What gives a belief value?

[quatona]

I wouldn't be too quick to comment on the limitations of other people's maps, when you know for a fact that you can't find one without your own.

Why not? If your response indicates that your map doesn´t allow for an accurate representation of my ideas (as depicted on my map) - how is that not noteworthy?
Are you in competition mode, by any chance?

 

[Gottservant]

Why not? If your response indicates that your map doesn´t allow for an accurate representation of my ideas (as depicted on my map) - how is that not noteworthy?
Are you in competition mode, by any chance?

It's just a fact.

I have reservations, but the idea of competition is purely your projection.

 

[quatona]

It's just a fact.

What is just a fact?

I have reservations, but the idea of competition is purely your projection.

Then I don´t know how to take your "I wouldn´t...if..." statement.
We can compare two maps quite fine. I can notice that something that is on my map is not on yours, and vice versa. Having read countless of your posts I will readily admit that your map must contain countless things that aren´t on mine.
What´s your point?

 

[Ana the Ist]

If you were presented with strong evidence that somebody close to you had been a serial killer before you met them, I am pretty sure you would do everything you could to avoid having to believe that evidence.

The same goes for a scientist with a strong emotional investment in a theory he had spent years developing, but now looking increasingly unlikely to be true.

The naivete of atheists who think they are dispassionate logic engines never ceases to amaze me.

I would want to examine the evidence myself, sure....it's probably not the sort of thing I'd take someone's word on. The poster didn't do that though... it didn't even seem as if he tried.

However, I'd like to point out that the importance of the belief is a factor. If the belief is that diet coke tastes as good as regular...I'm not immediately concerned with grappling those beliefs. If it's a friend who's a serial killer... I'm investigating asap.

I don't think I'd try to dismiss the evidence though...it's not a problem I've had before. The fact that I see others try so hard is why I created this thread...it's genuinely difficult for me to understand. I've long since learned that closing your eyes and covering your ears doesn't do you any favors. I took for granted that it's just a part of growth and everyone learns this eventually. Apparently I'm mistaken.

 

[Noxot]

What gives a belief value? Or, what makes a belief valuable?

I can't think of any beliefs I hold that I wouldn't immediately abandon in the face of evidence to the contrary....save one. That belief is...truth allows me to make better choices, better decisions, and is a better guide in my life than falsehoods. Other than this, I can't really come up with a belief I would hold or defend in the manner that the second poster did.

a belief of value are those things that lead one to the good and to the 'best for all', to truly give quality to our world and make it and self better. i almost want to ask "what is a belief?" how can we fully separate beliefs from perception and our understanding of reality?... seeing as how we must all assume some things about reality ( as far as I know ) and we all go about that in various ways that seem the best to us. this does not do away with the reality of our own universe and the mechanics of our universe. it just means I hold to goodness and love to a higher degree than the truths of the mechanics of this universe. I can not base my morality on the way the universe functions if I have the ability to have ideas for the better that might not conform to some functions of this universe. example: a stars gamma ray burst might not care about human beings at all but it does not mean that humans are now no longer vastly important to ME.

I hold to truth too but perception of truth changes. ultimately to me God is truth, the good, and every single thing humans desire and strive towards. since God is virtue then i can not abandon virtue. one who does not believe in God but believes in virtue... in my eyes believes in God in very important ways that matter much more than a belief that God is or is not.

If you hold a belief that you feel should be protected at all costs....held in the face of evidence to the contrary....or should not be questioned at all in any way....what is that belief and what gives it such value?

there is no evidence to the contrary for 'the good' in my eyes. if all men said 'evil is better than good' and evil people prospered and enjoyed life more, it would still not convince me that it is better. I can question "what is good" but to question the validity of love and goodness is something I have no ability to disbelieve unless I wanted to be evil or am evil. love is the truth and I would be willing and many people are willing to forsake the idea of 'God' before they forsake the idea of real love and virtue and goodness.

another belief that can never be questioned in my eyes is that: human beings, no matter how evil, are priceless and they are one of the highest things in my view of reality. they are utterly irreplaceable and unique. it does not mean that the evils they do and become have any value whatsoever of its own nature.... but even the evils of people show me what not to be and do... give me motivation to not be evil. even the most wicked person ever to have existed is still valued by me and I can not condemn someone and put others above them because I can't judge what they can become or how they will change from an objective view because I do not even judge a persons worth by what they do in this life as the final end of who they really are. it is only part of who they are. I know that they can change and be conformed to the good and to love. if they are evil through their entire life then they are pitied because of the good they did not grasp hold of that would have helped them so much. who needs the good more than evil people? who needs love more than someone that does not love? everyone needs love for without it nothing really matters (in my eyes).

