He has since been banned for evangelism, but "OP" can stand for either "original post" or "original poster"--meaning either the first comment in a discussion or the person who makes that comment.

There's nothing essentially wrong with belief. Neutrally, it's a kind of expectation, more positively It's a form of trust - you pays your money and you takes your choice.

When you believe something, you are proceeding as if the world is a certain way - usually it's a way you've taken on trust from others (e.g. something you got from a teacher or a book), sometimes it's something you're punting by yourself (e.g. a hypothesis you've come up with on your own).

Words, concepts, sentences, propositions, suggest or induce expectations. If I call something a "tree" or think of something as a tree, that carries with it logical implications for further experience if the thing really is a tree (i.e. if it really has the characteristics normally assigned the label "tree", then upon my further interaction with it, it will necessarily respond in certain ways and not in other ways - e.g. if I touch the trunk it will be solid and my hand won't pass through it). If you believe it's a tree, that means you just have those expectations.

There's nothing essentially wrong with belief. — gurugeorge

Reading this thread and your message reminds me of an article I recently read:

Half of all Americans believe the media make up anti-Trump stories

Then after that, I remember the following:

84 percent of the world population has faith; a third are Christian

Then I remember how happy one of the places I recently visited was, and why:

World’s Happiest Countries Are Also Least Religious

So, I definitely can't say "there's nothing essentially wrong with belief", because I would be lying.

There are things wrong with believing wrong things, but there's nothing essentially wrong with belief. Many of the beliefs you're pointing out there (like religious beliefs) are high-level or superficial beliefs that have very little effect on how people navigate the world on a day-to-day, moment-by-moment basis. (There's a lot of belief stuff, the bulk of the iceberg, so to speak, that's been "solved", that functions very well.)

The massaging of statistics to align all the bad things with religion is also quite tendentious - it's more or less rationalist boosterism, and quite unbecoming for rationalists - in fact (speaking as a rationalist) it's a bit embarrassing.

There are things wrong with believing wrong things, but there's nothing essentially wrong with belief. Many of the beliefs you're pointing out there (like religious beliefs) are high-level or superficial beliefs that have very little effect on how people navigate the world on a day-to-day, moment-by-moment basis. (There's a lot of belief stuff, the bulk of the iceberg, so to speak, that's been "solved", that functions very well.)

The massaging of statistics to align all the bad things with religion is also quite tendentious - it's more or less rationalist boosterism, and quite unbecoming for rationalists - in fact (speaking as a rationalist) it's a bit embarrassing. — gurugeorge

Well something that allows people to mostly ignore evidence (namely belief), is actually counter to how humanity has progressed. Regardless of how much passion or belief we may want to pour in our work, none of that matters if we don't keenly follow the evidence, which belief does not enforce, by definition.

Do you have any proof of any such "massaging"? Because without proof, it would be embarrassing to make the claim you made.

Well something that allows people to mostly ignore evidence (namely belief), is actually counter to how humanity has progressed. — uncool

But belief is based on evidence, it's just that sometimes people make mistakes in the interpretation of evidence, or in the construction of beliefs based on evidence. To condemn belief as such on the grounds that beliefs are sometimes mistaken is ludicrous.

Religious beliefs too are based on evidence. "Gods" are first-pass explanations of natural phenomena, God in the classical sense is an attempt to explain the existence of anything at all, etc., etc.

Religious beliefs too are based on evidence. "Gods" are first-pass explanations of natural phenomena, God in the classical sense is an attempt to explain the existence of anything at all, etc., etc. — gurugeorge

Religious beliefs are not based on evidence, just like there's something called "Christian Science", which doesn't actually make it science.

But belief is based on evidence, it's just that sometimes people make mistakes in the interpretation of evidence, or in the construction of beliefs based on evidence. To condemn belief as such on the grounds that beliefs are sometimes mistaken is ludicrous. — gurugeorge

People don't have to be perfect/without mistake to avoid belief.

Science is something that has for a long long time, been allowing us to constantly consider evidence, without considering all possible evidence. Since we can't consider all possible evidence, we will make mistakes, but if we follow the evidence, we minimize error.

Belief on the other hand, by definition says that people are mostly not even required to follow the evidence. Most of all, believers tend to twist the evidence to suit their old beliefs, even when they know those old beliefs contradict evidence. This means it is not an issue of simply making mistakes, but instead adhering to old beliefs regardless of evidence. This is no surprise, because the by definition, belief can happen especially without evidence.

