If you believe that something is true, it doesn't mean that you know something is true, but that you have evidence (not absolute proof, but some kind of evidence) that the said premise is true, beliefs don't just come to you like thoughts, you reason them out.
For example, let's presume that I walk into a library and see a book written by André Malrau, I could say: 'I believe André Malrau is a French writer.' even if I don't know if he's French, he has a French-sounding name so I draw the conclusion that there is a strong possibility of him being French. Why don't I say 'I believe André Malrau is a Spanish writer'? Because I had no valid premises from which to draw this conclusion. Logic is fascinating, the thought process of developing a belief from observations is like this:
1. (I observe that) André Malrau is a French sounding name.
2. (I observe that) Most French sounding names belong to people who are French.
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Conclusion: (I believe) André Malrau is French. This doesn't mean that I know André Malrau is French, I don't, but I believe he is.
That works for any other kind of belief. It could be a bit more complicated and look like this:
1. Most of the actions of human beings are dictated by moral values.
2. Moral values are not useful from an evolutionary point of view, which means they're not the result of evolution but of an external force.
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Conclusion: God exists.
Now it's entirely possible to think that we can't know for certain that moral values are not useful from an evolutionary point of view, but that means that I think premise 2 doesn't have any value, which means that my conclusion can't have any kind of truth value (it can't be neither true nor false).
Conclusion: if you say that we can't know whether the evidence in favour of God's existence is true or false, you can't say that the conclusion to which these premises leads us is true or false. The moment you admit that there is evidence that suggests that God exists, you automatically admit that it's possible to know whether God exists or not.
- pierrot the clown.:
- That dictionary definition doesn't state that one needs proof. Then again, what do you define as proof? If I remember correctly, you believe in God. What is your proof that He exists? Maybe you do have it, but I'm fairly sure that it's not tangible, visible proof that everyone would agree on.
Everyone would hold the same beliefs if that kind of universal proof was needed to believe anything.
Why would it be important that everybody agrees with the proof? The world is full of Holocaust deniers, people who still believe the Earth is flat and those who believe AIDS isn't a real disease, their mere existence doesn't alter empirical data enough to make the Earth seem flat, does it?