Actual belief vs. belief in belief

We debate here a great deal about what we believe, and why. But are we sure that we actually believe what we say that we believe? This is a question that is rarely asked - typically we simply take each other (and ourselves) at our word. But we know about such things as cognitive dissonance, where a person can hold two or more contradictory beliefs simultaneously. How can we tell what we really believe?An individual belief is simply a statement of a currently held world-view - a personal evaluation of a singular hypothesis being more likely than all other competing hypotheses. If I believe that I have a $5 bill in my pocket, then my evaluation of available evidence (likely a memory of putting the money in my pocket in the first place) tells me that a $5 is more likely to be in my pocket than a $1 bill, or a $100 bill, or no money at all. If I say that I believe in the Christian God, then I am saying that I hold the existence of the Christian God to be more likely than its absence, or the existence of mutually exclusive deities. A belief doesn't need to be based on evidence - a person can decide that a given claim is more likely than others simply because of personal preference, because it "feels right," or any number of other subjective reasons.But what if we only think that we hold a belief? Christians have often claimed that "Deep down," atheists and other non-Christians do believe in the Christian God, that their lack of expressed belief is mere self-denial. If we can say that we believe something, and think that we believe something, can we be sure that we actually believe it? Is it possible to only believe that we believe?The answer lies in our ability to anticipate events. If I believe that I parked on the 4rth floor of the parking garage today, I will anticipate that I will find my car on the 4rth floor. If I don't find my car on the 4rth floor, I am forced to re-evaluate my belief (did I park on the 5th instead today? Was I towed?).Let's imagine that an investigator wants to determine the accuracy of my belief (which is different from testing whether I actually believe it). The investigator says "let's test your hypothesis that your car is on the 4rth floor. If I go down to the 4rth right now, will I find a car matching your description?"If I actually believe that I parked on the 4rth floor, I will answer "yes." My answer follows from anticipating a world in which my believed hypothesis is accurate.If I don't actually believe that I parked on the 4rth floor, my answer would be different - I would anticipate a world where my hypothesis is incorrect, and respond accordingly. Perhaps I'd answer "well...I parked on the 4rth when I got here this morning, but I left for lunch and parked on the 5th."Let's use another example that would be just a little more applicable to a question of religious belief. I'll move on to a direct religious question rather than examples from my own imagination next.Imagine that John tells Ted that he has a dragon trapped in his garage. Ted, of course, immediately wants to see the dragon."We can go to the garage," says John, "but the dragon is invisible, so you won't actually see it.""Oh," responds Ted. "Well, I should still be able to hear it breathing at least, right? Can we make it roar or something?""No," says John. "The dragon is silent, it doesn't make a sound. I;m not even sure that it breathes at all - I've never felt its exhalation, either.""Well..." says Ted, doubtfully, "could we maybe throw some mud or flour or paint or something at it, so that we can see the outline of the invisible dragon where the stuff sticks?"Won't work. The dragon is permeable to matter. You could put your hand right through it and not feel a thing; anything you throw at it will just pass right through as if nothing is there.""But you're sure the dragon is there?" asks ted, now thinking John has lost it."Positive."John really seems to believe that a dragon is in his garage...but every reasonable test proposed by Ted is shot down. John is anticipating the result of every experiment as being identical to the result that would be expected if the dragon was not there, and has a prepared rationalization for those results in advance.John doesn't actually believe that there is a dragon in his garage. He might believe that he believes there is a dragon in his garage, but he's anticipating a world with no dragon. Whatever he says to himself or others, at the end of the day he doesn't expect to see a dragon in his garage, or feel one, or hear one, or be eaten by one. If you believe that it's a duck, but expect it to have 4 legs, fur, and hate the water, you don't really believe it's a duck.Let's move on to a real religious belief:Do you believe in an afterlife? That upon the death of your physical body, some part of you carries your consciousness to some other realm where it continues to exist forever?Certainly most people (perhaps not most on this forum, but in the general population) would respond in the affirmative. But for both those who say they do and do not believe in an afterlife, what do we anticipate?If you legitimately believe that there is an afterlife, you should not fear death (except perhaps the specific manner of death) or mourn loved ones very much. Sure, it's sad you won't get to see your deceased loved ones for a while, but they aren't gone forever - it's more like they took a one-way trip to a very distant place that you'll go to as well when you die. If you develop a horrible disease or are terribly injured such that your quality of life is degraded too much, you would want to just commit suicide, or at least stop medical intervention so that you can move on. You wouldn't care so much about abortions - if the fetus has a soul, it doesn't really die when it's aborted, it just goes straight to the afterlife.If you legitimately believe that there is no afterlife, then you should consider every life to be important, because this is the only chance anyone gets. You should care more about those afflicted with disease or hunger or poverty, because things aren't going to suddenly get better for them once they die. The death of a loved one should be devastating, because you'll anticipate never seeing them again, ever. Every moment is precious, because you only have a finite number of moments left until you cease to exist. Crippling injuries and incurable diseases should be considered to be horrible, because unless science develops a cure before you die, you'll suffer for the rest of your existence.Why would we ever say we believe something when we don't? More importantly, how could we possibly not know what we, ourselves, believe? After all, if I don;t know what I believe, who does?The answer (and the problem) is that we often believe that it is good to hold a belief - a belief in a belief. John in our dragon example believes in his belief in the dragon, but doesn't actually believe in the dragon.Towards the end of my time as a Christian, I believed that it was good to believe in God and Jesus and the Bible...but I didn't anticipate any of it as being true. I;d say that I believed in the Bible...but I would anticipate that no evidence of the Flood would be found, that the Earth was not created in 6 days, etc. My continued belief was not based on my evaluation of evidence and did not direct my anticipation of events. I simply thought it was good to believe.If you ask a given Creationist whether he believes that the Theory of Evolution accurately describes the mechanism that causes new variety to appear in populations of living things, he will certainly say no. But if you ask him whether his flu shot will help, knowing that flu vaccines are reformulated each year because of the rapid rate of mutation of influenza strains and that this science depends completely on the Theory of Evolution being able to accurately predict results...he'll likely still accept the flu shot. If a doctor warns the Creationist to take all of his antibiotics because less than a full dose runs the risk of causing a resistant strain to gain a foothold, a prediction made entirely based on the Theory of Evolution, the Creationist will follow the doctor's instructions.What do you believe? What do you anticipate? Does your anticipation match your belief?

