The Belief Spectrum

Defining belief in a world drowning in faith

The term ‘belief’ as typically used can convey a wide range of ideas. Because of its imprecision its use can lead to assumptions and confusion. It is often substituted for the more descriptive terms ‘know,’ ‘trust,’ or ‘hope.’ I believe that my partner loves me. A coach believes that his team is going to win the game. Many believe that the world was created 6000 years ago out of nothing by an invisible, all-powerful being. A physicist believes that matter and energy are interchangeable under certain conditions. Karl Marx believed that communism would inevitably spread across the world.  Does ‘believe’ mean the same thing in these examples?  For the purposes here, ‘believing’ will be used to describe the process of ‘knowing’ something without having sufficient evidence to support the claim. By this definition, belief likely arose in our remote ancestors as a cognitive tool in their attempt to provide explanations for their experiences and observations. Having an answer (no matter how poor) to difficult questions can reduce anxiety about living, and dying, in the world. At the risk of oversimplification, belief can be thought of as existing on a functional spectrum. At one end, when informed by empirical evidence, belief is merely a slight extension of our understanding of the world and very nearly matches what is actually happening. Based on the predictions made by a scientific understanding of the universe, I ‘believe’ the sun will rise tomorrow because my worldview incorporates concepts of gravity, light, and of planetary bodies. This is a highly testable theory: every day that I awake and the sun rises is further validation of the likelihood that my belief matches reality. The quantity of belief required in this scenario is on the low end of the belief spectrum, essentially near zero. Compare the predicted rising of the sun to the prediction of finding psychological traits in someone based on the month they were born. This is one of many predictions made by astrology, another explanatory tool that attempts to provide particular details about the universe. It purports that configurations of planetary bodies are predictive of temperaments and traits of human beings. This too is testable, and studies have been performed. The results when testing predictions of astrology vs predictions made by science consistently reveal that astrology has no more actual predictive ability than simply guessing, or chance. (A single important point to make is that the appearance that stars form patterns in our sky can have absolutely nothing to do with their spatial proximity—for any one of two stars that appear side by side, the distance between them may far exceed the distance to a closer star, even though the closer star appears nowhere near the star in the night sky.) Maintaining that astrology provides the best (or any) explanation for human traits and temperament requires a level of belief that lies on the opposite end of the belief spectrum than the belief about the sun rising--the very high end. Beliefs in fairies, ghosts, alien abduction, homeopathy, astrology, and anything in the ‘supernatural’ realm all lie on this end of the spectrum. Delusions and irrational beliefs experienced during a psychotic break lie on this end of the spectrum. Non-testable claims made by religions also exist on this end of the spectrum. Concepts that require belief on this end of this spectrum unfortunately have the common characteristic of being maintained with no good evidence--or worse--despite evidence to the contrary. Another word for belief at this end of the spectrum is ‘faith.’ Because it does not rely on good evidence, faith provides a grossly distorted and inaccurate lens from which to view reality. For a brain confined to a faith-based worldview, the reality of a claim is more often related to emotional reaction than evidence. Furthermore, imagination can be misinterpreted as reality. As with any other cognitive process, practice increases the likelihood that it will continue to occur, and thus critical thinking skills suffer significantly when one regularly uses faith to define the real.

A common retort that I hear when discussing this concept with people is ‘you believe your partner won’t cheat on you, don’t you?’ I can certainly say that I ‘trust’ my partner won’t cheat on me, but I would also say that this trust is the direct result of my lived experience with her. To the extent that I believe she won’t cheat on me, my belief is on the low end of the spectrum. If she were to cheat on me and I were to become aware of it, my trust would reflect the new data and drop considerably. If I maintained a belief that she would not cheat on me after she had cheated on me, my belief would actually move further up the scale. What if she cheated on my repeatedly, let’s say a dozen times. If I stayed with her and actually believed that she would not cheat again, I would agree that I would indeed require a huge amount of belief to attempt to conform this to my reality. This is an important feature of the high end of the belief spectrum: the higher the belief on the scale, the less evidence there is and the less likely the belief is to match any experienced reality. One of the main problems we face as humans today is that it has become normalized and even encouraged within most societies for beliefs on the high end of the spectrum to be thought of as legitimate as ‘beliefs’ on the low end. Claims to have ‘faith,’ to actively believe things with no evidence at all, are even a badge of honor in much of the world. Not only is this absurd from a rational perspective but also has real-world negative consequences that we face on a daily basis. The final example that I will provide is one given by a good friend. He agrees on many of the above points, but states that he continues to consider faith a valid phenomenon because he has ‘faith in humanity.’ I would argue that he has ‘hope’ in humanity, or a desire that humanity will continue to succeed and progress, but that the belief required for this still remains on the lower end of the spectrum and is nowhere near ‘faith’ level. I happen to know that he is well-read, intelligent, and a keen observer of human behavior. His ‘faith’ in humanity is actually an appreciation that humanity is moving in a positive direction that is informed by our history, and with the recognition that human brains are remarkable problem-solving machines. Despite all the ranting about belief, I too have faith in humanity. Happy Sunday.