PEOPLE! What does it mean to "believe" ?

Question

Im doing an essay in religion. and i was wondering if you guys can put some insight into this. and what do you guys think about what it means to believe and is it important? why?

Answer 1

1. To accept as true or real
2. To credit with veracity
3. To expect or suppose; think
4. To have faith, confidence, or trust
5. To have confidence in the truth or value of something
6. To have an opinion

Answer 2

I am basing this answer on my opinion...nothing more.

To believe something is to live ones life under the assumption that a certain belief is fact. It does not matter whether we are talking about religion or about chocolate being the best flavor of ice cream. Belief is personal and unique to each individual.

From a religious standpoint, believing is living the life...or as it is often said..."walking the walk" not just talking the talk.

If you think of belief in the context of anything other than religion, it is as I said above, a presumed fact of our life, therefore is meaningful as far as our general attitude toward the belief is. For example, if you believe a yellow house is pretty, you will think that a house that is yellow is pretty. If you believe that a pig can fly, then if you see a pig flying, you would not be surprised etc.

People live their beliefs...at least to some extent, therefore the measure of the strength of the belief can be measured by how much that belief affects the person's life.

Speaking in religious terms in particular, simply believing in the existance of a God is not enough. You need to believe in what that God stands for....what He or She instructs regarding your behavior...and what He or She says about your future.

Good luck with your essay.

Answer 3

To believe something simply means to think that it's true. For example, if I say, "I believe there are cookies in the cookie jar," that just means that I think the statement "There are cookies in the cookie jar" is a true statement.

Beliefs are important because they determine our actions. We almost always act consistently with what we think is true.

It's important with religion, too. Why subscribe to a particular worldview unless you think the worldview is actually true?

Of course for some people, religion is like makebelieve. It's just a game they play.

Answer 4

I think it is important to believe. Without belief we would not be here right now asking this question or reading this response. According to your belief, be it unto you. That may be from the Bible, even though I don't really go that way. The important thing is that you believe, without belief nothing is possible. Life is what you make it.

Answer 5

to believe means to understand or assume something to be true. Beliefs may be based on evidence, such as "I believe the sun will rise tomorrow because I've seen it rise every morning my entire life. Or, beliefs may be based on faith, as in "I believe that the world was created by a nine-headed cat because a lot of people have told me it is the truth.

Answer 6

A 'Willingness to Believe' Is Wisdom-WHEN?

IT HAS been asserted, "The most important and most unnoticed quality in the world is the will to believe. It plays its part every time we drop a letter in a postal box or board a plane or do the thousand-and-one routine things that make up our modern life. From the money we bank to the money we borrow . . . we live in a world built on faith," on the willingness to believe.-The Will to Believe, by professor and popular author Marcus Bach.

This may be so to a large extent in the material world, but how true is it when it comes to spiritual matters? Agnostics and atheists in particular demonstrate an unwillingness to believe. As philosopher William James once pointed out, such skeptics take the position that it is more important to reject error than it is to accept the truth. With what result? They deny themselves the opportunity to learn the facts that prove there is a God and thereby to realize all the blessings that come with such knowledge.

The unwise course of these skeptics is similar to the attitude of many in the seventeenth century toward Harvey's discovery that blood circulates in the human body. Harvey had no explanation as to how the blood got from the arteries to the veins, because the microscope had not then been invented; hence he was unable to see the capillaries. This invisibleness of the capillaries furnished one of the objections raised to his theory. So his discovery "gained no adherents from any of the established anatomists of Europe." Instead, "solemn worthies wrote weighty objections," we are told in the book The Human Body.

Three centuries later England's medical profession was again unduly critical; this time of Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin. But in time two researchers were willing to examine with open minds the possibilities of the drug and they succeeded in perfecting penicillin so that it was free from harmful foreign elements. As a result the three researchers received Nobel prizes for their work on what has been termed "the single greatest lifesaver of modern medicine."

One who has an open mind, who is willing to examine the evidence in regard to God, will not be an agnostic nor an atheist. Thus Santiago Ramón y Cajal, one of the foremost authorities on the eye, once confessed that the wisdom he found here displayed, particularly in the retina and the lens, "for the first time weakened my faith in Darwin's hypothesis of natural selection." This was because he did not close his mind to the facts. He was open to the evidence that there must be some superior power.

Also, Robert Millikan, considered the dean of American scientists in his day, once stated: "There's a Divinity that shapes our ends . . . else we would not have a sense of our own responsibility. A PURELY MATERIALISTIC PHILOSOPHY IS TO ME THE HEIGHT OF UNINTELLIGENCE. Wise men in all the ages have always seen enough to at least make them reverent." Yes, as the apostle Paul expressed it nineteen centuries earlier: "His [God's] invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world's creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, . . . so that they are inexcusable" for refusing to believe in the existence of God.-Rom. 1:20.

The will to believe in a superior unseen power might be said to be a basic human instinct. Thus The World Book Encyclopedia tells us that "there has never been a people that did not have some form of religion." And as Professor **** noted, "The longing for God is inextinguishably rooted in man, wherever he may be and to whatever age he may belong." This is especially apparent when men face great danger or death, for which reason it has been said, "There are no atheists in the foxholes," that is, on the battlefield.

