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 continually question and challenge our beliefs.

What is a belief?

Definition: beliefs

Glossary

A belief is an idea that we hold as being correct. It is an acceptance that something exists or is true, whether or not there is proof or evidence. For example, a belief that the earth is round or that fairies exist.

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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 means we think democracy is a good thing, we value democracy, or we think 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

People often talk about beliefs as if they are solely religious, but they don’t 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 doesn’t matter whether it is true; there may or may not be evidence to support it. The reason doesn’t matter; we believe it’s true.

We may believe the Earth is round and have evidence to support that belief; someone else may believe 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.

Over our lifetime, we accumulate thousands of beliefs about all aspects of life.

These beliefs interact, affect one another, and form 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 find it hard to justify that without accepting evidence from scientists we cannot verify ourselves.

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, or sources of information. We believe their ideas are sound.

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

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 isn’t ignorance or stupidity; it’s 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 continually question and challenge our beliefs.