Thread copied here from the Actual belief vs. belief in belief thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

This is the manifestation of our tendency to accept 'truths' of convenience. Short term or immediate gratification over some distant eventual reckoning.It is intellectual dishonesty on the one hand and following your bliss on the other. Our hypocrisy and contradictions seem to prop us up. My beliefs follow my reason although I drink and smoke too much.

Disclaimer - I make a lot of claims in the following post. Feel free to disagree, these are all just my thoughts based upon my life and experience. I don't have any proper edumacation regarding such topics. A very good question. And very important to self-acceptance in our personal and spiritual lives. As you say, "this is a question that is rarely asked", I agree very much. And that brings me a sense of pity for humanity because when we don't ask this question it brings a lot of pain on ourselves.When we believe we believe something, but don't actually believe it, we will inevitably find ourselves in a situation that exposes this inconsistency. It is an extremely uncomfortable feeling of hypocrisy sprinkled with a fear of being seen as stupid... it is cognitive dissonance. Our dislike for such a harsh feeling is so overwhelming that we'll try to avoid it as much as possible. Part of avoiding any aspect of this flaw includes not questioning if we actually believe what we think we believe... the only thing that will actually help us gain understanding, consistency, and eventual peace within ourselves.It's a vicious circle, and all too many of us know all too many people who are stuck right in the middle of it.
All too many of us are people who are stuck right in the middle of it.So, how do we deal with this?We need to reflect and honestly criticize how we want to act, how we actually act, how we feel about things and what composes our beliefs. Only when we're able to bring these things together... how we want to be and how we are... will we be able to permanently extinguish all our areas of cognitive dissonance. Very true. And we all know this is true.
If we believe that we believe there is an afterlife, but we don't actually believe in it, we realize that something doesn't quite line up.
If we talk about an afterlife, but we're actually still scared of dying, it knaws at us that something isn't really proper.
If we discuss how wonderful the afterlife is, but we go to bed stressing about the end of our life-on-earth, we sense these skewed ideas like looking in a bubbled-mirror. It sort-of looks like what we expect to see, but we know there's something horribly flawed.This is the inconsistency behind thinking one way but acting in another that causes cognitive dissonance.For many of our everyday actions, this is almost an impossibility and we can (unfortunately) begin to think we don't have to worry about such things.
We think we'll move our arm this way or that... and our arm will act that way and do it.
We think we'll move our legs and walk... and our legs will act that way and do it.
The idea of thinking one way, and then acting the same way is so ingrained in our psyche as "the way our bodies work" that it can be difficult to see the alternative.But feelings don't work that way.
We get to choose to move our arm up or down.
- We don't get to choose our favourite colour, we just have one.
We get to choose to move our legs and walk where wherever we want to go.
- We don't get to choose to be happy all the time, somethings just make us sad and we are powerless to stop them.If we think we'll move our arm one way, and it's not going that way, we can choose to change our arm's action to match our thoughts.
- If we feel afraid of the afterlife, it's not something we can change or wish away.
We can't "just not be afraid" to match the belief that the afterlife is a wonderful place.
We can, however, change our belief to match our feeling. And, in fact, this is the only way to remove the uncomfortable feeling of cognitive dissonance.Our beliefs stem from our current understanding of our lives and the world and our experiences.
We can affect our beliefs if we try to understand what they are based on, and try to learn about what we actually do believe.
But if we don't ever take the time to understand our beliefs, then they will remain exactly as they were when our minds first latched onto them... they will remain exactly as they were when we developed them for the first time, as children.
If we don't make the effort required to examine our beliefs, we stunt our personal and spiritual growth way back in the child-like phase.It's hard and uncomfortable to reflect and look at some of these beliefs. But that's the only way we can have any affect on them and align them more with how we act and feel. Once we can honestly do this, and get our beliefs to align with our feelings and actions... we remove all possibility of cognitive dissonance. And peace fills us....and that is Stile's atheistic sermon of the day I believe that I am not perfect and I will have future uncomfortable feelings of cognitive dissonance.
I anticipate that I will have future uncomfortable feelings of cognitive dissonance... and when that happens, I will attempt to examine my beliefs about the issue until I can align my beliefs with my actions and feelings.

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