Can you explain

[Sufi]

that "knowing what to believe" is NOT "having actual belief in what we know to believe" ?

_________
"Belief" in the sense to accept the unknown that defies our laws and logic, that we may have previously thought to be impossible in our lives --with a free mind and without committing to limit ourselves to the five senses in anyway-- .

 

[duendy]

This question reminds me of a current pattern i notice when talking to people at forums such as this.
you have the 'science-people' who want 'EVIDENCE'...for nearly everything you say. Their 'religion' is belief. Belief in what is currently acceptable by the cientific method of inquiry. If it iant that it is "unspeakable". A word actually used by one of them
So that is scientific belief. Let's call it "knowing"

Then we have the other form of understanding which is a deep feeling-perception into reality. for example, hallucinogenic experience. When what you are experiencing is not purely objective, but goes right to the heart of your feeling, emotions--your very being. I call this, Direct Experience

Another form of belief is of course 'faith'. beliving in some dogma, beit Western Dogma, of a "God" and "Devil", or Eastern of a "One" and a "Many" and "Karma"...........

I only trust Direct Experience, and my own interpretation of my own insights. Not what some preist, guru, monk, scientist, TELLS me is so, If i feel it is not so.

The age we are in notw is the age of science. i see that much of it is scientism. it is founded on the belief of a materialistic-mechanistic universe. of 'dead' matter, etc. Many people believe this, and hence experience reality according to this myth

i question it, and explore.....

 

[Godless]

* that "knowing what to believe" is NOT "having actual belief in what we know to believe

When a baby is born his brain is tabula raza. That is an empty slate, there's no such thing as "inborn knowledge" everything is learnt, from the first day one opens his/her eyes outside the woumb, the brain is like an empty "hard drive" everything else becomes programing. The reason you believe as you do, is cause your parents, were Islamics, Christians, Catholics, or anyother of thounsands of denominations around the world, hence you are a product of your enviorenment.

So in that "knowing what to believe", which is something that has been "programed" by your enviorement. Is actually what you believe. If you dont possess the "intrique, or inquisitiveness" to seek out other opinions, knowledge, you will actually believe what you believe, even though it may be a load of crap!!.

Godless.

 

[duendy]

what about instinct? that is species intelligence....also, i am sure i have read it somewhere and have it in my notes that the idea of the 'clean slate' is false. that theree is for example language capacity for instance.....By this i am not saying we are born with BELIEFS ready to become actualized. worldviews are part of the tradition one is brought up in. you have the freedom NOT to believe in them. but this can be tough when a belief system is indoctrinated in you after you learn the lingo

 

[beyondtimeandspace]

I may be wrong about this, but it seems to me that the responses elicited by your question have completely missed the mark. That is to say, they didn't really answer your question.

* that "knowing what to believe" is NOT "having actual belief in what we know to believe

In the two instances given, you indicate two different things, "knowledge and belief." The first instance is KNOWLEDGE of WHAT to believe, while the second is BELIEF itself. The difficulty that lies in this concept is, "Once I know what to believe, don't I already believe it?" To this I would answer, no. Consider it in the light of knowing what NOT to believe. For example, I know I shouldn't believe in Santa Claus (the modern figure), yet I may still believe in him. Likewise, I know that I should believe in the existence of the world around me because it is the world I am familiar with, and in all likelyhood it's real, yet I may not believe in it. I may not believe it because I may think that because there is a POSSIBILITY that it isn't real, I have cause to doubt it. While such reasoning may be faulty, if not crazy, it illustrates the difference between knowledge and belief.

I am certain of the truth of mathematics, ergo I know the truth of mathematics. Because I know the truth of mathematics, I MUST believe, also, in the truth of mathematics, for to do otherwise would be silly.

It's can be a difficult concept to grasp, but just look at it this way. Just because I believe it, doesn't mean I know it, and just because I know it, doesn't mean it believe it.

I don't feel satisfied with this post so far, and I hope I'm not confusing, but I'd like to take a different approach to the question now.

