Do you believe that the word 'believe' is a substitute for knowledge?

Question

Read the difference - I believe our climate is changing. I know our climate is changing. Ever since the word 'believe' entered into our vocabulary, people have been deluding themselves and those around them into 'believing' instead of 'knowing'.

Answer 1

The difference is easy, religious folks have been mistaking the words theology, and theory.

They have such a narrow frame of reference - their holy book - that they are unable/unwilling to understand the simple scientific processes, thus muddle up the terms, and misuse them frequently. With such a muddle on the simple stuff, it is hard for them to even begin to understand the complex subjects, so they just jump back to what they know.

The scientific process starts with a theory, because the scientist has no proof, he will 'believe' in a theory, and apply it to a Scientific method (to quote wikipedia) - a body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge, as well as for correcting and integrating previous knowledge. It is based on gathering observable, empirical, measurable evidence, subject to the principles of reasoning.

Scientific researchers propose specific hypotheses as explanations of natural phenomena, and design experimental studies that test these predictions for accuracy. These steps are repeated in order to make increasingly dependable predictions of future results. Theories that encompass wider domains of inquiry serve to bind more specific hypotheses together in a coherent structure. This in turn aids in the formation of new hypotheses, as well as in placing groups of specific hypotheses into a broader context of understanding.

Evolution started off as a theory, but over the last 100 years, so much evidence of its system has been gathered, that it is now a process, and the theories lie in some of the fine details of a few species that lie at the edges of the fossil sample.

One of your hecklers is trying to shoot down your argument with the planet (sic) Pluto. It was thought to be a planet for a while until we actually were able to prove otherwise. It is so far away from us, that it was only discovered on Feb 18th 1930, but the existence of its gravity was theorised as early as 1900.

In the 1840s, using Newtonian mechanics, Urbain Le Verrier, and John Couch Adams had correctly predicted the position of the then-undiscovered planet Neptune after analyzing perturbations in the orbit of Uranus. Theorizing the perturbations were caused by the gravitational pull of another planet, Johann Gottfried Galle discovered Neptune on September 23, 1846.

Observations of Neptune in the late 19th century had astronomers starting to speculate that Neptune's orbit too was also being disturbed by another planet in a similar manner that Neptune was disturbing Uranus. By 1909, William H. Pickering and Percival Lowell had suggested several possible celestial coordinates for such a planet. In May 1911, the Bulletin of the Astronomical Society of France published calculations by Indian astronomer V.B. Ketakar which predicted a location for an undiscovered planet.

They didn't just believe it was there, they made a mathematical model of the solar system, and it suggested another mass, and thus applied it to reason that it was Pluto.

However, something was wrong, in the orbit of the mathematical model, it suggested a large mass than Pluto has. Pluto has natural satellites: Charon, first identified in 1978 by astronomer James Christy

After the fly-by of Neptune by Voyager 2 in 1989, it was conclusively demonstrated that the discrepancies in Neptune's orbit observed by 19th century astronomers were due instead to inaccurate estimates of Neptune's mass. So in 1990, a search began for other objects. Two smaller moons, Nix and Hydra, were discovered in 2005. When this information had be verified, and new models made and tested, in August 24 2006, Pluto was re-classified, and other objects to make up the missing mass, were ascribed to Nix and Hydra, and these now have to be tested.

The first spacecraft to visit Pluto will be NASA's New Horizons, launched on January 19, 2006. The craft will benefit from a gravity assist from Jupiter, and the closest approach to Pluto will be on July 14, 2015. Scientific observations of Pluto will begin 5 months prior to closest approach and will continue for at least a month after the encounter. New Horizons captured its first images of Pluto in late September 2006, during a test of the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI).

What started off as a belief was turned into a theory with a mathematical model, and as we develop our telescopes and spacecraft, it is being proved. This is knowledge - not the original belief.

Answer 2

I have high confidence the sun exists (although it could be an illusion). I believe nothing. I don't "believe" in God either, but just like the sun I just experience his warmth and decide that I have confidence he exists. It is entirely subjective of course. I do not 'believe' in love, the beauty of a sunset, or the pleasure at eating a rare steak. they are abstract things that I consider to exist although there will always be doubt that they are just an illusion. Many people seem to be trapped in this world of objective materialism intellectually, yet carry on believing in concepts only apparent through subjective experiences.

Answer 3

A couple centuries back English lost the second of two words for knowledge that it used to have. Most other European language have two words; for example, Italian has "sapere" and "conoscere".

The difference illustrates that different kinds of knowledge are possible. "Conoscere" is experiential knowledge. That's why it usually used to indicate knowing a person. "Sapere" is factual knowledge, like knowing where your jacket is.

Experiential knowledge also relates to truth. That moment of judgement when you decide whether someone is telling you the truth. This is belief. It's not just knowing a fact, it's judging the evidence presented to be true.

So, in the absence of precision in our language, we've pressed another word/concept into service. And now we use "believe" when we often mean "know experientially" or "judge to be true". However, "believe" still maintains it's ties to the concept of faith. "Faith is the assurance of things not seen", i.e. when we have to take someone eles' word for it - when we have to judge someone else to be trustworthy.

So your question is actually a little bit more complex than I think you really understand, since it's based on a less than 400 year old quirk of the English language.

Answer 4

I do think that many people prefer belief to knowledge, for various reasons. The difference between the two approaches can often be seen when difficult questions are asked by others who may have doubts. A good orator can doubtless convince a good portion of his audience of many things that are patently false. Knowledge or at least a bit of critical thinking are antidotes to the danger of being easily misled, especially where money and control are involved. Belief requires no knowledge at all; a tempting shortcut when thinking and questioning are so much work ;)

Answer 5

I believe you might be right. :p

I prefer people who speak from educated knowledge of a subject, instead of "believe" being more of a feeling or half-knowledge. In future I will be more guarded against those that present an opinion or statement with "I believe".

Answer 6

I would say that the word "belief" would serve as a substitute for knowledge, or that "believe" might be a substitute for "know," but it is highly unlikely that a verb would substitute for a noun.

Answer 7

There are a vast number of people who have a great deal of knowledge of what the truth is about a great many subjects and still do not believe.
Need I say more?

Answer 8

There is no such thing as knowledge. I don't believe, however, that you remember a time before the word "believe" entered our vocabulary.

Answer 9

No, I do not find the word believe a substitute for knowledge. I am sure most do not, they just use the two words interchangeably in certain social settings. It is acceptable in most. God bless****

Answer 10

To a believer, there's no difference between knowing and believing. If you believe something to be true, then you "know" it to be true.

Whether it is actually true or not is outside the scope of this answer.