From: b645zaw@utarlg.uta.edu (Stephen Tice)
Subject: Re: Believers: What Would Make You Not Believe
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: The University of Texas at Arlington
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 23:47:00 GMT

Geoff, you attention span is short I think. If you care, go read the 
entire posting. Note the context.... better yet, allow me to criticize
what you've taken out of context.

In article <1iurqiINNo1k@seven-up.East.Sun.COM>, geoff@tyger.East.Sun.COM writes...
>In article 11JAN199315111090@utarlg.uta.edu, b645zaw@utarlg.uta.edu (Stephen Tice) writes:
>##I believe you have a hard time distinguishing between "choosing"
>##and "believing." They both seem like acts of will, right?? And an
>##act of will is an act of will no matter what you call it. So 
>##choosing to believe is believing in belief. Which is irrational?
>##Even if it is funny.

	"believe" -- present participle 

		to accept as true
		to give credence to
		to hold as one's opinion
		to have religious faith (v.i)
		
	"belief" -- n. 

		the conviction that something is true
		the conviction that something exists
		the conviction that something is right
	
	"choose" -- present participle

		to select from a number or between alternatives
		to select for salvation (esp. past participle)
		to make a choice (v.i)


Note closely the difference between the "faith-iness" of "believe"
and the "thing-ines" of "belief."  Belief involves something provable.
Believing does not. Choosing is making a decision. 
	
Linguistically and philosophically the words have a consistent separate
meaning. So you're right, the extract above is confusing. Which is an 
easy state to enter into if you allow yourself. All I did was choose
not to believe in order to accomplish it. It was just as easy to get 
clear again by believing.

So fooey on the atheistic confusion of belief and believing.

   |
-- J --
   |
   |  Stephen   "explaining metaphor should be so easy" 

---

>You are a very confused person. Maybe you think that this kind
>of stuff sounds profound, maybe like a Zen koan. It doesn't.
> 
>Here's a rather well written view of the relationship between
>knowledge, belief and faith. Note that there is no suggestion that
>any of this is voluntary, an act of will: 
> 
>   What distinguishes knowledge is not certainty but evidence.
>   [...]
>   Knowledge and belief, like most interesting terms, have many correct
>   uses, and no distinction is likely to do perfect justice to all correct
>   uses. At best, it can illuminate most. If it meets that test, then it
>   is no very serious argument against it if an unenlightened application
>   or an overliteral persistence leads to blunders.
> 
>   Belief has a wider sense in which it includes knowledge and a narrower
>   sense in which it is contrasted with knowledge. [...] Belief in the
>   [second] sense is distinguished by the lack of evidence sufficient to
>   compel the assent of every reasonable person.
>   [...]
>   Faith is belief - usually belief in the narrow sense - that is held
>   intensely, with some emotional involvement; and almost all statements
>   that begin "I have faith that . . ." fulfill one further condition: one
>   would be disappointed if one should be wrong.
> 
>   One can say "I have faith I shall recover." One cannot say, without
>   doing violence to language: "I have faith that I have cancer." The
>   degree of emotional involvement may differ greatly, and the
>   disappointment if I should be wrong may range from brief regret,
>   forgotten the next day, to a total breakdown. The word faith is by no
>   means reserved for the last contingency, nor is it a good
>   recommendation that it ought to be: it is too difficult to predict how
>   a person will react if he is disappointed."
> 
>   (From Kaufman, Walter: _Critique of Religion and Philosophy_, Princeton, 1958)
>---
>Geoff Arnold, PC-NFS architect, Sun Select. (geoff.arnold@East.Sun.COM)
> 
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc