Ok I think I see a bit better where you are coming from. You are saying more or less that beliefs fall into two categories, falsifiable or not falsifiable. Once we identify that something is falsifiable, IE is supported by testable evidence, we can move it from the not falsifiable category into the testable category, test it, and see if it's real. If it's not real, we throw it out, and if it is real, we call it fact. Non falsifiable things can have no evidence, or else we would have to put them to the test, be forced to move them into category 1 and sort them out.
Faith seems to morph into whatever meaning is needed. Sometimes it means trust, sometimes it means inference, but the only thing it means exclusively is, dismissing doubt by discounting evidence.
Well this does seem to be the question, is faith a substitute for evidence? If it is not, then it contradicts the very intention of belief. Even worse, faith enjoys a level of reverence above evidence, as it is often used to discount it. This leads to outright detriment of the sanctity of belief. If faith causes us to ignore the world, then it becomes the antithesis of belief and so, IMO, should not gain the title. When a religious person says to respect their beliefs, they are working under a false premise that does not often enough get called out. They do not have religious beliefs, they have ideas that do not pass the process we make beliefs go through, and on which they have hung a sign that says 'beliefs'. This sign fools them into acting as if these ideas are real beliefs, and fools many of us as well.
Belief does not happen in the realm of reality as you define it. It happens in the subjective consciousnesses. Taste, touch, sounds, ect are never objective. The scientific method happens in reality. In a sense, these are two different credence filters propositions can pass. One is inside our head and imperfect, the other is outside and near perfect.The second filter, science, must prevent itself from beliefs to preserve it's values. It holds facts, and it's 'beliefs' are really just a collection of facts. This is why science never proves a negative, it would require a belief. Science can't say there is no pink elephants, because it can not demonstrate it, it is unable to hold that as fact. Our mind's filter does need to hold beliefs. Our minds can not go through life thinking that pink elephants might be around the next corner. We need to believe that there is no gold at the end of the rainbow. We are capable of action, science is not.
You know lots of things, You just can't be certain. You can be reasonably confident. Until you have indication that life is a dream or an illusion you have to operate as if it isn't, and even if it was, you can't escape. What we do know is life plays by rules, and there is nothing wrong with attempting to identify those rules, nothing arrogant or dangerous about it. If we went through life constantly reminding ourselves that we know nothing, we wouldn't know anything.
So lighten up on yourself, you have more figured out than most people.
I realize you were joking but if I pretend you weren't I have a chance to reiterate. Lets see if I can refine my argument.^^ tl;dr
Yes, i know, i am saying that confidence in gravity does not constitute a belief. I think belief here is an illusion, belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true.
So when we have confidence in gravity, we are not engaging in a psychological state in which we hold the proposition of gravity to be true? Are we operating on instinct? Does a baby crawl off a table if left alone?
My mother knows god loves her. She feels it. If we found a tangible way to test and confirm god repeatedly, her knowing would feel no different to her. It would not be new information. Many people 'know' things, and their sincerity is indistinguishable from the way you know gravity. You must have had times in your life when you thought you knew something beyond any doubt only to be proven wrong, which is why you understand we can not be certain about anything.
If you know something exists, are you free to disbelieve it?
We are dealing with knowledge, what else would you call it? It's knowledge based on ignorance and mistakes, It's not reliable so we don't add it to our 'knowledge' base, but still contains lots of information to share, lots of observations and experiences to share, and can be even be useful. What do you think happens in church? What do you call the theory of dark matter if not knowledge? It is far from fact, yet we know it is out there in the sense that it is part of our accepted knowledge base. Knowing information simply means being familiar with it, or else it means we've captured the truth through investigation and reasoning. Do you disagree that investigation and reasoning are always part of a belief system?
Do you know the flying spaghetti monster does not exist? How can you test that knowledge? Do you know Russel's teapot isn't real? What indisputable evidence do you have? Is your conviction in knowing these things any less than knowing that atoms are real? Which do you deem more likely, that we one day find we've misunderstood atoms, or we find the FSM holding that teapot? The idea that these are fake is merely an idea which we claim truth to without being able to support. By your definition these are beliefs, yet they have reached a level of virtually no doubt, we know these things aren't real.
I also defined faith as discounting doubt by dismissing evidence, which is the only definition we are left with when we remove euphemisms. We do not need to refer to confidence as faith, we can call it trust. We do not need to call religious belief a faith, we can call it a dogma, and so on, but when we want the freedom to ignore evidence in the face of doubt, what could we call it besides faith? Stubbornness? Ignorance? Bigotry? Suddenly the synonyms have nothing to do with belief. Just as faith shouldn't. If faith constitutes ignoring evidence (or ignoring the lack of) then it should never be allowed to lead to belief, it works on the opposite principal.
Except what we know can be wrong, as you understand. We could one day find a tea pot in space, or find Sagan's dragon in the garage, and realize we didn't know what we believed we did. Seems a bit of a betrayal to skepticism to say the knowledge we have ever stops being a belief and starts being a supreme law. Seems more accurate to say answers which arrive by a belief process are beliefs, and answers which arrive by a delusion process are delusions. Science attempts to carefully verify beliefs with facts, pseudoscience attempts to sloppily justify delusions with confirmation. Beliefs follow change, delusions do not.
It's okay to disagree, I still love you.
Your premise contains a tautology. Supernatural ideas can only be believed (perceived as true) if one believes. You are separating belief from the act of perceiving something as true. We can not separate the act of believing from accepting something as true if they mean the same thing. If we are to preserve your premise, then belief must mean something more. So, we must expand on the definition of belief. When we do, I think we see belief is intended to be a result of evidence, and that faith serves to delude rather than enlighten, with enlightenment being the goal of belief. So, supernatural ideas can only be percieved as true if one deludes themselves, while natural law is free to be believed. Belief is an action. What action is performed when we accept gravity? The act of knowing? Knowing is being familiar with information, or the result of capturing enlightenment through reasoning and experience, instinct, or intuition. Instinct and intuition do not involve beliefs, and I can be familiar with information without believing it. (knowing how to ride a bike) If I gain enlightenment through reasoning and experience, I believe it.
I went through the same thing. I went to churches where I couldnt express who I am and it felt like everyone had to be nice and act perfect, it made me feel awful inside.
...you might do well to study the gnostics. Sorry, the term seems overused, but really - czech it.
So in that sense, beliefs are merely artifacts of unenlightenment. It is an interesting stance and I will think more about it.
I suppose this is true of religious delusions as well. If people really thought that heaven was absolute paradise, they'd be dying to get there. If people really thought grandma was watching from heaven, they'd never masturbate. To me this supports the idea that faith based beliefs are a result of an unreliable process counter-productive to the reason we seek truth.