The Psychology of Believing
or A Summary of Considerations About How Humans Do Some Thinking
What we believe is due as much to our human nature as it is to any intentional thought we have. Consider how the brain works. The brain takes in most of the input coming from our senses. It combines all that input to create a memory model of the world around us. All our reportable experience is based on that model in our brain. How we interpret that model in our brain is the scope of the field of psychology. In order to determine the validity of our beliefs, it is essential that we consider what role human nature plays in establishing belief.
Just Believe
Baltimore has adopted a new slogan, "BELIEVE", which has been posted on many buildings and schools in the Baltimore area. Theists frequently tell us we should just believe. Many people don't seem to understand that the act of believing is not as simple as they imply it is.
If I wanted you to believe everything written on this website, I could go through all the arguments to try to convince you our point of view is the most reasonable and accurate. It would be a lot simpler if you will just believe.
Go ahead. Do it now. Just believe what you have read here. Take a few moments.
Are you experiencing belief? No luck? Hmmm. Perhaps it is because belief can be defined something like love has been defined - "You just know it when you have it." There are probably ideas you have read here that you already believe, so this would not be a fair test of one's ability to believe on command.
Since we all know what a dinosaur is and most people can draw up an image of New York City, try believing that there is a real live Tyrannosaurus Rex wandering around NYC. I'm not talking about assuming or pretending there is one there but really, truly believing.
You understand the intentional act of belief is difficult or impossible. It is most likely no one can force themselves to believe because coming to belief involves complex mechanisms which are most often not consciously controlled. There is no flipping switch to activate or close belief.
It seems our minds are either convinced or they aren't convinced. Becoming convinced can happen when researching and trying to learn something new. "Being convinced", in this context is not what I'm talking about. I am referencing that sudden moment of "Aha! I believe." which is constructed piece by piece on various mental and emotional levels and is outside conscious control.
So, what causes us to believe things? Do we base belief on what we take to be true or can belief include things we hope to be true?
We can define belief for which we have evidence, knowledge. We can define belief which is not based on evidence, faith. The Christian St. Paul, wrote, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen." To paraphrase for clarity, "Faith is that which we hope is true and faith provides us the basis (or evidence) for hoping it is true." In other words, faith supplies its own evidence when we want to believe something or hope we believe. Well, Paul was an organizer and politician, not a logician; he can not be expected to always make sense, but there is no other more accurate definition of faith.
Most things we believe, we believe simply because want to believe them. Belief is not always an illogical or unreasonable position. Many human accomplishments have happened because someone(s) had belief that something was possible. Faith in ourselves and our abilities has helped and hindered our endeavors.
We improve our odds of success in life and endeavors by understanding belief and how we come to it. We should want our beliefs to be based on the strongest possible evidence we can get. In other words, in the absence of complete knowledge, we do ourselves a favor by getting as close to knowledge as we can.
There are many influences in our life that affect our belief. That which affects our belief can be anything - our mood, attitude, who gave us the information, and when we came by the information. Since the establishment of belief is mostly not conscious, we ought to learn those influences which we are not normally and always aware of.
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