Why do Christians make factual statements about their beliefs?

Question

This is not just for Christians, its for anyone out there who makes factual statements about there beliefs.

Last time I checked a belief was what you believed to be true.
And a fact was true. They are two different things. Stating a belief as a fact is complete ignorance.

Why are mixing beliefs with truth?
Isn't this disrespectful to other beliefs?
Isn't it just plain wrong?

for example...

Factual Statement: There is a God
Belief Statement: "I Believe" there is a God

JC, I am not trying to demean anyone. Telling someone your belief is a fact, is wrong. That demeans other beliefs

alamarhara, beliefs are what the person believes is true, they are not facts

weboffin, evolution is not fact. Bu there is so much evidence, we can assume it is "fact". Beliefs on the other hand have no physical evidence....they are about believing.

Evoluttion was not the topic here. Evolution deals with science. This is dealing with beliefs

bookish, making factual statements about beliefs is a MUST? WE must all remember the simple "fact" that beliefs are beliefs and facts are facts. It is not a Must, in fact it would be beneficial if everyone could see that.

Catholic, you "believe" in GOD....it seems as if everything out of a christians mouth is a belief....

When i talk to people, i use mostly facts....try it sometime

unfit command, you just typed ALL factual statements about your beliefs.....read the question please

Maurice, you are confusing science with beliefs....

a good scientist never assumes things...they make discoveries and go from there. they won't say "the earth is round" if they don't have evidence that proves it is, they will say "I believe the earth is round"...big difference

mist dark, a christian does not "know" there is a god, they "believe" in one.....same for other beiefs...thats why they simply call them beliefs......because they are not FACT

JFK, yes you said it, they can "believe" them to be facts.....but the fact remains, they are not facts....they are still beliefs

friendshipband, i'm not clicking on your link

semper, ah you picked out an inconsistency in my question(the best answer yet!)....i should of said "why do some christians make factual statements about their beliefs? apologies, thanks for catching it

Hevn Bd, Beliefs are not facts. by the way you answered why we shouldn't use factual statements about our beliefs....

Just me, your comparson is inconsistent. We KNOW the sun will rise tommorrow because it rose today, and the day before that and so on. Thats evidence. Therefore, you don't look dumb saying "the sun will rise tommorrow".....noone will disagree on that....

however, religious beliefs are whole other ball game.

Joy, good point....i noticed that the athiests make factual statements about their beliefs....i don't see pagans doing it tho

friend, you make some very good points....although i did get lost in the second paragraph...i'll read it again later.

amber, dumb question? well thanks for the dumb answer. "I believe fact"....look up fact in the dictionary...

facts are facts, beliefs are beliefs...how many times do i have to say it

Thin, just because someone(god, whoever) says something is true, doesn't make it the ultimate TRUTH.

If you believe in that statement, thats fine. It is your belief

Brian F, Evolution is based on scientific data....some Beliefs(not all) are based on the supernatural....so just because the bible has withstood criticism it is stronger than evolution? thats ridiculous

Answer 1

It may be an unconscious thing. However, I think most god-believers tend to overstate their position and portray their beliefs as fact in the hopes to convince an unbeliever as commanded by their god. When asked for the factual basis (evidence), they cannot answer and are embarassed and often lash out in ad hominem attacks.

I have much more respect fo those who state their beliefs as beliefs.

Answer 2

You asked this question to stir up a debate that you knew would come down Christians against non-Christians. OH YES! You knew it would. You began with "Why do Christians make factual statements” and then tagged on "anyone out there who makes factual statements about their beliefs". We all do this, including you. You see a dog following closely by a man; you say that the dog loves his master. The fact may be that the dog is hungry and following the scent of meat on the guy. Besides truth is in the eye of the beholder. Twice in my life I have been accused of something that I did not do. Both times the "facts" were that I had done it. The first time in school, the "facts" were accepted without question. They were true and indisputable all right, but they were not all the facts. When I was allowed to present the whole story, then the whole truth came out. The person that accused me had not lied, he had told the truth, and he gave a true statement based on what he saw and knew to be true and proven fact. But there were other things that he did not see and did not know. So even when we state facts, it is really just a statement of faith or belief that the facts are true. For instance, we accept that George Washington was the first President of this country. That is a fact a truth that is provable, right? Wrong! We have only history books that tell us that there was a George Washington and that he was president. We BELIEVE this to be truth. We do not know it for an indisputable fact. We were not there; we did not see this man. How do we KNOW that George Washington is not a made up character, such as Paul Bunyan? We accept someone else's word as fact. You believe this to be true, because everyone does. If someone in a major university or major historian, started to say that there was doubt that George Washington was a real person and then several more joined in, you would start to question if he were real as well. Remember history is written by men and several times in recent years, there have been revisions in the history books. You have to mix beliefs with truth. IF you don't believe this, let me ask you this. Were you alive more than one hundred years ago? No? Then you do NOT know for a fact anything that happened before you were born, or, for that matter, anything that you have not seen and heard for your self. So anything that you have not personally experienced is accepted on the "belief" that it is fact.

Answer 3

Christians do NOT make factual statements about their belief. That's the issue. They make statements about their belief, claiming them to be facts, when those statements cannot meet the burdon of hard, indisputable, unarguable, undeniable, irrefutable, incontrovertible PROOF. It doesn't matter how sincerely, how passionately, and how strongly you BELIEVE something, it doesn't make it a fact unless and until you can demonstrate it to others as such.

I am not going to insist that there is a Mysterious Invisible Superbeing out there somewhere, pulling all the puppet strings of our lives; or that there isn't. I am only going to say that I personally do not believe it for one eeeny teeny tiny decimal fraction of a minute. But the difference between me and the Passionate Religionists is that unlike them, I have no interest in persuading anybody to think and believe the same way I do. Not my concern what others believe because just like every other human being on the planet, they have the same right that I do.... to be the owner of their own mind, and the master of their own thinking and believing.

The other thing I don't do is go around telling other people that I KNOW I am right therefore they have to be wrong.

Answer 4

Interesting question. WE state them as facts, because they are facts. YOu may not belive them, but that doesnt make them true. Much evidence is found to support things of the Bible. Plus God reveals things to us once we do believe. Have you seen a miracle yet, or been part of one? Try and deny the existence of creator God when you see someone healed of a terminal illness. Many things happen and we know. Just becuase you dont belive it, doesn tmake it a non fact.
PPL state evolution as fact, when its only a theory. YOu can show scientific evidence but they are from scientsits that dont know the truths of God that would explain things. God even wanred us about false science, in 1 Tim 6:20 If science doesnt go along with God, God says its false.
At least we know that you cant get something from nothing. If you say a big bang caused all this.. where did the stuff come from? Who caused it? YOu say it just always was. WHy cant you believe that God just always was. HE is the one that made all the matter, all the things you say causes the big bang. Evolution??? we know we evolve over time, . If you put a dog in colder climate, he will grow a heavier coat, but he doesnt become a new specidies. IF ppl wuld only study God word, they would begin to understnd all this.
But, even a fifth grader knows you cant get something from nothing. If I gave you a new car, and told you it fell from the sky last night from a giant explosions millions of miles up, would you believe it? Or wouldnt you know someone had to think about that car, plan and design it, and MAKE IT?
so evolution is only a theory, big bang is only a theory. BUt we see evidcen of the things God tells us all the time. Read what the scientists say that are Chrisitan, and yes there is plenty out there, but those other dont want us to hear it all.
We state our beliefs as facts, because they are......
I pray one day you all will know that too. What I am saying isnt wrong. ITs what God tells me to say. IF you arent happy with me, be angry with God and talk to Him about it, maybe He will help YOU to see too.

Answer 5

I don't honestly think that anyone intends to mix beliefs with truth. I do believe, however, that if you are saved you hold your beliefs as truth. It is a fine line. I believe that what I read in the bible (depending on which version) is the truth. Therefore, when I am having a conversation about my relationship with God I believe I am speaking truth, not just my belief (or my interpretation of the bible). I can only hope that those who have been saved feel strongly enough about their faith and their relationship with God that when they spread the word, they believe they are spreading the truth.