another belief of the utmost value is that I as a person have the same worth that I give to all humans. there is nothing that will ever convince me that I have no value. that is no way to exist. I already tried it and it does not work so well at all. i may HATE myself when I do evils but even this is a form of sanity that confirms that I do indeed love myself... but hate the evils I would do for they are destructive to me and to others.

and I would never, ever, disbelieve in God. but you have to understand that to me God is the good. the truth. the beauty. the thing in all humans that gives them eternal worth or at the very least gives them supreme dignity in this world. God as love is the reality for me. I would worship 'God as love and the good' even if I became an atheist.

this divinity is a dignity that means I don't put religious beliefs above humans. I don't put governments above humans. I don't put other humans above humans. I don't put self above humans. I don't put science above humans. I would put the good in a human being above the evils of a human being though.

the good can not be questioned (concerning it's validity). but what is good can be questioned and SHOULD be questioned.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Generally speaking, a belief has value to me when incorporating it into my world view makes my reality more plausible, more workable.
Then again, my reality itself is already shaped by core beliefs (which I am possibly not even aware of).

IOW I have an inner map (my reality) that guides me through life, and has done so for decades in a sufficiently reliable way. Sometimes - with additional insights - I have to make minor changes to this map, sometimes the required changes are more thorough (and can be quite painful in that they require me to acknowledge that a lot paths I went - based on this map - were pointless, etc.).
Worst case scenario: Incoming information would require me to consider my map entirely worthless, to throw it in the dust bin altogether. This is a very threatening scenario, because it would leave me without any guidance, without any orientation; my entire system would break down.

This is probably the scenario in which I´d likely counter every argument by pointing to my inner map ("common sense", "everyone knows", "it is self-evident, that..." or something to that effect). Of course, I would not be aware of what I am doing.


Chances are that accepting the argument of the other poster would have made his inner map useless (or that he sensed that the implications following from accepting the argument would eventually threaten the worth of his inner map).



Well, (objective) "reality" is a very delicate concept to operate with.
We usually don´t have problems with accepting information of the "objective kind" (i.e. raw data, if you will), simply because they are meaningless (until we interprete them, relate to them, give them meaning or significance or derive implications from them - at which point they have ceased to be objective raw data).

And another thing: Even though his behaviour points to the fact that his inner map was directly or indirectly threatened, concluding that therefore the belief he held was "contrary to reality" is rashed: there may well be rational arguments for his position - he may just not have known them.


Indeed - it allows for the conclusion that the worth and usefulness of his map was threatened to a degree that struck him as intolerably destructive to his system.
It does not, though, allow for the conclusion that his system is wrong and the rejected information was correct.

That´s what I have tried to explain above.


So you yourself have such a belief that is so essential to your thinking and has shaped your inner map so thoroughly you´d defend it at all costs. Can´t you extrapolate from there?


I think the beliefs that have shaped my inner map (and abandoning which would therefore threaten my entire system) are not of the kind that can be threatened by objective information. Which seems to be the case with all beliefs that fall more on the metaphysical side.
It seems to me that your core belief ("truth allows me to make better choices, better decisions, and is a better guide in my life than falsehoods") is of that kind, as well. It protects itself against being threatened by objective information or raw data by virtue of employing subjective keywords ("better", "better guide").

I like your description of the "inner map" and I appreciate the in- depth answer.

Perhaps I did jump to conclusions about whether or not the second poster's belief reflected reality...but I was intentionally vague in describing his belief because I didn't want to derail my own thread. I was concerned that putting his actual belief on display (god created life) would invite a lengthy battle over it's merits. He didn't propose any evidence for it, and I've heard it many times and never heard any evidence for it...so yes, I did jump to the conclusion.

You said this regarding my one unchanging belief....

" It protects itself against being threatened by objective information or raw data by virtue of employing subjective keywords ("better", "better guide")."

Which I thought was an odd way of looking at it lol. To me, it seems my belief only incorporates objective information (truth) in describing reality so that my understanding of it is clearer. At the least I try to avoid any personal bias I hold and not act on any bias I cannot change willingly.

Of course, if falsehoods ever prove a better guide in life for my inner map, that truth may replace on current one.

