Are you saying what you believe or believing what you say?

Question

If I'm not making sense then look at these quotes, they should help.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.--Leonardo da Vinci

Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born - the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to the accumulated records of other people's experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it bedevils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for data, his words for actual things.--Leonard Huxley

Answer 1

I think a lot of people believe what they say so strongly that they think they're saying what they believe, when really they're saying what others believe and what they in turn have internalized, for lack of a better word. But I do agree with the answerer who said that all knowledge is based on authority; it's impossible to avoid that completely. We are immensely affected by what we're born in to. There's no getting around that. I read a book last year (The Immoralist, by André Gide) that dealt with that concept a bit, and the author believed it necessary to completely kill oneself (not physically, of course) to find the blank parchment underneath; the original part of oneself that hadn't been tainted by society and family, and the one that could still be imprinted with truly personal and genuine beliefs.

That's a utopian ideal, at best. To expect people to shed all that they know in the hopes of embracing something completely foreign, which may supposedly be more real and appropriate for them is really excessive. Even if people wanted to do that, it's still an enormous task to undertake. So to some extent, everybody repeats a lot of hearsay, if you will, in the guise of true, personal beliefs. Some people are more "sheltered" than others and less aware of the extent to which their beliefs have been swayed and shaped by others, and some people have broken out of their molds in a manner that would have made Gide himself proud.

Personally, I think I say what I believe a good amount of the time. I still struggle with a lot that I've learned growing up; things that I see still influencing my life even after I've chosen other paths. An unavoidable fact of life, I suppose. But I have learned to look outside of the box I was born in to, and also to step outside that box and look at it from a different perspective. That helps a lot.

Answer 2

Any knowledge we have is based on some authority, so in a sense, we all appeal to authority in an arguement.

The important thing is to understand the the authority may be false or not credible. For instance, information gained the internet tends to lack credib ility. A university supervisor once told me that people publish on the internet because nobody else will publish it.

The knowledge gain from the bible is similarly flawed because it can not be verified by indepndent sources. For a person to perform the miracle that Jesus is said to have performed and the commotion that followed hime everywhere, including his crucufiction, there is remarkably little written about him.

Answer 3

Answering questions, seems to solidify what I believe. I have always felt that teaching, is a learning technique. I aggree with the premise, that most people don't really understand what they believe.

Example; The world is round. Most folks say this, as an appropriate response to questions, but have no mental image of an orb, moving through space, with a sister planet (moon). This allows errors in thinking such as, the 'dark side of the moon'. There is no 'dark side of the moon', but that concept has been said so many times, that people accept it as part of their own knowledge.

I try to think about the questions I answer on this site, and rarely give flip answers.

I thought I was wrong once, but later, I found out that I had been right all along. So my fault was in doubting myself (ha ha).

Answer 4

It is interesting that you should draw on the authority of huxley and da vinci. perhaps i am understanding the question wrong, but are you suggesting that many people believe what they do because it is cultural and do not back themselves up with any integrity?

if so, where do you think people should turn to seperate them from their upbringing?

is huxley's position not just a little arrogant to say that language itself limits a persons experience to the records of others? what else are we to use to communicate and interact?

how is it that he somehow became so acutely aware of what he desceibes, yet he can communicate it to us using language that he absorbed from those before him?

at what point do you think we can say,'i believe what i say AND i say what i believe'?

it is true that all to many 'discussions' are just a game with words as each person tries to better the other players with their persuasive language. and unfortunately, many of these conversations are around themes of religion and politics.
however, this does not make these conversations illigitimate does it?

generally, these conversations are a way for all parties to flesh out exactly how they will portray what they already believe. rather than shaping what they believe, it teaches us to engage with language and those who engage with that same language.

that was we learn to better say what we believe because we know how to believe what we say.

Answer 5

Leo was a brilliant man but he learned the same way as everyone from others.It fact an opinion means little what court would accept opinion as fact.In any debate you are expected to back up your view with facts and reference.Leo was never able to be anything more than an artist because he offended so many people.

Answer 6

I try very hard to base all me answers on what I truly believe to be fact.
Of course this has caused problems in my ministry as often times my statements were based on my perception of the facts which I found later were distorted.
I'll still go with I speak waht I believe, well thats my perception anyway.

Answer 7

TRYING to do BOTH!!! I try to find out the TRUTH, then I try to BELIEVE IT!!!! For instance, the BIBLE say's that we are HEALDED by the STRIPES of JESUS. Now that is the TRUTH. Now, if I want to be HEALED, then I will have to Mentally Agree with this(and do some other things to) untill I actually BELIEVE IT, which let's the POWER of GOD(no doubt and unbelief) come through my Spiritman(me) and I get HEALED.

Answer 8

What I believe is a factor therefore What I say is facts.

Answer 9

I say what I believe . I am a spiritual person not a religious person !!!

Answer 10

pour vou....

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinion, their lives a mimicry, and their passions a quotation....