The word "belief" has different meanings...and unfortunately, as with many similar words in the English language, this spawns confusion.
To "believe" a hypothesis means that an individual has determined that the hypothesis is the most likely, most accurate among competing hypotheses. For instance, if I believe that the sky is blue, I'm making a statement about my model of the objective world around me.
However, one can also "believe in" something - typically a principle or moral standard. For instance, if I say that I believe in democracy, I'm not actually making a statement as to whether or not democracy actually
exists - I'm simply stating my
support of the idea of democracy, that I think democracy is a
good thing.
This double-meaning causes problems when the two usages of the same word are confused. For instance, many people do not "
believe in" evolution because they think that evolution is "evil." That's a statement of
support, but their confusing it with their model of how reality actually works.
A more neutral (maybe) example would be communism. A person believe that communism
exists, and yet not "believe in" communism.
I believe that the only rational way to determine what is
factually true about the external world around us is through extensive and repeated observation and experimentation, a process of continual self-correction striving towards greater and greater accuracy over time.
I believe that, unless a hypothesis can be falsified (ie, a set of hypothetical observations would invalidate the hypothesis, or at least make it less likely), that hypothesis is meaningless and imparts no knowledge. The rational response to such hypotheses is "you have absolutely no way to know that, and so any conclusion you've made is simply made-up." This encompasses (to varying degrees) most definitions for the word "god," making such things exceedingly likely to have simply been made-up.
I believe that, by questioning my beliefs and testing them, I can gradually become less wrong about my model of objective, external reality.
I believe that the observable, repeatable effects on personality of such things as alcohol and other drugs (particularly psychoactive medication) and especially brain damage invalidate the hypothesis of the "soul" as an extension of the mind, the personality and memories, beyond the brain. After all - if supposedly after you die you can go on being yourself, thinking and communicating, in the absence of any brain at all, why should your memories or personality or cognitive abilities be impaired by changes, either chemical or injurious, to the brain?
I believe, due to overwhelming evidence, that the Earth is billions of years old, that there never was any global Flood, that humans are hominids are apes are mammals are vertebrates and so on, and that every living thing on Earth is in our family tree - just to widely varying distances of relation.
I
believe in the value of sapient life, and in the freedom of choice and expression for all who are capable of it.
I
believe in limiting suffering, and maximizing happiness, for everyone, from the individual level on up.
These two lead me to
believe in helping others, financially or otherwise, when possible for me to do so. This includes supporting things like universal healthcare, medical research, taxpayer-supported fire protection, taxpayer-supported education, etc. It also leads me to
not support war in the vast, vast majority of cases. It also means that I can find at least some common ground with anyone who agrees that we should all love our neighbors.
I
believe in trying to understand the facts of the world around me to my best ability, even if those facts are uncomfortable or unpleasant. I believe that the acquisition of knowledge never makes anything
worse; that reality is just as good or bad as it is regardless of our awareness of it. I believe that it is most helpful, then, to have the most accurate understanding of the world possible, so that we might be able to accurately predict our own actions and thereby influence objective reality to be
better, as opposed to making it worse in our ignorance.
I do
not believe that a person can "make" themselves believe something to be true or false. There is a reason that "make believe" is another word for "pretend" or "imagine." Thus the central tenet of Christianity, "believe in Me and be saved," is nothing more than an instruction for the unconvinced to just
pretend. Only evidence can (or should) change a belief, it's not a "choice."
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995.
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