Everybody talks about beliefs like they're this big important thing.

I think it's weird that people even have beliefs. Belief is a dirty word to me.

I'm inclined to agree. But I meditate and stuff.

Beliefs are important, beliefs are what gets us through life somewhat mentally sane.

Beliefs are (for example) the cornerstone of relationships, because you have to believe that your partner really loves you. There is no hard evidence for that so it can never be a fact, only a belief.

I believe that my neighbors don't plan to kill me in my sleep (why should they, I am a nice and easy neighbor), I believe that the person at the fast food corner doesn't spit on my food (and that they had washed hands after using the toilet), I believe that my landlord will some day repair the water damage in my second bathroom (and put all the bathroom stuff like sink, shower and toilet back in).

One could say that belief is behind everything where "trust" is involved. Belief is just accepting something as true, either because it is something that is a concept without hard facts (love, religion, justice, freedom, money, "the good in people") or it is something where the information are lacking either because they are not fully known yet or because it is such a complex topic that having all information is (nearly) impossible.

I believe for example that climate change is real, because I trust (there it is again) the science. I have to believe in this case because I can't have all the information without studying climate sciences, and one can argument that even our best climate scientists doesn't have all the information (models are still incomplete and simulations don't use all possible parameters) so even they have to believe for some parts.

Beliefs become problematic when people take them as hard facts, as dogmas, and become extreme.

I believe that taking extreme positions is always wrong and a way to disaster and suffering. That's one reason why I don't like faith and are against cults of any kinds.

Are you saying that beliefs are useful (necessary even) for navigating other beliefs?
For example, I believe that my neighbors wont kill me. I do that to stave off the belief that my neighbors will kill me.
- The part with the neighbors was more or less only a joke. If i believe anything about them, then that they are good, honest and peacefull people. Because so far nothing happend to make be think otherwise.
  The belief that the neighbors will kill someone (oneself for example) sounds more like a delusion... or a really bad neighborhood!
  In both cases is a counter belief maybe not the best solution
  But yes, i do think that beliefs can be helpful to counter inner urges and impulses. The belief in laws and punishment by law is an example for it.
  And shared beliefs (for example faith and religion) acts like a glue for societies. The belief in eternal judgment by an all knowing god in combination with a holy law book (that is what most holy texts in their core are IMHO) helps to prevent chaos and ensures that people can work against a common and shared goal. As an example for the good and positive side of that.

Belief is a tool for achieving effects; it is not an end in itself. -Peter J. Carroll

Ah quoting. All of the authority with none of the responsibility.
- Good writers borrow, great writers steal. -T.S. Elliot
- Choose another tool.

I believe in science. I believe in justice, equality, and freedom. I believe fascism and capitalism is detrimental to humanity.

I do not believe in ghosts. I do not believe in gods, angels or demons. I don't believe in an afterlife. And I don't believe corporations are people.

Well that's unoriginal.
- I don't believe in originality. There is nothing new under the sun.

The more I think about it, the more I realise how less I understand this word.

Because as Terry Pratchett astutely notes in the Hogfather belief is what makes the human society possible. We invented justice, mercy, duty, laws, money etc. They exist only because we believe in them. Some beliefs make the world better, other ones worse, and we should try to emphasize the former and minimize the latter.

Ok. So there's benefit there as long as the believing is controlled.
Is there a general benefit or liability to believing? What do we gain and lose simply by believing, no matter what the belief?

Yeah, of course they do. They literally form the cornerstone of your worldview. If you change someone's beliefs, you change how they see the world. That sounds pretty damn big and important.

