then went on to justify his beliefs as a theory, i.e. a Justified True Belief that can be tested repeatedly with the same results.

It is madness to insist "I do not have any beliefs"

Age wrote: ↑Mon Dec 03, 2018 12:17 pm This ability to exist and survive can also be very simply and easily evidence AND proven, nowadays, through young human beings. Young human beings do NOT have any BELIEFS.

IF, however, you can prove with evidence that human babies are born WITH beliefs, then that gives your BELIEF more weight, but it is still NOT evidence and thus still does NOT prove that your belief is true, right, and correct.

IF, unfortunately, you have NO proof that human beings are born with BELIEFS, then you will have to inform us at what stage of a human being do BELIEFS start to arise? AND, if a human being can live, survive, and exist up to that stage, then that is enough EVIDENCE and PROOF, to me, that human beings do NOT need BELIEFS.

Will you insist human beings acquire their sexual tendencies/impulses after puberty from nurture, i.e. experience and observations around them? In contrast babies do not have sexual urges.
Obviously you cannot be that blind and ignorance of what is NATURE and its potential.
Fact is ALL humans are born with the potential to be a sexual being.

It is the same with BELIEF.
ALL humans are born with the potential in the brain/mind to believe and have beliefs to facilitate survival.
Those beliefs [not fully proven propositions] that facilitated their survival that our ancestors had [thus our being] were embedded as instinct in future generations.

Note the activity of beliefs in babies;

Babies Start 'Mind Reading' Earlier Than Thought
Even babies as young as a year-and-a-half can guess what other people are thinking, new research suggests.
https://www.livescience.com/26691-babie ... liefs.html

Babies are born with 'intuitive physics' knowledge, says researcher
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 113051.htm

commonsense wrote: ↑Mon Dec 03, 2018 8:56 pm

Age wrote: ↑Mon Dec 03, 2018 12:17 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:00 am Recently I have this ridiculous encounter with 'Age' where he claimed;
'I do NOT have any Beliefs'.
I BELIEVE the above statement from Age is delusional.

You may BELIEVE it to be stupid. You, however, have yet to provide just one example of a BELIEF, which you BELIEVE I have.

Until you provide at least one example, then you do NOT even have any thing to base your BELIEF on. You also do NOT have any thing to base any support upon and "argue" for.

I have already queried you about when I asked you; When did BELIEFS arise within human beings? Remember you have NOT yet answered that question.

Also remember there was a stage of evolution that there were obviously NO beliefs, (unless of course you are going to TRY TO argue from a certain perspective, but until you do, which can be countered anyway), human beings have survived and are still surviving and existing. Therefore, BELIEFS WERE once NOT necessary for human beings continual survival. If beliefs WERE not necessary for survival, and human beings are sill surviving and existing, then beliefs ARE still NOT necessary now. If human beings can exist and survive BEFORE, then they can still do it NOW.

This ability to exist and survive can also be very simply and easily evidence AND proven, nowadays, through young human beings. Young human beings do NOT have any BELIEFS.

IF, however, you can prove with evidence that human babies are born WITH beliefs, then that gives your BELIEF more weight, but it is still NOT evidence and thus still does NOT prove that your belief is true, right, and correct.

IF, unfortunately, you have NO proof that human beings are born with BELIEFS, then you will have to inform us at what stage of a human being do BELIEFS start to arise? AND, if a human being can live, survive, and exist up to that stage, then that is enough EVIDENCE and PROOF, to me, that human beings do NOT need BELIEFS.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:00 amI have argued the faculty of believing and its resulting beliefs are inherent within all human beings.

You might accept YOUR, attempt at, "arguments" but I do NOT. To me that are neither sound nor valid.

I'll take a stab at your challenge, italicized above.

You believe that Philosophy Forum provides you an opportunity to express your views.

Although my words could be taken facetiously, I assure you that I am not joking.

