This is going to be a long post and heavy on the workings of the mind, but do keep in mind I have no training in psychology, just a lifelong fascination with the human mind. I do tend to ramble a bit and go off-topic now and then. There is every possibility that I may be WAY off on some of this. It is nothing like a professional, tested, peer reviewed analysis, more my personal thoughts, but backed by what I believe to be sound reasoning.
First, this is not a strictly religious topic, but I’m putting it here for a couple of reasons. First, this is the part of the forum which has the thread which prompted this post. Second, though the topic itself is not religious, the context given is religious, if only because that is where my personal experience comes from. Third, I think, given the topic, it will be of most interest to those with an interest in analyzing religious beliefs and, loosely related, other “out there” beliefs such as the paranormal and alternative medicines and the like.
We generally don’t put much though into belief. We know that some people hold beliefs we find stupid and it’s really hard to convince them, even with mounds of evidence, that their beliefs are simply not true. We may look into ways to try to better convince them. I recently listened to a 2 1/2 hour long talk from some Christian about how to go the other way with it and convince people that their belief is correct. (The guy’s arguments and claims could be easily disassembled using his own techniques and his main technique was called “The Columbo Technique” where you just ask annoying questions to try to catch the other person on a technicality and shift the burden of proof onto them, but that’s another subject).
I used to be a true believer and now, I find that stupid. So I have spent a ton of time (decades, actually) psychoanalyzing myself, going through my own thought process and trying to figure out what was happening in my head at every stage. And some of the stages did seem miraculous. I went through the whole “receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues” thing, I am embarrassed to say. That’s how deep I was in. But, it gave me a unique perspective into the psychology behind babbling like an idiot and truly believing that you are speaking a language so secret that not even you understand it. But every part of my self-analysis is long. It would fill a book. So I’m not going into that part here and now, just one small revelation which I came to a couple of years or so ago.
Today I’m going to be talking about belief. Specifically the nature of belief which we don’t usually stop to consider. I’m not going to give rationales for my conclusions, just the conclusions just because I already anticipate this being ludicrously long.
Essentially there are two types of beliefs. There is the fact-based belief and the emotion or desire-based belief. I’ll start by discussing each one in depth.
The fact-based belief is a belief we hold based on the facts as we know them. I believe the Earth is spherical because all the facts I have say it is. They are enough to convince me so that I believe that. However, with a fact based belief the belief will automatically change as the facts change. If I got new, convincing evidence tomorrow that the Earth is really a cube and it’s 5th dimensional spatial distortions which cause us to perceive it as spherical then the facts would change. I would need to evaluate those facts (on a subconscious level, usually) to determine whether I accept them as valid or not and, if I do, my belief changes. There is no work on my part. The change in belief is automatic. The MOMENT I accept new information as fact the belief is immediately altered.
This does mean that a fact-based belief is not actually based on real “facts”, it is based on what we accept as being factual subconsciously. We can be tricked into holding a fact-based belief which is not based on actual facts, HOWEVER, we cannot trick ourselves into holding a fact-based belief which is not backed by facts as we actually accept them on a subconscious level. We cannot consciously choose which facts we accept and which facts we reject as being actually factual. That is the job of our subconscious and is out of our conscious control. The subconscious is a very good no-nonsense fact evaluating machine and, whether we like the fact or not, the subconscious is always going to judge it based on the information available to us.
So, the way people trick us into holding a false fact-based belief is to present us with false facts in a manner which makes them sound very reasonable and believable. The climate change denier, for example, will present us with charts showing warming in the past (the facts) and then claim that today’s warming is no different (the belief). They will also take pokes at any of the actual facts you may already have to discredit them. The goal is to shift the subconscious acceptance of what is and is not actual fact toward what they want you to believe and then the belief will follow automatically. So a fact based belief isn’t necessarily “right”, nor is it necessarily based on actual facts, but it must be based on what we subconsciously perceive to be actual facts.
If we want to hold a belief not based on facts or one which opposes the facts, for that we need a desire-based belief. A desire-based belief is a belief we hold because we want to believe it. Desire-based beliefs are more on the conscious level, but that’s not to say the subconscious leaves them completely alone. Quite the opposite, actually. The subconscious is only interested in facts and reality. It has no time for voodoo or witchdoctory. It wants facts to use to evaluate beliefs. Because the subconscious evaluates all of our beliefs and only cares about the facts to support them. So the subconscious will try to evaluate our desire-based beliefs as if they were fact-based beliefs and, of course, soundly rejects them immediately as hogwash. The subconscious simply will not allow a desire-based belief to stand on its own. If there are no fact to support it then it isn’t reality as far as the subconscious is concerned. But, it can be coaxed into keeping quiet about it. Or, at least quieter than the normal scream of “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!”
