What do you believe is true, even though you cannot prove it?

how do we know that 'Santa Claus' wasnt some deranged peodophile who preyed on young kids with gifts and candy???i dont believe in Santa claus anymore then i believe in the Easter bunny...neither of which have anything to do with Christianity btw

Thief here.
You pronounce belief we are here for a reason though you cannot offer one.
Allow me to make the offer for you
As we cast our reflections in the mirror, we know what we see, and how the image is made.
Without flesh, this effect doesn't happen
If you were spirit, casting your reflection may be more then a casual trick.
And if you could do so, would not your reflection be altogether identical. You would be talking to yourself.
This human condition creates a unique perspective on each occasion
You may be a reflection, but your are unique.

You have absolutely no reason not to believe in the Easter Bunny or Father Christmas. So the winter solstice was not co-opted by the Jonny-come-lately religion xianity?So the easter equinox was not co-opted by the Jonny-come-lately religion xianity?

Actually, this is not a black and white issue. The ficticious figure of Santa Claus is a homogenized myth from several different cultures and religious beliefs including Christianity and the pagan religions of northern and central Europe.There was supposedly a Bishop (church leader) named Nicholas from Turkey who was bestowed sainthood by the Catholic (Christian) Church in the 2nd and 3rd centuries for his apparant good works and miracles. However, cultural transmission has gradually created diverging and different myths concerning this legendary figure in different modern cultures. Americans (and Britians) have further commercialized and iconocized this figure and basically have recreated him into an oversized elf that flies house to house and gives presents to good little boys and girls around the world, which is a far cry from the story of the original Catholic Saint Nicholas tale.The Easter Bunny is another mythical figure with its historical roots in both the Christian and non-Christian (mainly pagan Germanic) cultural and religious beliefs.So the statement that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny do not have anything to do with Christianity is really an attempt by modern fundamental Protestant Christian to reinvent these two Christian/Pagan holy days in order to further seperate themselves from what they believe are unchristian practices.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

i believe tha rams are comming back and winning some football games next year.

To go even further with this, my country still celebrates the birthday of this man, here called Sinterklaas. As you can clearly see from his description, he is meant to represent a Christian bishop. This later got morphed into what we call Santa Claus today. All the info you'll need you'll find in that wiki article. But the main point is, as DA has pointed out, that believing in Santa, or in my country's case Sinterklaas, has a lot to do with Christianity.

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I hunt for the truth

I make a conscious effort not to actively believe anything without a reason to do so. Since realizing that faith is an invalid basis for forming accurate conclusions, I have had to re-examine many of my core beliefs and correct the thought processes developed as I was indoctrinated into the Christian belief system. This has occasionally included reactionary over-corrections, where I replaced one dogmatic belief with an opposite dogmatic belief. The goal, however, is to rationally examine all of my beliefs and keep, modify, or discard them based on the evidence available to me, including re-examination when new evidence turns up.So far I've found the process to be extremely rewarding.

quote:

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I make a conscious effort not to actively believe anything without a reason to do so.

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I do much the same. However, I do note a difference between your standard and the OP proposition. He specifically mentions "proof," but you use the standard "reason to do so." Are those synonymous?One thing that prompts me to ask the question is the first thing that I can think of that comes closest to me believing something without "proof." I believe there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. (Please, don't anyone confuse this with the irrational and unsupported belief that extra-terrestrial life has visited this planet.)I think there is reason to believe in extra-terrestrial life, but I'm hard-pressed to come up with evidence in support of this belief, much less proof, beyond evidence of the existence of other planets.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

