MAD-4A wrote:Belief:
1.something believed; an opinion or conviction:
2.confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof:
from the same source, you can't change the definition of a word from one definition to another to suit your argument.
Quote mining, again? Disappointing.
Here's the expanded entry on
belief from
http://dictionary.reference.com/And FTR, I didn't check this definition until I read your latest post.
noun
1.something believed; an opinion or conviction:
a belief that the earth is flat.
2.confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof:
a statement unworthy of belief.
3.confidence; faith; trust:
a child's belief in his parents.
4.a religious tenet or tenets; religious creed or faith:
the Christian belief.
Synonyms
1. view, tenet, conclusion, persuasion.
2. assurance. Belief, certainty, conviction refer to acceptance of, or confidence in, an alleged fact or body of facts as true or right without positive knowledge or proof. Belief is such acceptance in general: belief in astrology. Certainty indicates unquestioning belief and positiveness in one's own mind that something is true: I know this for a certainty. Conviction is settled, profound, or earnest belief that something is right: a conviction that a decision is just.
4. doctrine, dogma.
British Dictionary definitions for belief
/bɪˈliːf/
noun
1.
a principle, proposition, idea, etc, accepted as true
2.
opinion; conviction
3.
religious faith
4.
trust or confidence, as in a person or a person's abilities, probity, etc
Word Origin and History for belief Expand
n.
late 12c., bileave, replacing Old English geleafa "belief, faith," from West Germanic *ga-laubon "to hold dear, esteem, trust" (cf. Old Saxon gilobo, Middle Dutch gelove, Old High German giloubo, German Glaube), from *galaub- "dear, esteemed," from intensive prefix *ga- + *leubh- "to care, desire, like, love" (see love (v.)). The prefix was altered on analogy of the verb believe. The distinction of the final consonant from that of believe developed 15c.
"The be-, which is not a natural prefix of nouns, was prefixed on the analogy of the vb. (where it is naturally an intensive) .... [OED]
Belief used to mean "trust in God," while faith meant "loyalty to a person based on promise or duty" (a sense preserved in keep one's faith, in good (or bad) faith and in common usage of faithful, faithless, which contain no notion of divinity). But faith, as cognate of Latin fides, took on the religious sense beginning in 14c. translations, and belief had by 16c. become limited to "mental acceptance of something as true," from the religious use in the sense of "things held to be true as a matter of religious doctrine" (a sense attested from early 13c.).
Note that the word has several different uses: one that expresses certainty, confidence, and another that expresses religious faith. I do
not change meanings to suit my argument, it's you who chooses to
ignore meanings to suit your own argument.
Agnostic: a person who holds neither of two opposing positions on a topic:
is the position of someone who
does not believe one way or the other and therefore does not
believe & is not a religion. Atheists
do believe there is no God and fits the definition of a religion whether you want it to or not - if you do not want to be in a religion then you are an
Agnostic with Atheist views. Much as I'm not a member of a Political group, not even the "Independent" group, I am "A-political with Libertarian views"
So you consider me an
Agnostic with Atheist views. Hmmmmmm... so according to you, I'm "on the fence" regarding Atheism and Religion. But also according to you, Atheism is a religion. So I'm "on the fence" between Religion and... what? Religion and the void?
Sort yourself out. Either atheism
is a religion, in which case I can't be on the fence between atheism and Religion, because atheism is included
within Religion, and therefore the issue of choice is bogus. Or atheism is not a religion, in which case it's a completely legitimate choice that doesn't involve me belonging to a religion, which is exactly my point.
This, my quote-mining friend, is called Logic.
