semantics, philosophy, belief, cultural-identityThis question is driven in part by a very long chain of thinking I’ve been doing lately about whether we “choose” to believe, and by the question elsewhere on this site “Will a religious person abandon belief in life or death situations?”
I argue that “Actions speak louder than words” and “By their works shall ye know them.” In other words, a spoken or asserted belief is little more than political posturing, where as acting on a belief demonstrates what you actually believe to be worth doing in life. In choosing what actions we take, we demonstrate (choose) what we actually believe in… and inaction is a choice, too.
[addendum] The root of this conundrum for me is my approach to saying “I believe in God.” If I were to say it, I immediately ask “And? What actions in my life does this assertion imply I should be doing? Where do I look to determine what actions my belief SHOULD entail? What should I now start doing differently? What can I do to test the belief and consider if it is worth retaining?
So I’m investigating the continuum of belief from something concrete (pun intended)observable and repeatable as “I believe the sidewalk before me will not disappear when I take a step onto it,” to the other extreme end, “I believe in God” which is unfalsifiable, untestable, and (as a result) not prone to revision or abandoment. (What good can come from “holding” beliefs that we never test to keep or abandon?)
Somewhere in between something “hinky” happens to the word belief, and we move from evidence based beliefs into faith based beliefs, and this divorces belief from action. And, I think therein lies the danger of religious thinking: difficult to abandon beliefs can be latched onto by those seeking to exhort action from you, especially at times when you are most vulnerable and see few choices. …but I’m still working on it. Hope that helps in considering the question.
I would err on the side “holding the belief.” It is not always possible to “act” on the belief to begin with. A good example of this would be freedom in regards to jumping off the Empire State Building: are you free because you believe you can do it, even if you never do it; or, is no one truly free unless they’ve done it?
You can probably argue that neither proposition is more true, but the latter is certainly on its face absurd.
Simple “holding the belief” constitutes “belief”. You should require no experiential evidence.
I remember this quote of Mother Teresa from a Wikipedia article:
Privately, Mother Teresa experienced doubts and struggles over her religious beliefs which lasted nearly fifty years until the end of her life, during which "she felt no presence of God whatsoever", "neither in her heart or in the eucharist" as put by her postulator Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk. Mother Teresa expressed grave doubts about God's existence and pain over her lack of faith:
Where is my faith? Even deep down ... there is nothing but emptiness and darkness ... If there be God — please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul ... How painful is this unknown pain — I have no Faith. Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal, ... What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.
She has always been considered religious, but it seems acting sometimes makes one to lose his faith while publicly they still hold belief.
No, I think you can believe something without having to do it.
For example: I believe that consenting adults are allowed to do pretty much whatever they like in the bedroom. I believe that if two people in a relationship (married or not) want to invite a third person into their sex lives, they are allowed to do so. I personally would never allow a third person into my relationship, but I firmly believe that if two people want to, they have the right to do so.
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