I do NOT believe that Philosophy Forum provides me an opportunity to express my views. What I do, however, instead is;
I VIEW that Philosophy Forum provides me an opportunity to express my views.

I VIEW this to be the case because as far as I can SEE (view) this is what Philosophy Forum provides me with the opportunity to do. I have, after all, just literally had the opportunity to express, yet another, one of my VIEWS.

Although I have just, once again, expressed another VIEW, I do NOT believe that Philosophy Forum provides me an opportunity to express my VIEWS because as far as I can tell (SEE) Philosophy Forum is not filtering my VIEWS but actually they could in fact be, and even might be, filtering some or all of my VIEWS. Philosophy Forum could be filtering my VIEWS by preventing some or all of my VIEWS from being expressed. This could be happening in many different ways.

If I was to BELIEVE that Philosophy Forum provides me an opportunity to express my VIEWS, then I would have NOT been fully OPEN to SEE this FACT, which I have just expressed above. If I was to BELIEVE that Philosophy Forum does some thing, (and NOT do some thing else), then I would just accept that to be the case, and NOT be OPEN to any thing else opposing that BELIEF.

I find it rather foolish to BELIEVE some thing, if it could in fact NOT even be true, NOT be right, and/or NOT be correct. So, obviously I would only BELIEVE some thing, if I was to accept that that thing was 100% True, Right, and/or Correct. Besides, one thing, I do NOT know any thing else !00% for SURE. So, I just remain completely and fully OPEN to ALL things so that I am then better able to LOOK AT, what IS actually the case.

The only thing that I KNOW 100%, for sure, are the thoughts, within this body. If, however, those thoughts are, absolutely, or partly, right or wrong I have NO real way of KNOWING for sure. So, I just accept that those thoughts, gained along the way of what that body has experienced, are just VIEWS. These VIEWS, unlike BELIEFS, may or may not be right or wrong. Obviously, I have gained those VIEWS from what I have SEEN, and, I do NOT know if what I have SEEN is 100% correct. Therefore, I now neither believe nor disbelieve that my VIEWS/thoughts are right nor wrong.

I do NOT have a stance (unmovable), I also do NOT have a BELIEF (unchangeable). I just have VIEWS. My VIEWS are always OPEN, and they are just things that I like to express and share, in order to find out and SEE if they are in fact actually right or wrong.

So, one VIEW that I like to share now is:
I VIEW that Philosophy Forum provides me an opportunity to express my VIEWS. By just expressing this VIEW as being just a view that I have gained, (along the way), and not necessarily True, Right, nor Correct, which is what BELIEVING entails, then I have shown that I am OPEN to ALL other VIEWS, which then INVITES opposing VIEWS, in order to show me WHERE and WHY my VIEW is wrong, if it is.

I do this, Instead of expressing a BELIEF, which by its very nature would be BELIEVED that it is Correct, For example; If I BELIEVED that Philosophy Forum provides me an opportunity to express my views, then I would NOT be OPEN to others, which might just come along and be able to show just HOW Philosophy Forum in fact does NOT provide me an opportunity to express my views at all. If I am NOT OPEN, then I am certainly NOT able to LOOK fully AT some thing. And, if I am NOT looking fully at some thing, then I would NOT be able to fully SEE, nor understand, fully.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Tue Dec 04, 2018 4:01 am

Age wrote: ↑Mon Dec 03, 2018 11:51 am Veritas

Are you at all aware that the definition of a word could be just an 'opinion' - or a purely subjective thought?

A definition of word can be an opinion, beliefs or related to knowledge.
Scientific knowledge is supported by many definitions and proven by Justified True Beliefs.
Scientific knowledge are also conditioned by unproven beliefs, i.e. assumptions.

You MISSED my point COMPLETELY.

Age wrote: ↑Mon Dec 03, 2018 1:57 pm [


If beliefs can also change, then why do you have BELIEFS, and maintain them?

Same as for underwear.