What's more important, 2 understand something or believe it?
It pretty much boils down to Religion vs Science.
'Should' we try to discover all of the worlds secrets? Or should we just not eat apples?
Understanding is a prerequisite for belief.
You can't (really) believe something if you don't understand it.
| ocalhoun wrote: |
Understanding is a prerequisite for belief.
You can't (really) believe something if you don't understand it. |
The evidence points to the contrary - lots of people believe things they don't understand. On a slightly 'nit-picky' point - we ALL believe things we don't understand. Until someone can put a complete theory forward - some sort of GUT - then we don't really understand anything. | Bikerman wrote: |
| ocalhoun wrote: | Understanding is a prerequisite for belief.
You can't (really) believe something if you don't understand it. |
The evidence points to the contrary - lots of people believe things they don't understand. On a slightly 'nit-picky' point - we ALL believe things we don't understand. Until someone can put a complete theory forward - some sort of GUT - then we don't really understand anything. |
Understanding isn't binary-state... there are different degrees of understanding... varying from GUT to only the most superficial.
But, without at least a superficial understanding, you can't believe something. I can't believe that the sky is blue if I don't understand what the sky is, or what the color blue is (or, to quote Clinton, what the definition of 'is' is... ^.^). | ocalhoun wrote: |
| Bikerman wrote: | | ocalhoun wrote: | Understanding is a prerequisite for belief.
You can't (really) believe something if you don't understand it. |
The evidence points to the contrary - lots of people believe things they don't understand. On a slightly 'nit-picky' point - we ALL believe things we don't understand. Until someone can put a complete theory forward - some sort of GUT - then we don't really understand anything. |
Understanding isn't binary-state... there are different degrees of understanding... varying from GUT to only the most superficial.
But, without at least a superficial understanding, you can't believe something. I can't believe that the sky is blue if I don't understand what the sky is, or what the color blue is (or, to quote Clinton, what the definition of 'is' is... ^.^). |
Again the evidence is to the contrary.
It is a central thesis of Christianity that God is beyond human understanding or explanation - indeed that God is ineffable.
Ask a Christian if he/she believes in God.....That's where those degrees of understanding come in...
It is supposedly impossible to completely understand God, but even the most basic understanding is sufficient for belief.
Well, practically speaking, in everyday life belief is *much* more important than understanding.
How often do you take the time and check out something which is told you by a person of authority?
Did you in school question every statement your teacher made and expect him to show proof?
Sometimes we have the opportunity to build up our knowledge the *hard* way, but normally all we do is accept statements more or less at face value.
| ocalhoun wrote: |
That's where those degrees of understanding come in...
It is supposedly impossible to completely understand God, but even the most basic understanding is sufficient for belief. |
But there is no basic understanding. It would be heresy for many Christians to say you understood God, even at a basic level. Clerics frequently tell us that God is not simply unknown, but unknowable. We call it faith - belief without understanding... | Bikerman wrote: |
| ocalhoun wrote: | That's where those degrees of understanding come in...
It is supposedly impossible to completely understand God, but even the most basic understanding is sufficient for belief. |
But there is no basic understanding. It would be heresy for many Christians to say you understood God, even at a basic level. Clerics frequently tell us that God is not simply unknown, but unknowable. We call it faith - belief without understanding... |
If all you understand about God is that "oh yeah, he's the guy who created the Earth...", then that's enough for belief.
If you respond to, "Do you believe in God?"
By saying, "Huh, what's God?"
THEN, you don't have enough understanding for belief.
Back to my example of 'the sky is blue'...
Even if you've never seen the color blue before, you can understand it enough to believe that statement, as long as you understand something like "blue must be a color, kinda like red or green, but different than those two..."
But, if you're a native of Virgil's Valley of the Blind, then you wouldn't understand it enough to believe 'the sky is blue'... because you wouldn't understand what 'blue' is. | ocalhoun wrote: |
| Bikerman wrote: | | ocalhoun wrote: | That's where those degrees of understanding come in...
It is supposedly impossible to completely understand God, but even the most basic understanding is sufficient for belief. |
But there is no basic understanding. It would be heresy for many Christians to say you understood God, even at a basic level. Clerics frequently tell us that God is not simply unknown, but unknowable. We call it faith - belief without understanding... |
If all you understand about God is that "oh yeah, he's the guy who created the Earth...", then that's enough for belief. |
But that is not understanding - that is hypothesis, at best. It also isn't consistent - since many Christians don't actually believe that God 'created' the earth.
