Comment on Everybody talks about beliefs like they're this big important thing.
PoastRotato@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Yeah, of course they do. They literally form the cornerstone of your worldview. If you change someone’s beliefs, you change how they see the world. That sounds pretty damn big and important.
Cornerstones, my ASS. Beliefs are just goofy fiction. I believe you’re wearing fruit as a hat. Nobody gives a shit. Nobody should ever give a shit. It’s not a cornerstone of my life, it’s a fleeting nothing, based on nothing, worth nothing.
Some asshole taught you that beliefs are everything? They lied. You know what IS everything?
Fucking everything is! Matter, energy, reality, facts, - that’s what’s important. You believe you can walk on the Sun? “Fuck you” - Reality.
So what you are saying is that it is your own belief that the concept of beliefs encompasses only false beliefs.
So why are beliefs so important for ao many people then?
I mean sure, maybe it’s just indoctrination.
Or maybe it’s utility. Believing a nice scientific model or car repair manual can deliver definite advantages.
Or maybe it’s habit. I’m stuck in my head so areanging my mental furniture becomes important.
Or something else
So why are beliefs so important for ao many people then?
They’re a coping mechanism.
Reality often sucks, so how do you go about your day knowing that so many suffer so many injustices every day? Easy! Just ignore them and pretend like everyone will get what’s coming to them in the afterlife 👍
It’s the perfect system for tyrants: Think I’m a monster who abuses my power and intentionally makes people suffer? Well, if you even try to do anything about it you’re going to hell! Overthrowing an openly evil government is not what Jesus would do!
It’s the same mental gymnastics that people use when they blame minorities for their problems. It’s not me or my beliefs (about the world) that are wrong! It’s those trans furry kids and immigrant invaders who are destroying the very concept of everything I believe in!
It can also be a tool.
For example, the model for gravity is just a useful fiction. But it’s useful. And it being constantly useful like that, one becomes attached to it.
Nietzsche would be proud 🥲
No he wouldn’t, his philosophical viewpoint is a belief in itself. So important to him that he revolved his life around it!
You are assuming that belief = religion, but that’s waaaay off. Belief is anything you don’t know of, and I would argue that there is extremely little we do know at any given point in time. Right now I believe that the window in my room is opened because I can’t see it, and even if I looked at it, I’m believing that my eyes aren’t defying my reasoning.
Belief is what defines us as individuals, every kind of assumptions we do, anything we try to remember, any intuition we have that’s based on experience aka memory, it’s all small figments of our belief system.
Why does it get that special role of “cornerstone”.
You have a thousand things in your perspective. Sights, sounds, vibes, random thoughts… Why does belief get this special treatment?
I think by cornerstone, they are referencing that beliefs are assumptions that form one’s model of the world.
You think by logically building on assumptions. “I remember putting leftovers in the fridge last night, so I don’t need to make dinner tonight” You assume your memories are accurate (or accurate enough) and then build on other things you “know” to construct every thought.
Sights, sounds, and vibes are a different story. They are called qualia and the raw experience of them cannot be described.
Think of qualia like the raw data you collect from an experiment. Your worldview is the scientific model you’ve built to describe this data and it rests on both fundamental logic and the beliefs/theories you currently believe in.
Unfortunately people don’t like having to change their worldview. And when you’ve held a belief for long enough, it becomes foundational to many of your other assumptions. Some people would rather say reality is wrong than change their beliefs.
The word for a belief that cannot be changed via evidence is called a “delusion” in case you ever want to piss off a religious person who says “nothing can shake my faith” like it’s a good thing.
Sounds like the idea of “belief” is just being accepted as a religious or spiritual idea. Beliefs are the cornerstone because it’s a tool we use every single day.
At the center of how we think is the fundamental idea of The Way Things Work and that comes down to how we believe the physical things around us will act and react. Just about everyone will start making a choice by comparing what we know to be real or true for ourselves and the things around us.
That cornerstone of belief is what we use to define “real and true”. Ghosts or spirits are absolutely real and true for some people while others don’t see the same evidence.
Beliefs get the special treatment because we are a collection of our experiences and each one of us has a different way of understanding how things work.
Ahhh. Yes, they are thinking religion. I didn’t think they’d lunge that way. I mean, with all the politics and gender stuff around these days, I figured the term would bee seen as broader. A wider range of options.
That said. Meh. Your thesis sums to “beliefs are important because beliefs are important”.
Knowledge is built on justified, true beliefs. I know and believe the sun will rise tomorrow. You can believe shit on faith, or lack of evidence, but I’d disagree if someone claims to “know” gods or ghosts exist and ask for their evidence.
Akasazh@feddit.nl 4 days ago
I wish I got to be as militant about my atheist beliefs as some nut jobs can be about their faith.
Not that I really want to, but must be nice sometimes just acting like everybody that doesn’t think like me is wrong
acockworkorange@mander.xyz 4 days ago
We could go door to door spreading our disbelief. But we generally hate proselytizers.
Schmoo@slrpnk.net 4 days ago
Some people are, it’s called antitheism. I confess when I was an edgy 16yo I was like that, but I had just left a religious cult so don’t judge me too harshly.