Answer 6

maybe facts are in fact beliefs, we say the earth is round but maybe it only appears round to us maybe for example aliens see it as a triangle maybe its on a larger scale and what we think we hear and see and understand is all processed to us and relay we are told and given what we can and cant believe maybe the reason we cant not understand why religious people make what appears to us as true is because we are not allowed to understand that.

also on a simpler side I Think the media and western life style has done well in making religions seem so impossible when things like the big bang aren't any More likely than for example a god to create the big bang himself you cannot say oh there wrong because they personally just like us belief in a certain believe, a atheist only believes or on a personal level so called knows that the world was created during the big bang but this is no more likely than a christian belief of god creating the big bang himself which in return created the earth, maybe the reason we belief we are write is because we cannot handle the reality maybe our human minds are to limited to begin to handle the true reality maybe the big bang is only a tiny part of reality we were able to understand, maybe evolution is only a tiny piece of dust in the whole equation

sorry for bad grammar and bad layout, and sorry for going of topic abit :)

Answer 7

Many people who are clearly not ignorant are actually more informed than others on subjects.

What makes anything a fact? Is it seeing something with your own eyes...I think not. Your eyes can deceive you. Is it that the person who wrote an academic textbook you read has a doctorate on that subject? Well, 8 years of your life and you can have a doctorate as well..at what point in that process did you become infallible? And yet, the Bible is LESS reliable than modern textbooks? I think not, reason says that thousands of years of crticism puts it to a much stronger test than 1-13 decades of observation concerning many of our modern "factual" sciences such as evolution.

Answer 8

Hello
let us do a bit of word studying together definitions from Wordweb.com****
Belief means = Any cognitive content held as true is a belief as the word belief is defined
Cognitions means = The psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning
Truths means = A fact that has been verified
****
this rather covers and validates your argument rather factually
with truths---hey?
*******
Zeal means = A feeling of strong eagerness (usually in favor of a person or cause)
***this word tells you why it is done by some
is it right--
--only God may truly judge
--thus we do not know the right
or wrong of the thing do we----
peace and love-------

Answer 9

Certain beliefs boarder on truth for some people. Christians
KNOW there is a god. They don't believe it's true. they know it. Just as an Athiest KNOWS there is no god. If pushed on the subject they'll spout various facts about how this or that proves what they believe. But it all boils down to something they believe vs what someone else believes.

I think it also stems from the childish mentality of clamping your hands over your ears and screaming 'you're wrong' because you don't like what the other person says.

Answer 10

Religion is probably, for most people, the most personal and important aspect of their lives.

Most religions express themselves in terms of absolutes. Christianity does not teach-- we believe in God and Jesus (but hey we might be wrong)- it teaches its beliefs as absolutes. Therefore-- in many minds- to be a good Christian you have to believe beyond a shadow of a doubt. Isn't that the very definition of a fact? Something that is true beyond questioning? Or at the very least it is the definition of a fact to the people who are portraying their religion as fact.

Also the same sorts of religions that express their dogma in the form of absolutes are usually religions that have at their core a dichotomy of believer vs non-believer. In this mindset anyone who does not believe as the believer does, is doomed. Some religions choose to condemn such non-believers, while others seek to bring them back into the fold by converting them.

Other religions-- especially those with an Eastern philosophical slant- are less invested in the TRUE vs FALSE, BELIEVER vs. NON BELIEVER mindset. They believe that there are many paths to enlightenment, and that each should journey along theirs without worrying about what others are doing.

Of course-- even beyond the religious debate-- is the debate over belief and fact itself. My belief is that there really are no true facts-- about anything. As the observer, we cannot separate ourselves from what we have observed. I may think that the flower I perceive is white. To the bee there are perhaps a thousand shadings of color in it that I cannot see with my limited sight.

Friedrich Nietzsche said "There are no facts, only interpretations."

Chaos theory hypothesizes many things about the nature of "reality" including the "fact" that "There is no deep reality." Objects, everyday real things, "float on a world that is not as real." (Bohr, Heisenberg.) The Copenhagen "orthodox ontology" leads directly to QR2, which posits an observer-created reality in which the act of measurement gives rise to observed reality ("The moon is demonstrably not there when no one looks" -- N.D. Mermin)."

Or to put a pop culture spin on it. In the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, Jesus is being confronted by Pilate who asks him
"But what is truth, is truth unchanging law? We both have truths, are mine the same as yours?"