Belief is Knowledge. Knowledge is Belief. Do you agree to this?

Question

The more I read about athiests and Christians, the more I think about this. They argue endlessly about whose beliefs are right, but they're not really talking about belief. They are trying to educate each other with their own knowledge, something they believe is true.

Answer 1

No. Belief is trust. Knowledge is accumulation of facts (both True AND False).

You can receive tons of knowledge, but If you do not have trust in the soundness of that knowledge, you will not believe.

And knowledge in and of itself is neither trustworthy nor compelling. Knowledge is not the basis for belief, the trusted source of that knowledge is.

Answer 2

The classic definition of knowledge is a true and justified belief.

So yes, all things you know are beliefs. But it's not just enough to believe. Your beliefs have to also be accurate and you must have those beliefs for the right reason for it to count as 'knowledge'.

So if you guess that it's going to rain tomorrow, even if you're right you don't have any knowledge... you just guessed. You have no reasonable justification for thinking that it's going to rain. On the other hand, if your knee always hurts a day before it rains, then you DO have knowledge, just not knowledge that can be confirmed.

Religious and anti-religious people get tied up at every part of this problem.

Some will argue about what a particular belief is true or not (e.g. 'God is male'). In many cases there is no way to determine this, so they end up running in circles.

Some will argue about whether a particular belief is rational and justified. In many of these cases, they may agree on pieces of knowledge, but disagree about what reasonable conclusions can be drawn from them (e.g. what fossils mean). Since few people are really good at logic, these discussions often go nowhere, too.

Many religious people don't even make a claim to knowledge... just belief without reasonable justification (e.g. faith). And some claim kinds of evidence which cannot be shared but which might still be valid (e.g. divine inspiration). Which then can blossom into an entirely different kind of discussion as well.

There's a lot of flavours there, really, if you can hang around a lot of people with axes to grind long enough to see them.

Answer 3

No, I do to agree.

First, I should say I rarely talk about religion. While there are people who can talk intelligently of that subject, many others are not willing. For them, the conversation is not a dialog, an exchange of information.They get a form of compensation that I was once too innocent to comprehend.

That said, my answer is not religious. In ordinary events, to believe means to accept a statement as true without formal proof. In philosophy, to believe is a somewhat technical term. I have seen it meant "to be aware of [statement]." There are other meanings slightly different than normal usage. I cannot talk sense without knowing more, or choosing context.

To use the words with ordinary meanings, I would say that there are beliefs that are not knowledge ("A rabbit's foot brings good luck"), and there is knowledge that is not believed. As example, I would say that AIDS is curable. A medicine does not exist, but that does not mean that it could not exist. I believe the works of the human body can be known by the humanity. Just as what is known today was not known fifty years ago, I imagine humanity will know much more in fifty years. But I cannot claim to know a cure can be produced. I do not know what proof to present.

Answer 4

I would answer yes. My beliefs are based on my knowledge, first formed from the things I was taught. As I gain more knowledge through research and reading, my beliefs change. If I believe in things that I find conflict, the first thing I do is try to gain more knowledge. So, beliefs can make you knowledgable, and knowledge can lead to beliefs.

Answer 5

This is a good question.

Most people differentiate between belief and knowledge- knowledge is something that is fact, and belief is something that is opinion. However- opinion and fact are the same thing with different levels of complexity. If you believe something, you have facts for it, whether it is a personal experience, or facts that you read in NY Times. Either way, you wouldn't believe it without something backing it up.

Answer 6

Although your observation of the behavior may be true to a certain extent, the hypothesis is not. Christians have a belief that cannot be perfectly expressed or communicated in words. As a result, you'll observe use of "facts" from the Bible woven into arguments meant to convince. However the belief came before the arguments. Its the belief, the call to action, that gives rise to the desire to participate in those conversations in the first place.

You have to believe that you're superman, BEFORE you choose to stop a train with your bare hands or stop bullets with your chest.

Answer 7

No you are confused... knowledge is very far from belief! knowledge can be verified within the human condition and instrumental capabilities. You can have knowledge about a belief, but belief is not in anyway knowledge. There is a yes or no answer to knowledge's validity. But there is not a yes or no answer to belief's validity... belief is based in faith alone...! Knowledge is a functional structured set of understanding and memory that are based in evidence!

Answer 8

Belief and knowledge are two very different things. I think the arguments between Christians and atheists are proof of that!

I come from a mixed religion family. I have heard all the arguments. My knowledge of history has shown me the problems of many religions and my knowledge of people has taught me that many bad things are done in the name of religion.

The longshot of this is that I believe in God even though no proof exists but I can't join any organized religions.

Answer 9

Knowledge is something that can be observed, verified, proven. Belief can be (and unfortunately often is) anything. And that's one of the big differences between atheists & believers. Atheists are much more careful to distinguish between the two.

It is a very unfortunate aspect of the human mental condition that in most believers (and I am not just referring to religious beliefs here, but political, pseudoscience, etc.), strong belief is very often mistaken for knowledge.

Ultimately, people believe because they WANT to believe--belief is a sophisticated form of desire. And people don't necessarily want to _know_, rather they want their beliefs to be true. But the two are not the same. If you want to know, you start from the assumption that you do not know, and accept whatever the results may lead to. If you simply want your beliefs to be true, then you start with the assumption that you already know, and then seek confirmation for your beliefs while engaging in all sorts of mental acrobatics to ignore or dismiss anything that conflicts with those beliefs.

Answer 10

I disagree.

Belief is not knowledge; belief is faith and is based not on concrete evidence. Knowledge, however, is supposed to be based on something tangible (or, scientifically, created and replicated).

Knowledge is what we know beyond the shadow of a doubt is true (hence the "know" in knowledge). Belief is what we hold in our heart to be true, though there is room to doubt for those who are of weak spirit.