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IFISEEUS
"There are a thousand hacking at the
branches of evil |
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The Nature of Belief Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. -- Bertrand Russell BELIEVE verb: To choose to incorporate a certain conception from an issue, which is not knowable, into your belief system because you like or love the concept, from be meaning live or exist and lief meaning like or love. Secondarily this word means to retain the chosen concept in one's belief system, but just holding onto a concept that one did not consciously choose is not believing. Specifically, in a moral and religious reference, (believe) is used in the N.T. of the conviction and trust to which a man is impelled by a certain inner and higher prerogative and law of his soul (Thayer's GREEK-ENGLISH LEXICON of the New Testament, 4th edition). See belief system, know, choice, conception, idealism, religion. BELIEF SYSTEM n: that intellectual structure of learned knowledge,
indoctrinated concepts and chosen beliefs that determines our will,
conscience and ultimate behavior. See
definitions of choice, conscience, decision,
will, religion. to persuade, seek to persuade, endeavor to convince, to incite, to instigate, to appease, to render tranquil, to quiet, to pacify, to conciliate, to win over, to be persuaded of, to be confident of, to be induced, to be convinced, to believe, to yield belief, to assent, to be assured, to be confident, to trust, to rely on, to confide in. What can be said about belief? What are the issues concerning belief? When it comes to the views that we hold to be true, which are usually called "belief", there are two very clear and distinct issues. One is the strength or intensity of the conviction, and the other would be the validity or correctness of the conviction. When we look at these two issues concerning "belief" we should have no trouble seeing that the second is more important or of a higher priority than the first. Who would argue that a strongly held false belief is better than a weakly held correct one? Wouldn't we actually say that the more strongly a false belief is held the worse off the person is? Or do we think that the Creator is more pleased or impressed with intensity or "sincerity" than with correctness when we "believe" something bad or wrong about him? We can confidently say that everyone has some beliefs that they hold with varying degrees of intensity or strength.
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