Because a willingness to believe is at once a basic instinct and a need, powerful Communist Russia has had to come to terms with organized religion as practiced in Christendom (shameful as it is). Russia's youths are finding a purely materialistic philosophy of life to be unsatisfying. The more serious-minded among them bewail the meaninglessness of their lives and cry for something in which they can believe. American youths betray the same need to believe.

The will to believe in something is wisdom, however, only when based on facts and reason, even as noted in the foregoing quotation from the scientist Millikan. Just the belief in the existence of a Higher Power personality is not enough. For the willingness to believe to be wisdom one must go farther and be willing to examine that which professes to answer such questions as: What does the Supreme Being require of us? Where did we come from? What is our destiny? Why do we suffer and die?

In this regard the Bible has more to recommend its being examined by us than any other book. It has the greatest antiquity and is most widely translated-wholly or in part in 1,471 languages-which is what we would expect of a divine revelation.

Further, it has inspired a loyalty such as no other book ever has. Men have devoted their lives and have even sacrificed their lives to translate it. It has brought hope and joy to dejected and mourning ones and has aided countless numbers to lead better lives.

An American president of more than a century ago is quoted as telling a skeptical friend: "Read this Book [the Bible] for what on reason you can accept and take the rest on faith, and you will live and die a better man."

Answer 7

To believe = to be confident. Believing means you are confident in a result of an action. When you put on your clothes, you have faith they will stay on. When you drink water, you have faith that your body will assume it. When you turn the key in your car, you have faith that it will run.

Answer 8

In simple terms, to believe means to place your trust in Christ. This is the opposite of trusting in yourself.

Have faith in the Gospel of Christ Jesus and act on that faith.

Answer 9

yes. believing is having faith and hope for God. it is very important because you must believe not by sight but by faith. i am in love with Jesus. because he touched my heart. whenever i have problem that troubles me, i cry out to my God and I put all my trust in him. any by believing you put your all with no doubts.

Answer 10

1.Each morning upon rising, and each evening before sleeping, give thanks for the life within you and for all life, for the good things that Wakan Tanka ---Creator has given you and for the opportunity to grow a little more each day. Consider your thoughts and actions of the past day and seek for the courage and strength to be a better person. Seek for the things that will benefit others (everyone).
2.Show Respect. Respect means “To feel or show honor or esteem for someone or something; to consider the well being of, or to treat someone or something with deference or courtesy.” Showing respect is a basic law of life.
o-Treat every person from the tiniest child to the oldest elder with respect at all times.
o-Special respect should be given to Elders, Parents, Teachers, and Community Leaders.
o-No person should be made to feel “put down” by you; avoid hurting other hearts as you would avoid a deadly poison.
o-Touch nothing that belongs to someone else (especially Sacred Objects) without permission, or an understanding between you.
o-Respect the privacy of every person, never intrude on a person’s quiet moment or personal space.
o-Never walk between people that are conversing.
o-Never interrupt people who are conversing.
o-Speak in a soft voice, especially when you are in the presence of Elders, strangers or others to whom special respect is due.
o-Do not speak unless invited to do so at gatherings where Elders are present (except to ask what is expected of you, should you be in doubt).
o-Never speak about others in a negative way, whether they are present or not.
o-Treat the earth and all of her aspects as your mother. Show deep respect for the mineral world, the plant world, and the animal world. Do nothing to pollute our Mother, rise up with wisdom to defend her.
o-Show deep respect for the beliefs and religion of others.
o-Listen with courtesy to what others say, even if you feel that what they are saying is worthless. Listen with your heart.
3.Respect the wisdom of the people in council. Once you give an idea to a council meeting it no longer belongs to you. It belongs to the people. Respect demands that you listen intently to the ideas of others in council and that you do not insist that your idea prevail. Indeed you should freely support the ideas of others if they are true and good, even if those ideas are quite different from the ones you have contributed. The clash of ideas brings forth the Spark of Truth. Once a council has decided something in unity, respect demands that no one speak secretly against what has been decided. If the council has made an error, that error will become apparent to everyone in its own time.
4.Be truthful at all times, and under all conditions.
5.Always treat your guests with honor and consideration. Give of your best food, your best blankets, the best part of your house, and your best service to your guests.
6.The hurt of one is the hurt of all, the honor of one is the honor of all.
7.Receive strangers and outsiders with a loving heart and as members of the human family.
8.All the races and tribes in the world are like the different colored flowers of one meadow. All are beautiful. As children of the Wakan Tanka---Creator they must all be respected.
9.To serve others, to be of some use to family, community, nation, and the world is one of the main purposes for which human beings have been created. Do not fill yourself with your own affairs and forget your most important talks. True happiness comes only to those who dedicate their lives to the service of others.
10.Observe moderation and balance in all things.
11.Know those things that lead to your well-being, and those things that lead to your destruction.
12.Listen to and follow the guidance given to your heart. Expect guidance to come in many forms; in prayer, in dreams, in times of quiet solitude, and in the words and deeds of wise Elders and friends.



Wahoo!!!!