I wish I got to be as militant about my atheist beliefs as some nut jobs can be about their faith.
Not that I really want to, but must be nice sometimes just acting like everybody that doesn't think like me is wrong
- Something about being careful what you wish for.
- We could go door to door spreading our disbelief. But we generally hate proselytizers.
- Some people are, it's called antitheism. I confess when I was an edgy 16yo I was like that, but I had just left a religious cult so don't judge me too harshly.
Why does it get that special role of "cornerstone".
You have a thousand things in your perspective. Sights, sounds, vibes, random thoughts... Why does belief get this special treatment?
- I think by cornerstone, they are referencing that beliefs are assumptions that form one’s model of the world.
  You think by logically building on assumptions. “I remember putting leftovers in the fridge last night, so I don’t need to make dinner tonight” You assume your memories are accurate (or accurate enough) and then build on other things you “know” to construct every thought.
  Sights, sounds, and vibes are a different story. They are called qualia and the raw experience of them cannot be described.
  Think of qualia like the raw data you collect from an experiment. Your worldview is the scientific model you’ve built to describe this data and it rests on both fundamental logic and the beliefs/theories you currently believe in.
  Unfortunately people don’t like having to change their worldview. And when you’ve held a belief for long enough, it becomes foundational to many of your other assumptions. Some people would rather say reality is wrong than change their beliefs.
  The word for a belief that cannot be changed via evidence is called a “delusion” in case you ever want to piss off a religious person who says “nothing can shake my faith” like it’s a good thing.
- Sounds like the idea of "belief" is just being accepted as a religious or spiritual idea. Beliefs are the cornerstone because it's a tool we use every single day.
  At the center of how we think is the fundamental idea of The Way Things Work and that comes down to how we believe the physical things around us will act and react. Just about everyone will start making a choice by comparing what we know to be real or true for ourselves and the things around us.
  That cornerstone of belief is what we use to define "real and true". Ghosts or spirits are absolutely real and true for some people while others don't see the same evidence.
  Beliefs get the special treatment because we are a collection of our experiences and each one of us has a different way of understanding how things work.
Cornerstones, my ASS. Beliefs are just goofy fiction. I believe you're wearing fruit as a hat. Nobody gives a shit. Nobody should ever give a shit. It's not a cornerstone of my life, it's a fleeting nothing, based on nothing, worth nothing.
Some asshole taught you that beliefs are everything? They lied. You know what IS everything?
Fucking everything is! Matter, energy, reality, facts, - that's what's important. You believe you can walk on the Sun? "Fuck you" - Reality.
- So what you are saying is that it is your own belief that the concept of beliefs encompasses only false beliefs.
- So why are beliefs so important for ao many people then?
  I mean sure, maybe it's just indoctrination.
  Or maybe it's utility. Believing a nice scientific model or car repair manual can deliver definite advantages.
  Or maybe it's habit. I'm stuck in my head so arranging my mental furniture becomes important.
  Or something else
- Nietzsche would be proud 🥲

IMO "I don't know" is a perfectly valid opinion if you just don't know.

My dogma defines my in-group, and my in-group can’t be wrong because then that would mean that I am wrong, which I categorically can’t be. And even if I was wrong, then I would no longer be part of my in-group. Therefore, your science and logic and proof must be wrong if it contradicts my dogma.

Okay, but what about your catma? Does that define your naptimes and your need to make people believe that you must've meant to smash your face into the table leg after darting through the house?
- Sure, but don’t even ask about my ligma
- Whatever the case, just make sure you keep your catma inside so it doesn't get run over by your karma.
Ah, so it's a narrative control thing. Controlling the narrative (including the narrative of me, my ego or whatever) is important.
Well this begs another question. "Why is the narrative so important"?
I mean, we stand in the midst of a constant hurricane of sights, sounds, thoughts, vibes and nameless sensations, but the narrative gets this primary role.
You gotta ask why.
- Maybe we value the wrong things. Maybe greed is a lack perspective, too much isn't enough. Kind of like people who lived during the Great Depression or had parents who insisted no penny would be spent on bubble gum.

They do indeed.

My parents are deeply religious, but have never figured out that it's my siblings and I who actually answer their prayers.

God sent you to them. It was their reward for rubbing their genitals together. Thank you heavenly Father!!

