BELIEF or TRUTH?

CONFUSION BETWEEN BELIEF AND TRUTH

"If a Religion is treated as a belief, I respect. If it is treated as truth, I protest"

To believe in something is not the same as knowing something.

Intrinsic to the concept of belief is implication that there is an opposite to belief, disbelief. Not everyone will believe something is true, but all sane and rational people will acknowledge an observable fact or truth.

I can claim that I believe that it will rain at 3:00 AM, six years from today, and someone may agree with me and believe the same thing. If I hold a rock, and drop it, all who are present will acknowledge that a rock had been dropped ... unless they are just choosing to be childish, whimsical, or are a philosophy major.

The difference between the matter of the rock and the matter of the rain, is the difference between an observable fact, and a thought accepted as a fact. One is present, provable, undeniable and concrete, the other, howsoever fervently believed, is not. The rain could come, my belief about it could be true enough, but there is no observable proof. There is nothing to point to, nothing to show, nothing to touch, nothing to smell, nothing to be experienced by the senses of myself or others.

The only way belief can be experienced is in the mind. Facts can be experienced both in the mind and by the senses ... and what is more, unlike a mental hallucination, the sensory experience can be shared with others.

It is a common error of human beings to allow belief, to allow a mental construct accepted on faith, to become so important, so obsessive, that it is taken as the same thing as fact. Indeed, there are many emotional reasons why a person might be driven to do this, but it still remains that any belief is purely mental whatever it's origin, and the mind can be mistaken.

This means that all beliefs have as part of them an implied doubt. Facts cannot be doubted, they are observably real.

When belief is assumed to be fact, when this mistake is made by a mind clouded by a motivation to assume belief as fact, that belief is considered beyond doubt, just as is a fact.

Beliefs beyond doubt are inherently dangerous. They are dangerous because they are often acted upon as though they were facts, and the inherent weakness of this is that a belief is not a fact.

Beliefs can be, and often are, wrong.

Children in western culture often believe in Santa Claus, in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. To them, with their simple minds, these beliefs are facts. This is because very young children may not have developed sufficiently to discriminate between belief and fact.

But even adults can fall prey to such immature thinking, because they are afraid, because they are disturbed, because they are mentally ill, because they are filled with excitement, or a whole host of reasons. Hallucinations can occur that seem so real that they convince the brain that it has experienced observable fact. Such events add false certainty to beliefs.

Understanding always that beliefs are not facts, is the fundamental component of sanity. Confusing the two inevitably leads to catastrophe.

If I believe that by rubbing a hunk of quartz I will gain the Power of Absolute Indestructibility, and I act on this belief as though it were a fact, I will quickly die under the metal onslaught of the first train I attempt to block. My belief might be true, but I have no proof. Acting as though I did have proof would lead to my destruction.

When any belief is accepted as fact, catastrophe is inevitable.


TOOLS FOR SORTING FACTS AND BELIEFS

We are constantly bombarded by ideas, facts and beliefs in a muddled, often confusing mess. To make matters worse, we all must accept the experiences of others as facts simply to survive. There are so many facts now that for any individual to test even a fraction of them would be the work of a lifetime. There would be no time to live, if we had to prove even a portion of the collected facts of humanity.

In order to be able to cope with life, we have to have facts to make decisions on. But mixed into these facts that we learn... and take on faith are real... are also many examples of nonsense and arbitrary belief, promoted as fact, by fanatical individuals. Fanatics are driven to promote their beliefs because of the conflict that occurs for them whenever their beliefs are challenged. To stop the feeling of conflict, the fanatic becomes compelled to convince everyone that their belief is fact, or, failing that, to destroy those who threaten the belief.

Fanaticism is a dangerous mental illness.

There is then a primary question to the individual, how to separate fact from belief, when so much of our knowledge is taken essentially on faith, on the assumption that we are being told factual things?

There are some quick and simplistic tools that you can use to analyze information in order to roughly guess whether the information is fact, or truth.

When faced with new information I suggest applying this simple mental test to determine if the information is a fact, or a belief.

FACT OR BELIEF?
Quick Test
1. Has this information been reliably verified by many different people?
2. Is there a way I can demonstrate it reliably, even if I choose not to?
3. Is this information that can be put to practical use by someone?
4. Does this agree well with what I already know to be fact?
5. Do I trust the motives of the information source?

SCORING THE QUICK MENTAL TEST
Each YES answer is worth 20%
Each NO Answer counts as 0%
Total the results and SUBTRACT 10%
This is your PROBABILITY OF FACTUALITY. Care to roll the dice?

Notice that the highest possible score is 90%. It is impossible to score 100%. Comprehend this. In order for a mind to remain sane, to avoid fanaticism, to remain capable of growth, there must be room for doubt.

When all doubt dies, so does the mind.

There is an even simpler test you can use. Simply ask yourself this:

Is this information more concerned with the physical world, or more concerned with emotional experience and defining rules?

Almost all deadly beliefs are based on emotional biases. If the information you are given, or which you already possess, fails these tests, it is probably a belief. Be suspicious of beliefs masquerading as facts.