A quote of mine: This means that belief tends to facilitate that old mistakes are kept, regardless of belief updating, whereas abandoning the concept of belief is reasonably a way to prepare the individual to be ready to discard mistakes, and move on.

When it's all said and done, it doesn't matter how much belief or passion people put into their work, they must generally follow evidence in order to make progress.This means progress can be made with zero beliefs. (Unless you feel scientific evidence or whether things work in practice is dependent upon people believing in it?)

Religious beliefs are not based on evidence — uncool

Nonsense, you may not think it's good evidence, or you may think the arguments based on that evidence are wrong - and you may be right. But it's simply untrue to claim that religious beliefs aren't based on evidence.

Belief on the other hand, by definition says that people are mostly not even required to follow the evidence. — uncool

It sounds like you're conflating faith and belief. For religious people, faith in the particular tenets of their religion is based on their belief in the validity of divine revelation, but religious belief as such isn't based on revelation, it's based on something like philosophical demonstration (e.g. the arguments for God's existence - but of course everyone thinks it through to the level they're able to, and may or may not avail themselves of the more sophisticated arguments of theologians and philosophers).

Primarily, for most religious people, they have a sense of "why does anything exist at all?" and "God" (the usual monotheistic or henotheistic type of God that can be found in many religions) is one perfectly reasonable answer to that question. (And then there are proto-cosmological explanations based on "powers" or "emanations" of God, or "gods" or "spirits" or various kinds of hierarchies of sub-deities or whatever.) Many rationalists seem to be cloth-eared to that question for some reason.

It's true that religions have veered between thinking faith is enough and thinking that belief comes first and faith is like the icing on the cake, but the Christian tradition since Aquinas has generally settled on the idea that God's existence and attributes are rationally demonstrable on the basis of evidence (everyday, easily accessible evidence at that), while faith, having been secured by that rational belief, then takes a punt on divine revelation in particular texts as having come from the Being that they think reason demonstrates must exist.

But it's simply untrue to claim that religious beliefs aren't based on evidence. — gurugeorge

I think you might make that statement about the fact that religious beliefs exist, but not about the actual religious beliefs themselves. 'Religious beliefs' and the belief in a creator of the universe are often conflated but they are not one and the same. A religion states that "There is a creator of all things...", not as a metaphysical answer to a question, but as a necessary precursor to the crucial part which is "... and he said you should do the following..." The second part is what makes a religion, the first is a metaphysical position about causality and time, many atheists have a position on that question.

So in assessing the extent to which religious belief stems from evidence, we need to examine, not the evidence that the universe exists, and so by law of causality needs a creator, but the evidence that, their particular book represents the desires of that creator, or the 'best' way to live, or some other metric regarding why that particular set of instructions and statements of historical fact has been chosen over any other.

Given the cultural and historical progress of religious belief, I think you'd have a hard time proving that such choices had anything to do with evidence. Was there some 'evidence' against the Roman gods of Olympus that meant people no longer believed in them? Did someone demonstrate by any means that Valhalla does not exist? Or is history a story of advancing (often in very bloody battles) the 'culture' of one religion over another which was then adopted, quite sensibly, by the population, largely out of a desire to socially conform, more than occasionally out of fear for their lives.

If religions are adopted largely on the basis of evidence, then why the inquisition, the crusades, Jihad, the slaughter of tribes in the colonies? It all sounds a bit bloody and unnecessary if people are just going to convert as a result of a convincing argument.

Well something that allows people to mostly ignore evidence (namely belief), is actually counter to how humanity has progressed. — uncool

That's a great argument for the claim that the beliefs that ignore evidence are harmful, but there's a ton of beliefs that do not ignore it. I might even go as far as to say most of the beliefs are based on evidence and are the most logical and likely conclusions that can be drawn from that evidence.

I think I covered what you're talking about in my post, but I'll go over it again.

There are two possible phases, one might call them, to religion:-

1) Is the stage that the religious person can share with some naturalistic thinkers (e.g. Aristotle, the Stoics, Daoists), whereby you can on the basis of argument and evidence get a reasonable answer to the question, "Why is there anything at all?" Further reflection can secure for this Creator/Absolute/God/Logos/Isvara/Dao-De, whatever, certain other qualities (e.g. omnipresence, omnipotence, all-good/perfect, all-knowing, with the meanings of these concepts not being quite the same as they would be in ordinary language, but analogous in some ways to ordinary language meanings). While this isn't as fleshed-out as most religions per se, it's not quite thin either, there is some substantive content.

