Is it hard to...

[Kishijoten]

Is it hard to believe in something when you yourself never actually know whether it's true or not?
Kind of like when people say certian things exsist in the world when hardly anybody have ever seen them at all.

 

[.Seth]

Going a bit Geometry here...

Well, the way I see it, when you believe in something that may or may not exist, you take it as a postulate. A postulate, for those who haven't made it to Geometry, is a theorem that you hold as true.

With the theorem being: "If they say _____ exists/is true, then I believe in it."
And for that to be true we have to assume what they say is true.

Make sense?

But anyways, it can be. I believe in the supernatural because there are some things science cannot explain. Oh believe me, science can prove a lot of things, but there are things such as God, religion, and other things they can't. For things science can't, we assume it's a postulate. See paragraph above for more information.

 

[Bay]

Going a bit Geometry here...

Well, the way I see it, when you believe in something that may or may not exist, you take it as a postulate. A postulate, for those who haven't made it to Geometry, is a theorem that you hold as true.

With the theorem being: "If they say _____ exists/is true, then I believe in it."
And for that to be true we have to assume what they say is true.

Make sense?

But anyways, it can be. I believe in the supernatural because there are some things science cannot explain. Oh believe me, science can prove a lot of things, but there are things such as God, religion, and other things they can't. For things science can't, we assume it's a postulate. See paragraph above for more information.

Quite an interesting answer for an interesting topic. :D

Anyways, I have my share of those. For instance, I'm Buddhist and one of the things we believe is reincarnation. Now, personally I never seen reincarnation, but I heard stories where that happened. I believe in reincarnation however because I'm always the person that believe everyone should be given second chances (or in the case of reincarnation, a never ending cycle of that XD ).

 

[Elite Overlord LeSabre™]

See my post in "Do You Believe In Ghosts?" for more info. But basically, I desire, nay, demand solid, scientific proof of anything before I'm inclined to believe it. For example, I don't believe in Santa Claus because he's never been the victim of my intricately laid-out traps and alarms that I set up every Christmas Eve to catch the big fat trespasser I've never seen him and nobody has any evidence they've seen the real, bona-fide thing.. I DO believe that the Buick LeSabre was the best-selling full-size car for most of the '90's because I've seen sales figures proving it beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

[BJ088]

With the theorem being: "If they say _____ exists/is true, then I believe in it."
And for that to be true we have to assume what they say is true.

(Not directed at you)

This is such a naive way of thinking.
Basically I could say to somebody (who has this mindset) that dinosaurs are apparently floating around again, they'd believe it.

 

[Rokusasu]

If it makes sense to me, then I might believe it. It would depend on the source of the information, and their sincerity.

 

[Sublime]

Depends what kind of situation we're using it in. Physical or emotional? I'll give an example of both, I suppose.

Say my friend Gummy came up to me one day and said "Arian, you handsome chap, I just saw bigfoot!" My reply would be a swift slap across his face without proof to back it up. I'm not one to believe something in the physical world without seeing it with my own two eyes.

Now, if there's a certain thought I just can't shake off one way or another because I'm unsure of it's certainty, and then someone reassures me of it being true or false, I'll probably believe them. I'm easily persuaded when it comes to emotional things. With little problems, you can spoon feed me advice and I'll take every word of it as absolute truth, without any proof to even back it up. But with those bigger problems, that's a different story XD;

So, I suppose it varies for me.

 

[Esper]

(Not directed at you)

This is such a naive way of thinking.
Basically I could say to somebody (who has this mindset) that dinosaurs are apparently floating around again, they'd believe it.

If you read closely he was outlining what a postulate was: a way of explaining or justifying a belief you already hold. Not at all like saying that he would believe everything that anyone says to him.

For me, I only believe in something if there is evidence for it or if there is a reasonable and persuasive argument in the face of no evidence one way or the other.

For instance: there is no direct evidence that aliens exist, but I still believe they exist because the universe is so large that the odds of them existing, in some form or another, are very high. In that sense I don't find it hard to believe in something (although it's a very open-ended belief) despite there being no physical proof.

 

[Wings Don't Cry]

I find some things hard to believe and somethings possible.

I find it very illogical that a god appeared and just created our planet and the stars in 7 days or was it 6. I can't remember but then it was changed because other planets were discovered. Just because it's illogical doesn't mean it isn't a possibility.

Aliens however are certainly real, I won't say for certain that intelligent life forms are out there but definitely aliens of some kind, possibly basic life forms that are still adapting to their planet. So even though we can't see it(actually we have but people believe it to be fake) I would believe in aliens.

Reincarnation also seems likely to me as there was this one theory I heard stating that the more incantations you hold the more intelligent you are. Also that people who are mentally challenged are on their first or second life.

So really I have mixed feelings about a lot of things.

 

[Citrinin]

For me to believe in something, I have to either have reasonable proof that it exists, or experience it myself. For things that I have no (or insufficient) evidence one way or the other for, I suspend judgement.

 

[Percy Thrillington]

I never believe anything I'm told first time around. Mainly for a good reason (Kev, did you hear they proved Pokémon live on the moon?). No matter how sincere the person who's telling me something seems, I always try to verify it with somebody or something else. In most cases it's the internet.

 

[Guillermo]

I believe there's things or people we as humans can't see with our own two eyes, and it's only when we pass that we can see things in a different perspective.

As for things like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster? Meh, they're fun stories to scare kids with. They might exist, might not. I don't know, don't really care.

 

[Captain Fabio]

It completely depends on what the subject is.

Normally, I need some sort of evidence to back it up, but who knows.