NorthOfNorth wrote on May 2
nd, 2012 at 3:15pm:
muso wrote on May 2
nd, 2012 at 2:43pm:
Beliefs have nothing to do with truth,
Well, it would be an impressive feat in self-deception if you could continue to believe something that you know to be false. Actually would it even be possible to believe something to be true that you know to be false?
Yes it would. We are all capable of impressive feats in self-deception. I'll explain subsequently, but to start with, you can believe something that is false thinking it to be true. It's commonly called a misconception. In the early 19th century a lot of eminent scientists believed that spontaneous generation was true. That was the concept that life sprung into being from nowhere - for example rotting meat gave rise to maggots.
Maybe I should have said that belief is separate from truth. Belief is centred in perception, and a perceived belief that turns out to be false was never the truth.
Getting back to traditional religion, some people believe in birth of Christ from a virgin, even though theologists will point out that this stems from an attempt to align with a mistranslated prophecy from Isaiah in which the Hebrew word
alma (young woman of child-bearing age) was mistranslated to the Greek
parthenos meaning a virgin.
Quote:Well, it would be an impressive feat in self-deception if you could continue to believe something that you know to be false.
Getting back to these everyday impressive feats, people quite commonly believe things that they know to be false. It's called denial. You'll see many of examples of that on this board, and they fail to see that they directly contradict themselves. On one board, we have a person who claims that 911 was the work of the Israeli Mossad, a couple of posts later, he is saying that it was a justified attack.
Self deception is rather common. It's a result of the human condition.
eg - This icecream is delicious. It must be good for my health
My girlfriend is perfect. She can do no wrong
Let me rephrase - Belief is often connected to truth, but not necessarily.
How often have you heard people saying "my heart tells me yes, but my head tells me no."