2) On the basis of that kind of rationally supported belief (i.e. belief on the basis of reason and evidence, resulting in a basic theology and theodicy), religious people then have the option of various more detailed and elaborated religious beliefs that rest on faith - faith that their holy texts, or their personal revelations or whatever, come from or are sanctioned by this entity that they also believe in on rational grounds.

I agree with much of what you say, and as I pointed out, quite often religious people have jumped straight to faith as the primary factor, and in particular you often have the situation where people are simply born into a faith and take it for granted. But I think it's important to be fair to religion and lay out this two step process, because this has in fact been the main way that Christianity since Aquinas (both Catholic and many Protestant denominations) has viewed the matter (in terms of, say, convincing a notionally uncommitted non-believer), and I believe also certain schools of Islamic thought and Jewish thought too, as well as Vedanta and even Daoism to some extent (Buddhism is really more like some of the ancient Greek philosophies than like a religion, though it's absorbed or shared some features with deity-based religions as it has spread). And I think even if faith comes first for some people, they've bolstered their faith by reasoned arguments along the lines of 1).

Also: while it's true that religions have often clashed and felt themselves to be mutually exclusive, it's also true that religions have co-existed peacably too (e.g. the paganism of antiquity, the Indian form of paganism we call "Hinduism," the co-existence and mutual influence of many religions in the far East), and viewed their particular revelations in an "ecumenical" sort of sense, as more or less saying the same things in different ways, or of being revelations to particular people at particular times, for particular purposes. And it's also true that there is much in common between the core teachings of many religions of disparate origin (e.g. an emphasis on love, kindness, charity, social hierarchy, etc.) - of course for a rationalist this similarity would be expected on the hypothesis that religion is a kind of evolved "tribal glue" that's constrained by a) reproductive fitness and b) ethnic and group cohesion in an uncertain world. There's also a good deal of similarity between religions in their mystical teachings (though I wouldn't go so far as to say that forms any sort of easily-describable "perennial philosophy"), and from a naturalistic point of view that could easily be an artifact of neurological similarities between human beings generally.

At any rate, all I really want to flag is that while faith (which is what some here are calling "belief") is certainly a part of religion, belief based on reason and evidence-based argument has also always been a part of religion, although the emphasis has varied from time to time and place to place.

What I took issue with in your post is the use of 'most religious people'. I agree that there are some religious people who rationalise their belief in a deity, but I'm really not at all convinced that 'most religious people' do this. That's my point about the imposition of one culture on another in war. It really indicates that 'most' religious people simply adopt whatever belief system their culture has, it gets replaced by a new belief system when one culture conquers another. If people really did just arrive at their fundamental beliefs rationally, why would there be such a huge number of animists among tribal people (virtually no mono-theists), why would there an increasing number of atheists in the modern period as cultural conformity in belief has weakened?

If you're arguing that the majority of religious people freely arrive at the fundamental tenets of their beliefs by rational analysis (an omnipresent, omnipotent, all-good/perfect, all-knowing, creator), then why are there so few examples of such a figure in tribal cultures? Why such a massive surge in such beliefs post Christianity, and then a decline in such beliefs post-enlightenment? Are you suggesting that people's free rational faculties have changes over time for some reason?

Surely the simplest explanation for the changes in (even fundamental) religious beliefs over time, is that they're cultural. One or two influential thinkers rationalise some world-view and the vast majority of the population simply adopt it because it's "the done thing", without giving it more than a moment's thought.

Nonsense, you may not think it's good evidence, or you may think the arguments based on that evidence are wrong - and you may be right. But it's simply untrue to claim that religious beliefs aren't based on evidence. — gurugeorge

Come on, it is empirically observed that religious beliefs generally don't care about evidence.

It is very strange that people use the products of science (these forums, computers, internet) while avoiding the fact that religious beliefs contradict science.

It sounds like you're conflating faith and belief — gurugeorge

Nope, I actually took a look in the dictionary, and alas, belief is defined to especially occur without proof or evidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/belief

I might even go as far as to say most of the beliefs are based on evidence and are the most logical and likely conclusions that can be drawn from that evidence. — BlueBanana

You might feel that way, but I can't find any evidence that most beliefs are based on evidence.
Instead, just like sources in the OP state, most beliefs generally occur ignoring or distorting evidence.