 

[Emmy]

Dear Ana the 1st: If I read something in the Bible which makes sense and is to be followed, I accept it and follow it from my heart. In Matthew 22: 35-40:
Jesus tells us: " The first and great Commandment is: Love God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and withal thy mind. The second is like it: Love thy neighbour as you love thyself." Jesus also tells us: " On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." God Loves us and God wants our love, whether we like it or not. Matthew 7: 7-10: tells us:
" Ask and you shall receive," then we thank God and share all Love and Joy with our neighbour. ( neighbour is all we know and all we meet, friends and not friends.) We keep asking God for Love and Joy, then thank God and share it all with our neighbour. God will see our loving efforts, and God will bless us.
The Bible tells us to " Repent and be Born Again," we have to give up all our selfish wishes and wants, and start loving and caring. Love God with all our beings, and love our neighbour as we love ourselves. We might stumble and forget at times, but then we ask God to forgive us, and carry on Loving and Caring. Jesus our Saviour will help and guide us, JESUS IS THE WAY.
If we believe something truly and with all our hearts, we follow it and thank God our Heavenly Father for all His Love and Compassion.
I say this with love, Ana. Greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.

 

[quatona]

You said this regarding my one unchanging belief....

" It protects itself against being threatened by objective information or raw data by virtue of employing subjective keywords ("better", "better guide")."

Which I thought was an odd way of looking at it lol. To me, it seems my belief only incorporates objective information (truth) in describing reality so that my understanding of it is clearer. At the least I try to avoid any personal bias I hold and not act on any bias I cannot change willingly.

Of course, if falsehoods ever prove a better guide in life for my inner map, that truth may replace on current one.

What I meant to say, Ana: This is unlikely to happen in view of your core belief and the unspecific qualifiers in it. There will always be a way to adapt the framework in a way that a particular truth can be said to be the better guide than the falsehood. The actual "bias" is the belief that "truth is the better guide" - such a belief can not be falsified by objective data. Not that there´s anything wrong with that.

 

[juvenissun]

A thought occurred to me while participating in another thread in the Philosophy section. What gives a belief value? Or, what makes a belief valuable?

In another thread...a poster had presented a short summary of the evidence supporting a scientific theory. He didn't go into any great detail, he just used a very concise and common sense approach to explaining the amount and types of evidence for this particular theory. Another poster then replied by saying "Anyone who believes that must be a dumb-dumb with primitive caveman-like understanding of the world around them. Everyone knows....blah blah blah." (Paraphrasing)

Now, the poster who replied didn't offer any sort of counter-evidence for what he believed... nor did he actually try to explain why the evidence the first poster presented was incorrect. He simply chided the first poster by trying to make it seem that his statement was so far outside the realm of possibility it was inherently stupid.

In my mind, the second poster responded this way as a means of defending a belief he held that was contrary to reality. The evidence the first poster presented showed this...and the reaction of the second poster was a feeble attempt to protect his belief. What I'm wondering is....why? What makes a belief so valuable that it warrants protection from inquiry/reason/truth?

I can't think of any beliefs I hold that I wouldn't immediately abandon in the face of evidence to the contrary....save one. That belief is...truth allows me to make better choices, better decisions, and is a better guide in my life than falsehoods. Other than this, I can't really come up with a belief I would hold or defend in the manner that the second poster did.

If you hold a belief that you feel should be protected at all costs....held in the face of evidence to the contrary....or should not be questioned at all in any way....what is that belief and what gives it such value?

Of course, any comments on the topic are welcome as well.

If you do not believe a thing has a value, then you won't do that thing.
That is the value of belief. Such as: you believe that eat a vitamin pill is good for you.

(I don't default the "belief" in your title as a religious belief, even you might mean so.)

 

[seeingeyes]

A thought occurred to me while participating in another thread in the Philosophy section. What gives a belief value? Or, what makes a belief valuable?

In another thread...a poster had presented a short summary of the evidence supporting a scientific theory. He didn't go into any great detail, he just used a very concise and common sense approach to explaining the amount and types of evidence for this particular theory. Another poster then replied by saying "Anyone who believes that must be a dumb-dumb with primitive caveman-like understanding of the world around them. Everyone knows....blah blah blah." (Paraphrasing)

Now, the poster who replied didn't offer any sort of counter-evidence for what he believed... nor did he actually try to explain why the evidence the first poster presented was incorrect. He simply chided the first poster by trying to make it seem that his statement was so far outside the realm of possibility it was inherently stupid.

In my mind, the second poster responded this way as a means of defending a belief he held that was contrary to reality. The evidence the first poster presented showed this...and the reaction of the second poster was a feeble attempt to protect his belief. What I'm wondering is....why? What makes a belief so valuable that it warrants protection from inquiry/reason/truth?

I can't think of any beliefs I hold that I wouldn't immediately abandon in the face of evidence to the contrary....save one. That belief is...truth allows me to make better choices, better decisions, and is a better guide in my life than falsehoods. Other than this, I can't really come up with a belief I would hold or defend in the manner that the second poster did.

If you hold a belief that you feel should be protected at all costs....held in the face of evidence to the contrary....or should not be questioned at all in any way....what is that belief and what gives it such value?