To understand something implies that you have some factual knowledge about it - something which can be tested - not just that you have some unsupported suppositions or assumptions...
How do you test your understanding? Is it internally (or externally) consistent? Is it logical? Is it even possible?
I think you need to distinguish between understanding and delusion....between blind acceptance and genuine theory, between un-testable assumptions and genuine knowledge. | Bikerman wrote: |
| It also isn't consistent - since many Christians don't actually believe that God 'created' the earth. |
It doesn't have to be consistent. These other Christians can base their belief on a different understanding of what God is.
| Bikerman wrote: |
I think you need to distinguish between understanding and delusion....between blind acceptance and genuine theory, between un-testable assumptions and genuine knowledge. |
And it is impossible to understand a delusion?
Before you can believe in the genuine theory, you must first understand it.
Just because something is untestable doesn't mean it's not understandable. The man who once could see, but now is blind can still understand a blue sky, even though he can't test it.
Even if someone told the blind man that the sky is red, he could still understand, and therefore believe, that. Understanding a red sky and knowing that the sky is red are two different things. He can also understand the concept of a red sky, and choose not to believe it.
But, he can't believe in the red sky if he's always been blind and can't understand it. He could say he believes it, but really, it's all just words to him.
I'm starting to think you're too much of a scientist... There are other ways to understand things than experiments, formulas, and predictable results.
It's quite possible to understand something completely fictional, or to understand something incorrectly, or understand something you've only heard other people tell you about.
Even these flawed understandings, though, are enough to base belief off of.
Much the same way that you can understand a sunrise, without any knowledge of the solar system, or how it works... You can understand it as the sun-god rising from the tunnels under the Earth if you like, but that's still enough of an understanding for belief.The debate hinges on semantics. You think that experience = understanding. I don't - I think understanding is more than experience. I think that understanding implies a knowledge much deeper than experiential. A flower experiences sunrise - does it in any way 'understand' it?
If you 'understand' something incorrectly then I think you don't understand it at all. How do we test? Well that is the question - if you CAN test your understanding then I think it qualifies AS understanding. If you can't then I believe it is simply experience, anecdote or assumption.
Like so many questions, it comes down to the fact that the word has several meanings.
You can use the word 'understand' in the sense of agreeing a shared token or symbol. Thus, in your example, it is not possible for the person born blind to 'understand' the token 'red sky' because they have no experiential basis for that shared use of the token. Clearly a sighted person has perception/experience which can be assigned to the shared token 'red sky'. They can therefore 'test' their perception - for example they can tell the difference between a 'red sky' and a 'blue sky'. In that sense they 'understand' what is meant by the phrase 'red sky'.
Try to apply the same to God....
| Bikerman wrote: |
The debate hinges on semantics. You think that experience = understanding. I don't - I think understanding is more than experience. I think that understanding implies a knowledge much deeper than experiential. A flower experiences sunrise - does it in any way 'understand' it?
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Of course not, and the flower doesn't believe in it either.
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If you 'understand' something incorrectly then I think you don't understand it at all. How do we test? Well that is the question - if you CAN test your understanding then I think it qualifies AS understanding. If you can't then I believe it is simply experience, anecdote or assumption.
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Then it's impossible to have an understanding of something fictional? (Since I understand that a unicorn is a horse with a horn, I'm able to believe or not believe in them, but someone without that understanding would not be able to believe or not believe.)
And it's impossible to understand something incorrectly? (In such a way that a test would disprove it?)
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In that sense they 'understand' what is meant by the phrase 'red sky'. |
Which gives them the ability to believe it, at their discretion.
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Try to apply the same to God.... |
Why does it always have to be about God with you? ... You know, for an atheist, you sure do talk about God a lot... Why did you first bring that up here, anyway?