Beliefs lead to actions. Actions affect others. It's not super complicated.

Lots of things lead to actions. Feelings, habits, inertia, inspiration... Beliefs are not special in this.

I believe I'll block op

I always liked the line in Dogma about them, don't turn ideas into beliefs, you can change ideas easier than beliefs. Paraphrased and I understand how much it waters down the whole problem but I still thought the idea of it was nice. Listen and be open, you shouldn't always need to be rigid. Though mean there are still ideals I'm rigid about, respect, compassion and such. Though I always thought the idea was you thought about what worked best for everyone not just what people said you should do cause tradition.

Easily said. But the psychological power of authority is so big. Authorities in the role of leader, expert, and the authority of the consensus. It may very well be programmed into our biology to automatically obey and believe. We may find ourselves falling into rigid belief without even trying.

Read the book Sapiens.

Being able to believe in fiction is what allows humanity to function.

Eeeee, interesting. I'll check that out.

I do not believe in doors. Does that mean that I think that they should not exist or that I think that they do not exist? Yes actually!

Judging by all the vaguely hostile comments, you seem to have struck a chord here.

Well that's a terrible truth.

Belief isn't inherently bad you can believe in observational facts. It's faith that's dangerous. Any system that requires you to maintain beliefs without observable facts or in the face of negative confirmational facts is a problem.

And yet getting advice from an expert can be very helpful.

Yes and I believe this isn't really a showerthought

So defensive. I believe that I have struck paydirt.
- In the wrong community
- Defensive? Now who's stooping to insults because someone doesn't believe in your belief?

In my view, beliefs are important. To me, a person is built from their beliefs.

Beliefs are mutable and can change for all sorts of reasons, at all sorts of speeds, and in all sorts of ways. They're not permanent, but I do think they're fundamental to the character of a person.

Well, they are.

They define one's view of the world, your paradigm.

That depends on the person.
You perceive a thousand things. Sights, sounds, nameless feelings... as well as beliefs.
One can be guided by any of that. And one can treat any of that as central.
Whether or not one treats one's beliefs as centrally important appears to be a matter of preference or perspective. Or something .
- You are lumping together sensory signals (feelings, sights, sounds) with the internal decision making of your brain (beliefs).
  I think you are confused by the literal definition of belief, because as it is defined, a belief is anything you think is true, specially without literal proof. There's tons of stuff we believe are true without certain proof: math, science, memory to a certain extent...
  Let me explain, not everyone is a mathematician, not everyone is a scientist, especially an absolute expert in every field. What people usually do is they it trust in people that are experts and they believe that what those say is true because they have proven it to another collection of authorities, and we believe that what those authorities are trustworthy because X. There's papers about it and I can looks them, but I and most people probably won't because I decided to believe in their words. That core belief on science, on the fact that the science as we know it is correct (which is again dependant on the interpretation of the universe we currently hold being true which we don't know...), is something people don't offer recognise as a belief, but it is.
  What you believe to be true will affect how you process what you see, what you hear, and how you ultimately act.
  It's important because it's the deciding factor of almost every actions you consciously take.
  Let me say that I'm not, in no way shape or form, saying belief in a religious tone. I'm using the literal definition of belief of the dictionary.
  For reference because I won't probably return to this comment, they way I see beliefs is similar to the philosopher Ortega y Gasset.

I believe I'd like another drink.

Well yeah. What you believe is literally all reality is. Of course it's important. I believe I'm sitting in a chair typing on my phone right now - if I didn't have those beliefs, my reality would be completely different. That's important

To some people it is.

if a belief is a model/theory/assumption that a person will not change regardless of evidence against it, it is by definition a delusion.

If a belief is an opinion, it is a personal statement. Statements like “Vim is the best IDE” are really conveying the information “I prefer Vim over all others IDEs” which is a true statement.

If a belief is a hypothesis then the person holding it will accept if it ends up being wrong.

