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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

So if I say I "think" that there is some sort of higher power out there because throughout humanity's history the majority of us have sensed it and related to it, is that a "belief" or is it an "opinion"?

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ORIGINAL: Elisabella

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

So if I say I "think" that there is some sort of higher power out there because throughout humanity's history the majority of us have sensed it and related to it, is that a "belief" or is it an "opinion"?

Depends on whether you're taking it on faith or Biblical word, or whether you're analyzing historical and scientific data and come to the conclusion that the most logical cause was an intelligent creator.

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ORIGINAL: vincentML
Then Elisabella relies upon historical and scientific logic as a process to come to her conclusion "that the most logical cause was an intelligent creator." My conflict here is: what if I proceed through the same process of examining history and science and come to an opposing conclusion that matter is eternal, i.e. it always existed and always will exist, that there was no first cause outside of matter, and that the human body being made of matter will decompose after death and that the personality, not being made of matter, will cease to exist. Is my existential conclusion a belief or an opinion, or is it an opinion that has become a personal belief?

I would be interested in your replies ladies. Thank you very much.

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ORIGINAL: Elisabella

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ORIGINAL: vincentML
Then Elisabella relies upon historical and scientific logic as a process to come to her conclusion "that the most logical cause was an intelligent creator." My conflict here is: what if I proceed through the same process of examining history and science and come to an opposing conclusion that matter is eternal, i.e. it always existed and always will exist, that there was no first cause outside of matter, and that the human body being made of matter will decompose after death and that the personality, not being made of matter, will cease to exist. Is my existential conclusion a belief or an opinion, or is it an opinion that has become a personal belief?

I would be interested in your replies ladies. Thank you very much.

Your existential opinion would be an opinion, to me, until it reaches a point where you view any new evidence in light of your opinion - in other words, if you see something that might possibly contradict your opinion, and your reaction was to make the evidence fit your opinion, rather than make your opinion fit the evidence, at that point, to me, it would become a belief.

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
So if I say I "think" that there is some sort of higher power out there because throughout humanity's history the majority of us have sensed it and related to it, is that a "belief" or is it an "opinion"?

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ORIGINAL: GotSteel

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
So if I say I "think" that there is some sort of higher power out there because throughout humanity's history the majority of us have sensed it and related to it, is that a "belief" or is it an "opinion"?

If you're sensing/experiencing/feeling something that would be a sort of experiential evidence and not a belief. However, whether or not you end up with a belief depends on where you go from there. For instance why do you think that what you're sensing and relating to is a higher power?

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ORIGINAL: Kirata

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

But isnt it true that experiential evidence can be delusional....

I think that any experience of any "thing" (Christ, aliens, or even our day to day reality) can be delusional, or at the very least subject to illusion. The world we see is a reflection in consciousness, like red and blue. There is no red or blue "out there." This is why the experience toward which meditative disciplines aim is the experience of no "thing" (i.e., sunyata, emptiness, the self standing alone).

K.

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I am bothered by the statements made by both of you ladies. I really don't see the difference between a belief and an opinion.

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I have the impression that juliaoceania relies upon the common belief and experience of multitudes over the millennia as if (a) we really know what all of those humans understood, believed or experienced when I think we really mainly have reports only from a small fraction who were literate, and (b) as if shear numbers of believers made that belief valid. Through the 19th Century learned people believed that illness and health depended upon a balance of the four humours or four major body fluids - blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. Apparently they were wrong despite the numbers who held the idea. Others believed the sick were possessed of demons. Their numbers doesn't lessen that fallacy.

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ORIGINAL: GotSteel

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
So if I say I "think" that there is some sort of higher power out there because throughout humanity's history the majority of us have sensed it and related to it, is that a "belief" or is it an "opinion"?

If you're sensing/experiencing/feeling something that would be a sort of experiential evidence and not a belief. However, whether or not you end up with a belief depends on where you go from there. For instance why do you think that what you're sensing and relating to is a higher power?

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ORIGINAL: vincentML
Oh, I think I understand what you mean. Simply put by me, it is an opinion if I am willing to change it but a belief if I am unwilling to change it in the face of new evidence. Opinions are flexible while beliefs are resolute. I hope I have your meaning correct. Thanks.

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

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ORIGINAL: GotSteel

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
So if I say I "think" that there is some sort of higher power out there because throughout humanity's history the majority of us have sensed it and related to it, is that a "belief" or is it an "opinion"?

If you're sensing/experiencing/feeling something that would be a sort of experiential evidence and not a belief. However, whether or not you end up with a belief depends on where you go from there. For instance why do you think that what you're sensing and relating to is a higher power?

This would be a good research question for you, since people have different ways of describing it.

Do you believe in "love" for example? You cannot prove you love, you just feel it... some things are not up for scientific quantification. Now you can accept that, or you cannot. It is like someone who does not believe in love telling everyone else that has felt it that it wasn't "real"... which is really silly.

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Actually, I bet you could look at neurotransmitter levels and fMRI and see "love" scientifically.

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
Do you believe in "love" for example? You cannot prove you love, you just feel it... some things are not up for scientific quantification.

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ORIGINAL: GotSteel

Did you actually read my reply? It seems like you responded based on what you expected me to say as opposed to what I actually said.

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
Do you believe in "love" for example? You cannot prove you love, you just feel it... some things are not up for scientific quantification.

That's false by the way with a fMRI we can completely show love, here's a picture.


Maybe it will help to rephrase my last question, you have this internal feeling, by what evidence or thought process have you concluded that it has an external source?

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
You can also see changes in people's brains when they pray... interesting, huh

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Did you actually read my reply? It seems like you responded based on what you expected me to say as opposed to what I actually said.