The approach I'd like to take concerns two different forms of knowledge. One is sequential and one is holistic. These two forms, utilized by either hemisphere of the brain, and recognized as legitimate sources of knowledge are known as logic and intuition. Logic is the sequential examination of evidence performed to come to a precise conclusion (though logic can be wrong despite its attempt for precision). Intuition is a holistic examination of evidence performed to come to a general conclusion (as logic, it can also be wrong). In logical knowledge, one is able to state each and every reason for a given conclusion, since each evidence is examined individually, and understood by the examiner. However, that is not the case with intuitive knowledge. An intuiter may know something to be true, while not knowing the exact reasons for that knowledge. Please bear in mind that both are considered legitimate sources of knowledge in psychology because both are natural functions of the brain.

Science and philosophy are utilizers of the logical process of the brain, while religion and art are utilizers of the untuitive process of the brain. This is why many, or most religious people (who are not also philosophers or scientists) that you will run across will simply assert that they know what they believe to be true without a logical explanation of it. Religious belief is an intuitive process, while scientific belief is a logical process, both being natural functions of the brain and legitimate sources of knowledge.

This being said, we now have a way of distinguishing between knowledge that is inherently believed and knowledge that must be given belief. All logical knowledge is inherently believed, for if it weren't how could it be said to be knowledge? If I don't believe in that australia exists, how can I be said to know australia exists? Anyone who claims to know, BELIEVES in what they know, otherwise they wouldn't really know it. On the other hand, intuitive knowledge must be given belief, since it takes a leap to accept something as true without knowing why it's true. An example of this would be to believe that it is going to rain tomorrow because you just seem to know that it's going to happen. The actual evidence for it is found all around you, in weather pattern, physical changes within your own body, etc... yet the knower of this knowledge doesn't clearly know why or how he knows it, but just doesn't. What is happening is the evidence is being received by the unconscious mind, interpreted, and a 'sense of knowledge' is had by the conscious mind as the conclusion of the unconscious is being conveyed to the conscious.

Thus, to KNOW what to believe is to consider any given belief an see if it does have correlation to, but no clear supporting evidence to reality, and to believe it is to trust that it is true.

I hope this is clear, because I'm not really sure that it is.

 

[Sufi]

I may be wrong about this, but it seems to me that the responses elicited by your question have completely missed the mark. That is to say, they didn't really answer your question.

* that "knowing what to believe" is NOT "having actual belief in what we know to believe

In the two instances given, you indicate two different things, "knowledge and belief." The first instance is KNOWLEDGE of WHAT to believe, while the second is BELIEF itself. The difficulty that lies in this concept is, "Once I know what to believe, don't I already believe it?" To this I would answer, no.

... the difference between knowledge and belief...

It's can be a difficult concept to grasp, but just look at it this way. Just because I believe it, doesn't mean I know it, and just because I know it, doesn't mean it believe it.

I don't feel satisfied with this post so far, and I hope I'm not confusing, but I'd like to take a different approach to the question now.

I welcome your explanation, thank you. It is not confusing, it is clearing.

So, to make it clearer if I can repeat my question:

How different is "having the KNOWLEDGE of what to believe" from "having the BELIEF in what we know to believe"?

It often seems that we are usually satisfied completely by having the KNOWLEDGE of what to believe. But we keep living without effective faith in that as if we are unaware of all that knowlegge.

For instance, some of us understand that there is oneness, the wholeness of all that is and there is nothing independent from the rest, and we call it as all-powerful, omnipresent, etc...

Yet, we do not realize that this is simply the KNOWLEDGE of what to believe.

We may still have not the slightest idea about what it would be like to act and live and think by believing in this fact, by applying this knowledge to our thoughts and understandings without limiting ourselves to the five senses in anyway any more.

For instance, when you BELIEVE in the oneness, you cannot consider others as separate from you any longer, you cannot complain about others anymore, you cannot find others guilty, you cannot blame others any longer, for if you do, you will contradict with your belief that others are not separated from you and there is unseparated oneness. Then, this belief will alter your perspective about OTHERS completely... If there is not that alteration, then your is not a belief but having a fancy about what you know to believe.