People tend to distort actual evidence to fit their pre-conveived notions, and in doing that they are not paying attention to the evidence, but actually ignoring it.

Could you please show me evidence to support your belief or claim that most beliefs are based on evidence, because I don't detect any, and I've gone through many many many pages of search results (I didn't just stop at the first page although it agreed with what I am saying) and I also checked many google scholar results.

evidence-based argument has also always been a part of religion — gurugeorge

Yeah, that's not actual evidence. You can quickly see that religious "evidence" is not actual evidence, because religious stuff contradicts scientific stuff. If religious stuff was evidence, it wouldn't have been separated from modern science back in the scientific revolution.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_revolution)

There's a limited amount of beliefs with no evidence, and a practically infinite amount of beliefs supported by evidence. For example, the existence of one's physical body, the existence of other people, the existence of any reality outside one's self, all the scientific theories, etc. just to mention some of the most common ones.

You can quickly see that religious "evidence" is not actual evidence, because religious stuff contradicts scientific stuff. — uncool

Doesn't mean it isn't evidence.

Doesn't mean it isn't evidence. — BlueBanana

Yes true. religious evidence is evidence that people are gullible and generally stupid.

For example, the existence of one's physical body, the existence of other people, the existence of any reality outside one's self....., — BlueBanana

It's called knowledge and requires no belief.

Yes true. religious evidence is evidence that people are gullible and generally stupid. — charleton

If you throw dice 100 times and get a six 99 times, that's evidence the dice are rigged, and those 99 times are evidence for that. The one throw that isn't a six is still evidence that the dice are not rigged. Maybe that isn't good evidence or there's more evidence for the opposite claim, but it's still false to say the claim has no evidence.

It's called knowledge and requires no belief. — charleton

Although those are heavily supported by evidence, they don't have proof, only evidence, and are therefore beliefs.

If you throw dice 100 times and get a six 99 times, that's evidence the dice are rigged, and those 99 times are evidence for that. — BlueBanana

What has this got to do with anything?

Well it's directly comparable to evidence for/against religions. The evidence as a whole is against them, including for example the science, but even if that is stronger than the evidence for religions, it doesn't mean there is no evidence for them.

I have no doubt religions exist.

There are plenty examples of tribal Henotheism (where you have one particular god standing for, or taking the office of, an ultimate creator god, but not excluding other gods, in a polytheistic system - i.e. one tribe prefers one stand-in, another another), e.g. pre-Islamic tribal religion, Native American religions ("Great Spirit"). "Paganism" is the same thing (Western or "Hindu"), and again, you have the idea of a singular "God" with the pre-Socratic (e.g. Heraclitus' "god", "the wise," "the one") and Greek philosophers, even when you have other "gods".

I think there's a bit of confusion about this because there's a hangover from older ways of thinking about this where "monotheism" is considered to be some sort of advanced stage that nobody came up with until the Jews relatively recently, but I don't think that reflects the anthropological reality.

There's not really much substantive difference between having a carousel of gods any of which can slide to the front and "stand for" the ultimate God, and the idea of a single God with a pantheon of angels taking on a bureaucratic workload - the only difference is that the former understanding is more tolerant, and the latter less tolerant, of other religions (it's a "hardening" of the tribal position - "our tribe's stand-in for the ultimate God is the right one.").

IOW, the absence of overt monotheism in a religion doesn't mean that there isn't a reasoned appeal to some variant of an ultimate Creator in some sense.

belief is defined to especially occur without proof or evidence. — uncool

Wiki says "with or without", Oxford 1.1 and 1.2 don't "especially" specify without.

You can quickly see that religious "evidence" is not actual evidence, because religious stuff contradicts scientific stuff. — uncool

And yet oddly, all the early scientists were believing Christians, and there are religious people all over the world today who don't think there's a contradiction between their religious belief and their science.

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this.

a practically infinite amount of beliefs supported by evidence. For example, the existence of one's physical body — BlueBanana

And why would you need to believe in empirically observable things, like the body?

Although those are heavily supported by evidence, they don't have proof, only evidence, and are therefore beliefs. — BlueBanana

This makes no sense. Looks like you've ran out of arguments, given the evidence that I've laid out before you :)

Well it's directly comparable to evidence for/against religions. The evidence as a whole is against them, including for example the science, but even if that is stronger than the evidence for religions, it doesn't mean there is no evidence for them. — BlueBanana

As charleton says, there is no doubt that religion exists, however, this doesn't suddenly mean that religious doctrine is any evidence.