Is it possible for a person to have no beliefs at all?

Here we go again. Arguments about the most precise definition of certain words. So, how many angels can dance on the point of a pin?

I gather that y'all have already stated your respective positions quite clearly. An argument over whether "belief" or "assumption" or something else is a better, more appropriate, word isn't going to change those positions nor win you extra points in this cockamamie debate.

And, you're right, c.i. -- I'm having the time of my life ROTFLMAO.

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@Lustig Andrei,

It doesn't matter if you call it a thousand meters or 0.6 miles. The distance is the same.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

It doesn't matter if you call it a thousand meters or 0.6 miles. The distance is the same.

My point precisely. (Or did I mean to say 'exactly'?) Laughing

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@Cyracuz,

Quote:

What you want to call it is up to you. But do you agree that whatever you call it, it is a matter of the human capacity for faith?

I'm not nuts about the word "faith" either. Like "belief" it can mean so many things to so many people under so many circumstances.

I prefer to state things using more specific, slightly less ambiguous, words.

We humans certainly have to deal with lots of uncertainties in our day-to-day lives. We have to hope, expect, estimate, blindly guess that things will work in predictable ways…and most of the time they do.

Most of the time going through the green light intersection is fine…I do it dozens upon dozens of times each day—every day of my life. I imagine tomorrow I may do it and it is possible some guy driving a tractor trailer on the crossing road will have a heart attack...plow though the red light on his side of the intersection...and turn me into pulp.

If it is absolutely essential to anyone’s happiness to term what I do as “belief”…I say go for it. But for me, using that word to describe what I am doing opens doors I don’t want to see opened, and I will say without reservations that I do not have beliefs…despite dealing with life’s uncertainties using the techniques described by those other words.

So unless you can come up with an item that I absolutely have to call a belief…I think I am correct in asserting that I have no beliefs…and therefore the correct answer to the question asked in this thread is…NO.

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@Lustig Andrei,

I haven't seen this kind of hair splitting since my mother took all us kids to one of those cosmetology schools...

Seriously, 45 minutes for a bowl cut! Mother never was one for cost/benefit analysis though...

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@Philippos,

Quote:

Is it possible for a person to have no beliefs at all?

This is the opening post. The author makes no distinction between believing something and believing in something. People here are behaving as though someone were about to leap out at them from behind the door to accuse them of being a Jehovah's Witness or a Bolshevik.

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@thack45,

How many times can a hair split and/or divide?

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

How many times can a hair split and/or divide?

what's the difference between an elephant and a rhinoceros?

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

We have to hope, expect, estimate, blindly guess that things will work in predictable ways…and most of the time they do.

But we cannot hope, expect, estimate, or blindly guess our own abilities. Anyone knows that in order to become better at something we have to believe in our own ability to do what we have never done before.
We must have faith in ourselves.

We are touching on one of the biggest crimes of religion ever; attempting to have a monopoly on the human phenomenon of faith. Faith is a human capacity, and this is what enables us to have religion, even though many religious nuts (and non-religious people too) think it's the other way around.

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

How many times can a hair split and/or divide?

Interesting question!

Is there a point where it is no longer capable of being split. Would that be at the atomic level or at some sub atomic level.

What would that "indivisible" point be?

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@Cyracuz,

Quote:

But we cannot hope, expect, estimate, or blindly guess our own abilities.

Why not?

Quote:

Anyone knows that in order to become better at something we have to believe in our own ability to do what we have never done before.

Do you mean "anyone"...or were you implying "everyone?"

And is there no chance that we can become better at something accidentally...without supposing we can do better?

Quote:

We must have faith in ourselves.

Is that a law recently passed of which I am unaware?

Quote:

We are touching on one of the biggest crimes of religion ever; attempting to have a monopoly on the human phenomenon of faith. Faith is a human capacity, and this is what enables us to have religion, even though many religious nuts (and non-religious people too) think it's the other way around.

I gotta acknowledge that I have heard speeches like that from religious nuts in the past.

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@Frank Apisa,

My point is simply that while I understand your reluctance to use these words, I think it is better to use them correctly and not let people get away with calling faith their divine gift or whatever. Faith is as natural and inevitable to humans as breathing.

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

Quote:
How many times can a hair split and/or divide?

Interesting question!

Is there a point where it is no longer capable of being split. Would that be at the atomic level or at some sub atomic level.

What would that "indivisible" point be?

We're talking about angels and common pins again, right?

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You have no idea how wrong you are

Video not directly related to the topic, but very interesting video.

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@Cyracuz,

Quote:

My point is simply that while I understand your reluctance to use these words, I think it is better to use them correctly and not let people get away with calling faith their divine gift or whatever. Faith is as natural and inevitable to humans as breathing.

I understand what you are saying, Cyracuz, but I guess I am suggesting it might be better to simply avoid them. It is easy enough to do...and then we do not have to worry about "using them correctly."

Fact is, I do not know if they can be used "correctly" because they mean so many different things to different people.

If you are saying, "It is my wild, blind guess that there is a god"...why not just say that rather than use the words "I believe there is a god" to disguise what you are saying? Conversely, if you are saying, "It is my wild, blind guess that there are no gods"...why not just say that rather than use the words, "I believe there are no gods" to disguise what you are saying?

It really is not just nit-picking as some here seem to think. It matters.

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

My point is simply that while I understand your reluctance to use these words, I think it is better to use them correctly and not let people get away with calling faith their divine gift or whatever. Faith is as natural and inevitable to humans as breathing.

I disagree

there is no proof that there was any sense of faith before religion , in our reality

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@north,

Oh, c'mon, north. That's just as sillyas saying there's no evidence that there was any such thing as language until writing was invented.

In fact, I've read some anecdotal evidence that some of the great apes seem to have spiritual orientation. In the wild, they seem to have special reverence for the movement of the sun.

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@Lustig Andrei,

Quote:

We're talking about angels and common pins again, right?

Lustig, I appreciate that you can consider this discussion to be meaningless...or trifling. But I respectfully suggest that there is a lot more substance to what is being discussed than may appear at first blush.

Philosophical discussions often require what may seem like picayune distinctions...perhaps even distinctions without difference, but sometimes (and I think this is one of them) there is a need.

In any case, anyone who wants to continue the discussion can do so with me. I consider it worthwhile and interesting...and I am certainly willing to pursue it--even if it ends up one of those blind alley finishes.

If anyone thinks it not to be worthwhile or interesting, I will personally appeal to the authorities here at A2K to rescind the rule that everyone has to participate in every discussion and cannot leave until everyone has said all that he or she has to say. Rolling Eyes

(Don't want to alienate you, Lustig, but I do want to continue this discussion.)

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@Frank Apisa,

To my mind saying "believe" isn't disguising anything. If someone says to me that they believe something, no matter what it is, I understand that they are not stating facts or certainties, no matter how much they believe they are.

It doesn't matter that some religious nuts say "believe" and really mean "know". They can try to change the meaning of words all they want, but I like to call a spade a spade.

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@Cyracuz,

I'm sooooo not a religious nut.

But, I believe I've seen a Ghost, heck, actually I know I have,

Now where do I go Smile

2 Replies

Is it possible for a person to have no beliefs at all?

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