 

[Adstar]

There is head knowledge and there is heart knowledge sometimes people have one without the other, that is.. Some with heart knowledge with little or no head knowledge and vice versa. Thoes with heart knowledge can be moved by attacking their heart knowledge with head knowledge and those with head knowledge can be moved with heart knowledge.There are some with both head and heart knowledge and they cannot be moved from what they believe.


All praise The Ancient of Days

 

[what768]

Moses said: "God wants to write the Law in your hearts." Jesus said: "If you were the children of God, you would do the things that God does."
"I talk about what my Father has shown me, but you do what your Father has told you."

God is so "simple" but we have forgot him because of our attachments in the world. It is not always easy to "do" what we believe in, first we need a lot of knowledge about God, so that we could truly "believe". We must understand what we read, because if we just read without true understanding, the words are put in front of our eyes like clouds to blind us from the truth.

We should also put in action what we have learned, we must become one with the knowledge. All that we do, learn and experience and gather in our lives are meant to be forgotten, otherwise it would all be passed on with genes or something. It's not always easy to leave all the attachments.

If we want to know the truth, if we want wisdom, we can also "stop searching" and empty ourselves, in hope that we may be filled.
In many cases this is much better than "reading".

We are born to the world without anything. Some of us will not leave it until they have "nothing". We never think when "we are walking", because we have understood it, it is very simple for us. We become what we think. Deep thinking become feelings, and deep feelings becomes parts of ourselves. This all seems so obvious, but "I" just feel that I want to put it into words, to remind.

 

[Godless]

There is head knowledge and there is heart knowledge sometimes people have one without the other, that is.. Some with heart knowledge with little or no head knowledge and vice versa. Thoes with heart knowledge can be moved by attacking their heart knowledge with head knowledge and those with head knowledge can be moved with heart knowledge.There are some with both head and heart knowledge and they cannot be moved from what they believe.

There's no such silly thing as "heart knowledge" if it were it let you know an ottery is getting plugged, and you are in grave danger of loosing flow of blood!!.

The heart is just a pumping musle. The brain is were all of your thinking comes from, no matter how illogical, unreasonable, or how stupid your thoughts process may be warped by ignorance it comes from the brain, not the heart.

"Instinct" an instinct of self preservation is precisely what man does not possess. An instinct is an unerring and automatic form of knowledge. A disire is not an instinct. A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living. And even man's desire to live is not automatic. Your fear of death is not a love for life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it. Man must obtain his knowledgej and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer--and that is the way he has acted throuht most of his history. Ayn Rand

The implication of "instinct" would mean that when a desperate mom, dumps a baby in the dumpster, the baby would know "automatically" how to survive, what he needs to eat, how to get out, and crawl to his safety. Sounds redicoulous? So is claiming that instinct exists!!.

Godless.

 

[Godless]

*We are born to the world without anything. Some of us will not leave it until they have "nothing". We never think when "we are walking", because we have understood it, it is very simple for us. We become what we think. Deep thinking become feelings, and deep feelings becomes parts of ourselves. This all seems so obvious, but "I" just feel that I want to put it into words, to remind.

Damn that's the only "truth" you've written.

However you have to have true knowledge of your feelings, your emotions may cloud your judgement, I don't make decisions on whim, I try and think things through, I sometimes "suppress" my emotions in order to better understand them latter, I try not to make decisions on "emotional whims, or because it feels right" I must know with certainty that it is right.

I complement that statement What768!

Godless.

 

[what768]

Godless

Do you call it the "truth" because you understand psychology? Do you understand the other things I speak of?
I don't see anything false in what other people speak; because I've been there, and I know what they speak of.

Whenever someone praises me, I have no idea what I should say.

"What I teach is not my own teaching, but it comes from God, who sent me."

"These are not my own words, but they come from above."

"No one can have anything if it is not given from God."

 

[Godless]

*Do you call it the "truth" because you understand psychology? Do you understand the other things I speak of?