Only in the first and second cases do people usually place importance on their beliefs, and typically, only the first case leads people to harm others or themselves with no way to convince them to stop.

Like Schrödinger and his cat?
To generalize it, I'd call a belief "an idea that you are attached to". And it bears upon your more general blob of beliefs, thoughts, memories, etc accordingly. Like a constant among variables in the midst of an algorithm.
- There's something to be said for practicing detachment, too. Or rather the impermanence of things.
- The word for established assumptions is “axioms”
  Definitions are kind of the most fundamental axioms. Abstracting things helps us build with them and they’re true because you say they are.
  We use axioms in models to derive new theorems/information. But that is often what makes us resist changing them. If you build your other assumptions on an axiom, you have to rethink all those assumptions or even throw them out when it gets proven wrong.
  However, attachment to a belief, holding to an assumption even when it’s been proven wrong, is called “delusion” and yeah those beliefs tend to be the most destructive

The difference between a belief and a theory is no one was ever burned at the stake disagreeing about a theory.

I think a lot of the time "beliefs" are more about social signaling than actual worldview. Most people aren't going to do anything to go against the grain for the sake of their beliefs, so one belief or another isn't going to make a difference for anything that matters.

Because everything we can say about reality is through the human perspective and the construct of language. We believe that this can yield us truths. But its just a belief. Our human-ness might just as well blind us to what is actually true. And as such, most of everything we think we know is based on belief. There is no escaping this problem.

Ahh, now that's an interesting idea. Beliefs are important because they are communicable. So belief gains weight from its social significance. As society is powerful then so are beliefs.
So a man outside society, a hermit, might find his beliefs falling away.
- Yes. And also explains why worldviews are so different between cultural, linguistical and geographically different groups of people.
  Even though we're becoming more and more unified, through the internet, through logic systems like maths or science in general. This is not to be mistaken for truth. Western scientific ideology specifically has as unspoken 'truth' that when ideas 'win', they are more valuable. While English, our logical rules, our ideologies are winning not because they are true but because they are believed more, or over, other languages, logic systems and ideologies.
  Ofcourse these systems of beliefs create opportunities and knowledge for people. Don't mistake my dismissal of truth for disaproval.

All I know is that nobody knows shit.

If you don't know shit you need to eat some real food!
Nonetheless we definitely get attached to certain ideas. For various reasons.
But more than that, getting attached to certain ideas (believing stuff) is widely considered to be normal, right, healthy and necessary.
So you gotta ask why that is.
- You definitely assumed that the message you typed could be understood by a random stranger and be delivered through a series of wires and rocks that can think, and possibly sent over magical waves which cannot be seen. Maybe it's all just your or my imagination.

People do that. Like kids talking about their favorite baseball team. The same focus on things that move them to the core, while having no effect on to their life apart the place they willingly give them.

Believe in yourself - if nothing else.

So you stand for nothing? You've no values? I mean, I guess one doesn't need to have an ideology to be a hedonistic, consumerist pig, lol, it would get in the way!

Please, go on. You seem to be having a perfectly nice conversation with yourself here.
- I mean, I assumed you didn't believe beliefs were fundamental and important since your whole post consists of being shocked by it, lol. Don't retreat now, silly man.
This asshole thinks that religions and beliefs stop people from being hedonistic, consumerist pigs. lololololol.
- You brought religion into this, and your sophist insults.
  Sounds like someone has a belief and is upset it's being exposed.
- How do you think you pass over riches, drugs, sex, etc that you can easily acquire one way or another? You don't cheat on your wife because of your beliefs, you don't do coke because of your beliefs, you don't undercut your employees because of your beliefs, etc etc. There literally isn't any other way to curtail your hedonistic impulses (and other impulses, ofc) but to BELIEVE in something, a sentence or a group of sentences that resound within you at least, that tells you "no, it's okay, I can hold it in cause if not I'll regret it later". It's either that or, idk, locking yourself up in a room? 😅

who asked you?