Of course, any comments on the topic are welcome as well.

Fear for one. If you believe that there is a boogeyman under the bed who cannot be detected by normal means, but who will nonetheless chew off your feet if you set them down the wrong way, there will be no evidence that could persuade you otherwise...the risk is too great.

In other words, better safe than sorry.

 

[Tree of Life]

I can't think of any beliefs I hold that I wouldn't immediately abandon in the face of evidence to the contrary....save one. That belief is...truth allows me to make better choices, better decisions, and is a better guide in my life than falsehoods. Other than this, I can't really come up with a belief I would hold or defend in the manner that the second poster did.

This paragraph alone exposes a slew of beliefs that you hold dear. Such as: "I ought to believe what the evidence leads me to believe." And "I oughtn't hold onto beliefs for which I have no evidence."

Both of these are beliefs that could be axiomatic for you, beyond all question.

 

[Deidre32]

I think there are two types of value, that which is objectively valuable (can be proven and the truth of it doesn't change whether I believe it or not) and subjectively valuable (what I believe, but can't be proven) Both can be of value, but one's personal belief system won't be valuable to another person.

 

[bhsmte]

This paragraph alone exposes a slew of beliefs that you hold dear. Such as: "I ought to believe what the evidence leads me to believe." And "I oughtn't hold onto beliefs for which I have no evidence."

Both of these are beliefs that could be axiomatic for you, beyond all question.

You can call it a belief if it makes you feel better, but you are selling him short.

Some people start with a belief and expend all sorts of energy doing whatever is necessary to protect and support the belief (these forums are a great example of that). Other people, tend to follow the trail of objective evidence and wherever it leads, will form their current beliefs.

The beauty of those who make it a priority to follow the latter is; if evidence arises to show they were wrong in their belief, they will typically acknowledge the same and make the adjustment. Being able to accept new information when it is compelling and goes against a current belief, is a sign of strength, not weakness.

As one of the posters on this board typically says, some people are motivated to believe in as many true things as possible and to believe in as few false things, as possible. It is a journey that requires, being open to objective evidence.

 

[bhsmte]

I think there are two types of value, that which is objectively valuable (can be proven and the truth of it doesn't change whether I believe it or not) and subjectively valuable (what I believe, but can't be proven) Both can be of value, but one's personal belief system won't be valuable to another person.

I agree.

And as I say, if one's faith belief makes them a better person and better able to cope with life, they should hold onto it, because it is right for them.

If a faith belief causes them to judge others in a negative light who disagree with them, put themselves on a pedestal and or requires them to ignore reality to hold onto a specific belief, then that faith belief is going to cause them turmoil.

 

[Gottservant]

I agree.

And as I say, if one's faith belief makes them a better person and better able to cope with life, they should hold onto it, because it is right for them.

If a faith belief causes them to judge others in a negative light who disagree with them, put themselves on a pedestal and or requires them to ignore reality to hold onto a specific belief, then that faith belief is going to cause them turmoil.

the test of faith is not whether it betters or harms anyone, but whether it trues or falsifies the word. (selah)

 

[Ana the Ist]

This paragraph alone exposes a slew of beliefs that you hold dear. Such as: "I ought to believe what the evidence leads me to believe." And "I oughtn't hold onto beliefs for which I have no evidence."

Both of these are beliefs that could be axiomatic for you, beyond all question.

Maybe?

Let's examine a hypothetical scenario for a moment...

Suppose there was another way of arriving at truth without the use of examining evidence...suppose for a moment that I could "pray" for the truth regarding something and I would consistently receive the truth I prayed for (maybe a loud booming voice would tell me the truth).

Would I still hold the belief, "I ought to believe what the evidence leads me to believe."? I don't think so...I think I could drop the notion that evidence is the best method for arriving at truth in no time at all. I know this may seem a little far fetched, but the point is that such beliefs are only significant to me inasmuch as they reflect truth.

 

[terryjohn]

Faith may have no need of objective evidence and that may appear unfortunate but when you are faced with direct revelation only one of us can not deny it. Theologically has God left provided objective faith establishing evidence which is condemnation to all that reject it? Their is no evidence just revelation. Scripture reveals christ and that revelation is one must accept or reject. Some want evidence of the resurrection but their are only possibilities not facts. People who do not want to believe do not want any evidence and only ask for it knowing we can not give them any because if it existed men would be beyond grace.

 

[Deidre32]

the test of faith is not whether it betters or harms anyone, but whether it trues or falsifies the word. (selah)

But who gets to determine this?

 

[Gottservant]

But who gets to determine this?

determine what?

 

[Deidre32]

determine what?

the truth of what people hold valuable, in terms of faith?