The other things you spoke of were writen thousands of years ago, by people that have been dead for thousands of years, with the mentality to take dreams as reality, illusions as religious visions, ans wishfull thinking.

*What I teach is not my own teaching, but it comes from God, who sent me."

"These are not my own words, but they come from above."

"No one can have anything if it is not given from God."

And again how sad it is, that you don't even comprehend that you have a mind of your own volition, that there's no such thing as a sky daddy, directing you what to write, Man take credit, for once that you have writen something that makes sense, that only shows your comprehension. You don't have a "direct" line to some supernatural realm were some diety is sending you signals to your head and direct your thought process. You have free will, that means you think for yourself!. So what you write, wether be it religious rhetoric, or psychological observations it comes from you!!. Your own volition, not some Allah,god, zeus, or what have you!!.

Godless.

 

[duendy]

((Sufi)))...what i think you ask is---that if you 'know' 'Oneness', then is that knowing the actual EXPERIENCE of Oneness.......is that what you mean?

i understand that the idea of the "One and the Many" has come from the Upanishad's. This belief suggests that 'really' we are all one, and it is just our 'ignorance' that stops us experiencing this, but once we do it will be bliss, etc etc

i don't believe it. For the reason that it is a dualstic belief which deifies 'oneness' and 'denigrates' the many/variety/diversity/uniquess, in all it s manifestations

Yes everything is inter-related, i agree, BUT therer is also distinction. both modes are complimentary. to try and have one without the other is where the trouble begins. to assume individuality without understanding how everything interelates, and to assume oneness without understanding individuality

We are a continuum. there will be ecstatic states where we deeply feel this interelation, but to want that state ALL the time is sefl-defeating, beCAUSE we are
a continuum of ever changing experience, as is all of Nature....we ARE Nature

 

[what768]

The other things you spoke of were writen thousands of years ago, by people that have been dead for thousands of years, with the mentality to take dreams as reality, illusions as religious visions, ans wishfull thinking.

I don't think people are much wiser today than thousands of years ago. Those who spoke of "religious visions" thousands of years ago were wiser than anyone who lives today, with a mental capacity that people today are not able, even to imagine.

Why could dreams not be real? Why would our mind be more false than something in the "material" world, which we still understand with our mind? If dreams and "illusions" can't be real, then we should stop believing in our thoughts and emotions too, because they're the same thing. This what we see as reality, is also but a "dream", but it seems real because we never seem to wake up from it. Dreams are real as long as we dream, only when we wake up, we see that it was all a dream.

And again how sad it is, that you don't even comprehend that you have a mind of your own volition, that there's no such thing as a sky daddy, directing you what to write, Man take credit, for once that you have writen something that makes sense, that only shows your comprehension.

I know I have my own mind. What I have written has only made sense to You, it has not made (absolute) sense. And it has made sense to you only because you understood it. If you could understand the other things I speak of, they would also be "true".

You don't have a "direct" line to some supernatural realm were some diety is sending you signals to your head and direct your thought process. You have free will, that means you think for yourself!. So what you write, wether be it religious rhetoric, or psychological observations it comes from you!!. Your own volition, not some Allah,god, zeus, or what have you!!.

There is no such thing as the supernatural. There can't be anything unreal in a real world. What we think is unreal is only that which we have not understood. When we understand the unreal, it becomes natural and real. I think I have free will only because I am not yet aware of my destiny. When I have performed an action, and look back at it, the destiny becomes visible. There is no God, not the kind you are thinking of. Everything I say comes from Me. It is the same Self that speaks through all humans, we may call it Me, the Self, Ptah, Allah, but it's all the same thing. The oneness, "I", can't be separated, but "I" live in all things, and all the living things refer to ME, when they talk about their "center", which is their own Self.

 

[Godless]

I don't think people are much wiser today than thousands of years ago.

You don't think much do you?

Historically the religious folkes all they wanted was "control" they controlled the ignorance of others, they controlled by intimidation, they controlled by manipulation of unsurported truths, hence the dark ages!!.

