What Are Beliefs? Ideas that are held to be true but not necessarily supported by any evidence

Beliefs are ideas that we hold to be true. However, we have no evidence to support many of them.  False beliefs lead us to the wrong conclusions. We need to question and challenge our beliefs continually.

What is a belief?

Another use of the word belief is when we say, for example, that we believe in democracy or capital punishment.

This is a different use of the word; it is a way of saying that we think democracy is a good thing – we value democracy, or we believe capital punishment is a good thing – we value capital punishment.

For my purposes here, I only explore the first definition.

A belief need not be religious

Beliefs are often talked about as if they are solely religious, but they do not necessarily have to be religious or spiritual. We have religious, political, societal, philosophical, or spiritual beliefs, among others.

Let’s dig deeper

A belief is an idea that we hold to be true. It does not matter if it is true – there may or may not be evidence to support it. The reason does not matter; we believe it to be true.

We may believe that the earth is round and have evidence to support that belief; someone else may hold the view that the world is flat and also claim evidence.

We hold many beliefs, some supported by evidence, some not. It does not matter. Right or wrong, they are still beliefs.

Sources of beliefs

If not earlier, we start to build a network of beliefs in our minds from birth.

We then accumulate thousands of beliefs about all aspects of life during our lifetime.

These beliefs interact, affecting one another and forming a belief system.

We gain them from many sources, including:

• our parents
• personal experience
• personal experiments
• cultural and societal norms
• our education
• news media

Justification for beliefs

It is interesting how many beliefs we hold that we cannot justify from personal experience (or even third-party data/evidence).

We have taken on board beliefs from our education, culture, or tribe without any substantial evidence (that we are aware of though it may exist) or any questioning. We have blindly accepted them.

We may firmly believe that the earth goes around the sun but might find it hard to justify that without taking on board evidence from scientists that they have not or cannot verify themselves.

Many of us believe in global warming but could not explain the mechanisms or pass a simple exam on the subject.

Rather than constantly questioning and challenging our beliefs and being willing to think differently about the opportunities that are out there, we withdraw into what we've done before.

And in a world that's rapidly changing, that's a formula for vulnerability.

Credit: John Hagel

Trust and Allegiance

We trust certain people, groups of people, or sources of information. We believe their ideas are sound.

Who do we trust? Well, that all depends on the tribes to which we belong.

If we belong to a liberal tribe, we are more likely to trust the scientific community and believe in evolution. If we belong to a conservative or religious tribe, we are less likely to trust the scientific community and be creationists.

Neither believers nor deniers are brighter than the other. Both groups, in general, know absolutely nothing about evolution. The difference is not to do with ignorance or stupidity – it is to do with allegiance to the tribe we belong to. It is about tribal thinking.

We may trust scientists; we may trust religious leaders; we may trust both.

Interestingly, we rarely question why we blindly accept certain beliefs or trust specific information sources and not others.

Beliefs evolve

Beliefs rarely change overnight. They evolve gradually over time.

For some of our most important beliefs, we have no evidence at all, except that people we love and trust hold these beliefs.

Considering how little we know, the confidence we have in our beliefs is preposterous – and it is also essential.

Credit: Daniel Kahneman

We need to question and challenge our beliefs continually.

Detailed Resources

• Big Think: Humanity solved the “trust paradox” by going tribal — and paid a horrific price by David R. Samson (2023)
• Blog Post: Human Systems Are Almost Always Based On Trust by Dave Pollard (2023)
• HBR: Rethinking Trust by Roderick M. Kramer (2009)

Posts that link to this post

•  The Impact of Cognitive Biases in Conversation Cognitive biases can lead to flawed or irrational conclusions in a conversation
•  We Need to See Argument in a Different Light Build a steel man and argue against that.
•  Belief Systems Our beliefs are not isolated pieces of data that we can take and discard at will
•  Introduction: Knowledge Delusion We delude ourselves about what we know and how we make decisions
•  Values Values are beliefs we hold that something is good or desirable
•  The Knowledge Delusion We know far less than we think we do
•  Contra-conversations **
•  Global Consciousness The capacity and disposition to understand and act upon global issues
•  Converse in Good Faith Be sincere, fair, open, and honest, regardless of the outcome
•  Attitudes A tendency to think, or feel about someone or something in a certain way
•  What Are Morals? Principles of right or wrong behaviour
•  Rethinking Our Beliefs It is not easy to change our beliefs
•  Knowledge and Information ** Knowledge and information are different substances
•  Ways of Knowing Ways of acquiring knowledge
•  Shared Meaning To understand each other's perspectives well enough to accept them
•  Discrediting People ** Cause them to lose the respect or trust of others

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