I'm trying to steer the topic away from that, to keep away from annoying sidetracks like 'it is heresy to understand God' and 'Some Christians believe...' | ocalhoun wrote: |
| Then it's impossible to have an understanding of something fictional? (Since I understand that a unicorn is a horse with a horn, I'm able to believe or not believe in them, but someone without that understanding would not be able to believe or not believe.) |
Yes, I would argue that it IS impossible to have an understanding of something fictional. What you MIGHT have is an understanding of the notional entity, created by the author of that entity, that corresponds to the intent of the creator themselves. Very often you find that such an 'understanding' is actually completely different to the 'understanding' of the actual author. Thus we could, for example, say that we understand the concept of the unicorn - in that our mental model corresponds to some 'ideal' or 'general construct'. How do we know? We test our model against the 'construct'. Does it have a horn? Is it horse-like? Therefore it is a unicorn. Does this mean we understand the notion of a unicorn? No. It simply means that we share a mental impression of what someone means by using the token.
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| And it's impossible to understand something incorrectly? (In such a way that a test would disprove it?) |
Yep. You may *think* you understand it, but if that understanding fails some test then you clearly DIDN'T understand it at all....
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Why does it always have to be about God with you? ... You know, for an atheist, you sure do talk about God a lot... Why did you first bring that up here, anyway?
I'm trying to steer the topic away from that, to keep away from annoying sidetracks like 'it is heresy to understand God' and 'Some Christians believe...' |
It isn't always about God - the reason I brought it up is because it is the best example I could come up with to refute the notion that belief requires understanding. I take your point - let us avoid this becoming a theological argument. | Bikerman wrote: |
| ocalhoun wrote: | | Then it's impossible to have an understanding of something fictional? (Since I understand that a unicorn is a horse with a horn, I'm able to believe or not believe in them, but someone without that understanding would not be able to believe or not believe.) |
Yes, I would argue that it IS impossible to have an understanding of something fictional. What you MIGHT have is an understanding of the notional entity, created by the author of that entity, that corresponds to the intent of the creator themselves. Very often you find that such an 'understanding' is actually completely different to the 'understanding' of the actual author. Thus we could, for example, say that we understand the concept of the unicorn - in that our mental model corresponds to some 'ideal' or 'general construct'. How do we know? We test our model against the 'construct'. Does it have a horn? Is it horse-like? Therefore it is a unicorn. Does this mean we understand the notion of a unicorn? No. It simply means that we share a mental impression of what someone means by using the token.
| Quote: | | And it's impossible to understand something incorrectly? (In such a way that a test would disprove it?) |
Yep. You may *think* you understand it, but if that understanding fails some test then you clearly DIDN'T understand it at all....
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Ah, therein lies the misunderstanding...
Thinking that you understand something is sufficient for belief. | ocalhoun wrote: |
Ah, therein lies the misunderstanding...
Thinking that you understand something is sufficient for belief. |
I would certainly agree with that statement 
When preparing for many testing exams, you can often improve your scores by believing.
I never could understand Schrodinger's wave equation, but I just believed it long enough to pass the exams 
I need to understand something in order to believe in it…
Does'nt it depend on your state of mind? I used to believe in lot of stuff that I do not anymore, although I can argue now that due to Reason A and Reason B ..... I don't believe in certain stuff. However I had exactly the same thing going on when I believed in certain stuff. So makes me wonder, if I was wrong then, what makes me right now. I could be wrong now?
If you wish to see if you need to understand in order to believe then ask a small child why the sky is blue... or why the moon is there. To understand something requires you being right to a certain extent. Not always the case with belief. There are things witch we believe that’s we have absolutely no understating of what so ever. Theory’s would be much the same. Such as the theory of the big bang. Or even the understanding of the big bang since there was no bang for sound has no way of travelling in space and thus most of our beliefs about the big bang are be wrong. The phrase big bang does not imply the unravelling or expansion of a universe but a big bang. However, those that associate the phrase big bang with the unravelling or expansion of the universe will have a deferent perception towards the phrase. So if someone was to tell you that they belief that the big bang happened, what would you conclude. That the big bang is a scientific theory, or a firework. There are many ways of understanding the phrase big bang and an equal amount of ways to belief the implications of it. My conclusion is that belief requires understanding and vice versa. I think this is the only conclusion to this argument. Many people seem to accompany belief with faith as if they both lead to understanding or understanding leads to them. However it is belief and understanding that in-fact lead to the elimination of faith unless trust is involved. The existence of belief can lead to someone having faith in a subject. But understanding does not lead to faith because with understanding faith is no longer required. These three words are connected intimately. But only one stands on its own, and that is faith, for faith can result in both belief and understanding. However belief and understanding always accompany each other, so neither can be more important than the other because the require each others presence.