I see "proof" as "beyond a reasonable doubt." I'll believe something tentatively without ironclad "proof," but I require some sort of supporting evidence and no contradictory evidence to do so.Real life isn't so black and white as "I believe this to be true" or "I don't believe this." I believe a great many things are possible given the evidence thus far with varying degrees of likelihood based on the evidence supporting each proposition. For example, I believe that the existence of a deity and that abiogenesis could be the source of life on Earth are possibilities, but I believe that the latter has a nearly infinitely greater degree of likelihood because it is supported by far more evidence. Humanity itself is evidence that intelligent species can exist in the Universe. Given the discovery of other solar systems (with the high likelihood of Earth-like planets existing) and the shear number of stars that could each potentially harbor an intelligent species, I would consider that there is adequate reason to believe that the existence of another intelligent species is at minimum a possibility, and perhaps even likely.Very few things in life can be said to be "proven." That's why I avoided the specific implications of the word "proof." I prefer "evidence." After all, the Theory of Gravity hasn't been "proven." It's simply supported by an overwhelming amount of evidence that it is an extremely accurate model of an observed phenomenon. If it were "proven," we'd stop re-examining it to maintain the highest degree of accuracy possible, and that is the antithesis of the scientific method.

Hmm, something screwed my post up.What I meant to say is that the belief that extra-terrestrial life has visited this planet once or twice (or more times) during its long history is not necessarily irrational or illogical rather it is like you said unsupported or unsubstantiated by credible emperical evidence.I treat this belief in UFO's the same way as the belief in the existence of the supernatural (i.e. ghosts, spirits, demons, god, etc). There is no crebile evidence I have seen that favors the existence of UFO's or the supernatural. That does not mean that sometime in the future that evidence for these phenomena can never be found though I think it unlikely based on the lack of evidence for their existence up until now.I do believe that scientific evidence demonstrates that the nature of life is that once conditions are right that it flourishes and exponentially fills every life-sustaining niche. Furth I believe that it is highly improbable that life does not exist on at least one other planet revolving around at least one of trillions and trillions of stars in our universe based on our understanding of the ability of life on Earth to adapt to a wide scope of diverse conditions and environments.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

Ah well, this might have been shortened to "What do you believe is true?" since if there were proof, then you would not need to believe it..I think that many of the theories of science were believed before there was any evidence, and that the belief is what propelled scientists to devise experiments to find the evidence to support the theory.What was life like before the scientific method was devised? If you could only believe in things for which there was evidence that would make life pretty dull.I think the distinction should be not that beliefs are bad per se, but whether they are held against overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The Dark Ages. The Black Death. Witch Hunts. High infant mortality. The list of things improved by science is endless.

By definition, this is impossible. You cannot have a scientific theory without supporting evidence, as it is this evidence upon which we base our theories. In science, a theory is a generalized, well substantiated explanation of something we see in the natural World. Notice the part about being "well substantiated". Substantiation comes via hypotheses formation and experimentation, not the other way around. You really have no idea how science operates, do you.I think you are confusing the concepts of creationism and I.D. with scientific inquiry. Nice try though. And by this I can only assume you mean things like astrology and creationism, as they are picture perfect fits for what you just described.

This is a reply to the previous two posts, although I hit the reply button for the 2nd. I think your extending my comment further than I intended. It is merely an observation that beliefs are held. A POV or world view exists inside the heads of most people. Trying to eliminate that or limit it to what is known by science doesn't seem to be how people including Einstien function. Even Einstien believed in an eternal universe until the evidence forced him to believe otherwise. Correction then from 'any evidence' to 'some evidence' or 'deterministic evidence'. Happy now?
Else how does this explain the Michelson-Morely experiment? The ones running it believed it would prove the existence of the medium in which light traveled, so their beliefs were proved wrong. See the MM experiment above. Beliefs do enter into the process. And I have spent my entire life in an R&D environment in scientific inquiry thank you.As to the remaining comments by FliesOnly I think you've demonstrated 'belief' about my 'belief' without 'any evidence' or 'sufficient evidence' or 'deterministic evidence'. My point is that beliefs exist within us all, not that they are necessarily justified by sufficient evidence which is a separate consideration entirely.And all this time I thought my posts on EvC were against YEC, ID, etc..

Actually, "no". What you described still has nothing to do with scientific theory. You cannot put forth a scientific theory without first having copious amounts of evidence supporting said theory. That's what a theory is, after all. Don't conflate common daily use of the word "theory" with an actual scientific theory. An idea is not a theory. A simple statement is not a theory. A hypothesis is not a theory. Fine...but that's called a "hypothesis". And their test hypothesis was shown to be incorrect. It wasn't a theory. In other words, they followed the scientific method...and it worked.