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Originally Posted by bodi  So I've been mulling this all over. I think a good analogy here is rectangles and squares.
All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. All beliefs are ideas, but of course not all ideas are beliefs.
A belief is an idea that has been accepted as True. It's an idea that's believed. Therefore it becomes a special and distict category of idea, one that deserves it own label - belief.
An idea that is not yet a belief (because it's not believed, not accepted as 'true' or 'real', just possible or interesting or useful) is therefore, by definition, NOT a belief, just an idea, and it is misleading to say it is the same as belief. Sloppy thinking.
It is of enormous practical value to examine the difference between ideas and beliefs and to formulate methods to understand our own. |
And then go out and test the beliefs vs. trying to convert the world to hold them, too. With intelligence we have to see our beliefs as hypothesises and not fixed declarations. That innately keeps us open and humble vs. closed and controlling.