Why was there a Reinessanse? People realised the destructive power of the church, they finally rejected the fallacious misconceptions of mysticism, both science and art were advanced by free thinking of the Reinessance.

God and religious beliefs are nothing more than fading mystical notions, that are not founded upon reality but by; dreams, illusions, and ingnorance. There were thounsands of 'gods" thounsands years ago, today only one deity remains, that one that is the biggest load of crap that humans have ever devised.

Dreams and illusions are after all, subjective, not to base a religious belief system upon them, when it trys to define reality, or to explain metaphysics of the origin of space, earth, life, and morality. There's nothing moral by leading a people on "intimidation".

Godless.

 

[what768]

You don't think much do you?

No. Sometimes it actually feels that I don't think at all, I just seem to "feel" or Be (!) - something.

Historically the religious folkes all they wanted was "control" they controlled the ignorance of others, they controlled by intimidation, they controlled by manipulation of unsurported truths, hence the dark ages!!.

There are many who claim to be believers, but they are not; and there are many who claim to be atheistic, but they are not.

 

[Godless]

*No. Sometimes it actually feels that I don't think at all, I just seem to "feel" or Be (!) - something.

Then if you guide your life by "feelings" you don't have one iota what it means to be rational or logical.

Feelings are not guide to reality, you have clouded judgement, you've come up with one good, analisis of observation, I tend to think now that was a fable, or mistake in judgement on my part, that you actually had something of worth in those words. Mainly all it was apparently a simple observation.

Hence! we come with nothing. Correct we are born naked.
Some of us will not leave it until they have "nothing".
Correct we die we can't take material possessions with us.
We never think when "we are walking", because we have understood it, it is very simple for us.
Correct, most of learnt to walk as a children, we don't think of it, because it has been programe in our brains, so walking comes automatically we don't need to learn to walk again.
We become what we think.
Correct! no matter how illogical, unreasonable, or how stupid, one's beliefs may be that is what they are, a product of their thoughts.

Deep thinking become feelings, and deep feelings becomes parts of ourselves.

True again. Deep thinking in rhetorical non-sense, or and feelings of such convictions with such a zeal, becomes what you believe, or what you base your faith in, no matter what or if it's illogical, irrationa, your feelings are a manifestations of your ideological self.

And may I remind you, to think deeper, think with objective mind rather than make belief mind, things are not always as they appear, you've been deceived by thousands of years of rhetorical BS that you've not thought out thoroughly.

Godless.

 

[what768]

Then if you guide your life by "feelings" you don't have one iota what it means to be rational or logical.

But if I Think rationally and logically, i Become rational and logical, and I don't have to think about it anymore. "I am what I am."
Thinking is necessary only to understand, but if we already understand, we don't have to think about it anymore.

Some of us will not leave it until they have "nothing".
Correct we die we can't take material possessions with us.

What I meant here was that some will leave their material possessions Before they die.

Deep thinking in rhetorical non-sense, or and feelings of such convictions with such a zeal, becomes what you believe, or what you base your faith in, no matter what or if it's illogical, irrationa, your feelings are a manifestations of your ideological self.

That's right. But I've not always believed in this "rhetorical non-sense". Before I was "rational and logical", then about 2 years ago, when I thought about it more thoroughly, I realized that "God" also is rational and logical. But you don't know what I mean with God, and because you don't understand, in lack of understanding, you call it irrational, just like I did.

 

[Godless]

Define god?

Let us hear yet another explanation of a mariad of explanations, to explain the "unexplainable".

I've not always been an atheist What768, so don't claim "I don't understand" because the fact of the matter, I understand fully. What is religion and their gods? Nothing but control of ingnorance, from the beginig of time, religious rhetoric has been a tool to control the ingnorant massess. You may believe what you will, but you don't have any evidence for an entity that has no "identity" your beliefs are founded on "dreams, illusions, shyzophreniacs taken seriously by the ingnorance of those around them. My frien your beliefs I understand fully!!.

Godless.

 

[what768]

Haha... I don't define God, and there will NEVER be any evidence for God!