Is Unbelief Possible?

[rexbeccarox]

Just make a thread in the introductions forum, and tell us a little about yourself.

[Hezekiah]

Analytic philosophers of mind define belief as, "the psychological state in which one accepts a premise or proposition to be true". This seems to be the best working definition of belief that I've heard.

Using that definition, everyone has beliefs, because everyone accepts some premises and propositions to be true.

That being said, there are good reasons to believe premises, and bad reasons.

The single best method we've come up with for determining whether a premise should be accepted as true, is by basing beliefs on demonstrable evidence, reasoned argument and valid/sound logic. Nothing else comes close.

Faith fails on every level. Faith is not a path to truth. It is indistinguishable from gullibility.

I like hat definition a lot. But if I can play devil's advocate for one question: Why are humans capable of faith if it is to be discourage? In other words, why is it that faith is a natural thing every human has the ability of engaging in, and yet it bad? And if so, how does one surgically remove faith?

[Anomalocaris]

My greatest fear is that general belief is a trap. That the person urns to trust his surronding or cling on to something, and truthfully there is nothing to cling to. That because there are bad beliefs, belief might be tainted. And anything tainted is imperfect, not reliable, or trustworthy. In other words, belief being a trap that has swallowed humanity for countless centuries.

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You seem to slipperily lump you notion of religious faith with proposition built up from evidence and embraced accordingly together as "Belief". Is it intentional?

Unintentional. My definition of belief is simple trust. My definition of faith is believing/trusting something that has no evidence. I may be walking a fine line between skepticism here.

Once you adopted a trust without grounding in comprehensively assessed evidence, perhaps out of some perception of private convenience or advantage, do you untrust yourself when confronted with contrary evidence?

If you do, then the belief is not a trap. If you don't, then it is a trap.

Faith is a trap. Belief is not necessarily a trap.

[KichigaiNeko]

Become sceptical of your "beliefs" to the point where you don't "believe" in any thing.

[Anomalocaris]

Become sceptical of your "beliefs" to the point where you don't "believe" in any thing.

One should not become so sceptical that one would shy away from making operating assumptions necessary to get things done. But one should not preserve those assumptions when evidence becomes clear that they were incorrect.

[KichigaiNeko]

Become sceptical of your "beliefs" to the point where you don't "believe" in any thing.

One should not become so sceptical that once would shy away from making operating assumptions necessary to get things done. But one should not preserve those assumptions when evidence becomes clear that they were incorrect.

Precisely

[rexbeccarox]

For me, it's promoting realistic things rather than discouraging faith or belief.

[Hezekiah]

One should not become so sceptical that once would shy away from making operating assumptions necessary to get things done. But one should not preserve those assumptions when evidence becomes clear that they were incorrect.

Precisely

I agree. At that point it becomes prideful, ignorant, and dogmatic. Accounting for human error, and human mistake is the only way to proceed on a path towards truth.

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My greatest fear is that general belief is a trap. That the person urns to trust his surronding or cling on to something, and truthfully there is nothing to cling to. That because there are bad beliefs, belief might be tainted. And anything tainted is imperfect, not reliable, or trustworthy. In other words, belief being a trap that has swallowed humanity for countless centuries.

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Unintentional. My definition of belief is simple trust. My definition of faith is believing/trusting something that has no evidence. I may be walking a fine line between skepticism here.

Once you adopted a trust without grounding in comprehensively assessed evidence, perhaps out of some perception of private convenience or advantage, do you untrust yourself when confronted with contrary evidence?

If you do, then the belief is not a trap. If you don't, then it is a trap.

Faith is a trap. Belief is not necessarily a trap.

You make a good point. I agree. I'll elaborate just a bit why I sparked this question: As I'm sure you may already know, Charles Sanders Price coined the phrase, "phaneron" a world filtered through our senses. Which is different from what reality actually is. This struck me because if I were to trust anything, I would have to accept the information through my faulty brain and senses ("faulty" because of optical illusions, tactile illusion, etc. Illusions able to trick the mind). So I immediately began to realize, I can't entirely trust myself in my quest for truth. I won't drone on too much, but long story short, everything is filtered through a three-pound piece of meat called a brain and I began to ask the question, "if I can't trust myself, who or what can I trust" and that's what lead me to the idea of God. Now I'm not trying to convince you of anything but rather just give you a peak into my journey so far, and maybe get some critique (which I have thankfully been getting a great deal of!)

[Anomalocaris]

You did not take a journey, you despaired of swimming and decided to grabbed onto a straw in the hopes the straw will both decide for you where you want to go, and absolve you of the need to swim to get there, despite much evidence the straw does not have any facility for the wisdom attributed to it by fools, nor possesses the necessary buoyancy to really keep you afloat. There is good working assumption, and there is idiotic working assumption.

[Mudhammam]

(Just to preface my question, I'm a Christian, but I don't force my beliefs on anyone. I think that people have a right to believe whatever they want, and no religion or perspective should ever be forced on anyone. That said, healthy and honest discussion is what I hope to spark here in my post).

To me, belief seems to be unavoidable. If you stand for it, and will take it to your grave, you are putting belief into it. It doesn't matter what you believe, at all. Because no matter what, the end is death. The end is the same for everyone, and its high risk to believe in anything, something or nothing, or to not even be sure. It's all risk. I guess my question is, is it possible to get rid of belief, and if so, is it ultimately a desireable option?

If it is a false or misinformed or unsubstantiated belief, such as Christianity, then yes, it is desirable to rid yourself of that oppressive nonsense and give yourself a fair shot at experiencing life for what it actually is--mysterious, awesome, and accessible to rigorous investigation.