In order to get our subconscious to stop evaluating our desire-based beliefs loudly enough that we cannot help but reject them consciously we have to build a kind of structure out of a mix of belief types in our heads. Let’s look at the example, Christian belief (simply because it’s the one I’m most familiar with from personal experience).
Christians will tell you that they have “truth”, that their beliefs are based on facts. But do they actually believe that? The answer is complicated. Magical beliefs are generally not going to be fact-based beliefs (though they can be, but you’d pretty much have to live in a cave an have no contact with people who knew literally anything to hold fact-based magical beliefs). There are no facts which support the existence of magic, so there are no fact-based magical beliefs. Generally speaking, of course. Christianity is purely a desire-based belief. I WANT to believe that I’m going to live forever after I die (I’m still not sure how that makes sense to anyone). I WANT to feel a connection to something greater. I WANT to not feel alone in the universe. I WANT to feel loved and protected. Christianity allows you to have all of those things if you simply believe it. But the subconscious isn’t going to let me believe in magic just because I want to. It demands facts. And as you get further into Christianity the facts actually start to point the other way. There are the contradictions in the Bible. There is the difference between Jesus, who lost his temper only ONCE when his father was disrespected and said you should pray in secret, and his followers, who may be loud, in your face and seem angry all the time. There are the differences between what the Bible says and what your church says. There are a ton of little nagging facts you are constantly being exposed to as a Christian which scream, “This is wrong!” Ignoring these is not an option. The subconscious will not allow it. You simply CANNOT hold a desire-based belief on its own.
So, to reconcile the difference between what you consciously desire and what your subconscious will allow you create a “belief bridge” to bring our desire-based belief in as a fact-based belief. This involves two different beliefs, but one of the beliefs you don’t actually hold. The desire based belief is not actually something you believe. Stop and think about that for a second and you will see that is quite a bold statement. I am stating that Christians don’t actually believe what they are pushing. No Christian ACTUALLY believes that 2,000 years ago Jesus walked around casting magic spells left and right, died, rose from the dead and then flew away to a magical place. They don’t believe that because they can’t believe that. The subconscious won’t let them because it’s not supported by the facts. What they DO have is the fact-based belief which props it up. The belief they ACTUALLY hold is the belief that they believe that. So, the desire-based belief that all the things they claim to believe are real, not happening. The subconscious says no. But they believe that they believe that. That second belief is a fact-based belief, and if you can manipulate what you accept as fact enough you can hold that belief
However, the subconscious does keep evaluating it and throwing up red flags at you. There are those nagging feelings where the subconscious is saying, “Wait a minute!” and you have to push those objections down. If you think about it consciously then the subconscious is busy analyzing it as a fact-based belief, and even sometimes when you’re not thinking about it consciously. So you have to get the facts in your head just right to convince yourself to believe that you do believe something you actually don’t believe. For a lot of Christians, especially the black-and-white fundamentalists, this takes some maintenance. What they have convinced themselves that they believe is so out there that they need to regularly boost the “facts” which support it.
Many times this takes the form of “testifying”. If you can convince someone else that you’re right then that gives credence to the idea that your facts are acceptable. This guy just double checked me and he says I’m right too! Of course, that’s not likely to happen very often. So then they turn to another tactic. And this is where the subconscious actually helps them rather than fighting them on it. You need to add to the evidence that the “facts” that you accept as reality are, indeed, factual, so you make your case to someone else hoping to get confirmation. But it’s not going well. Not only is this guy not confirming your “facts”, he’s challenging them. This causes fear. Your desire-based beliefs are at risk of being exposed as the fraud they are. The subconscious helps you out here by giving you another way to get what you need. It turns that fear into anger for you. Now you aren’t testifying to a friend, now you’re a warrior fighting the evil before you. If you can just win this fight, THEN that will prove you have truth and true power on your side! Anything to win the argument. And if it’s not going well, “You’re going to burn in Hell for all eternity!” to end the argument with “I win because I’ll be in paradise while he’ll suffer for making me doubt!”
Now, granted, this is not how most Christians prop up their beliefs. This is just the fundamentalist method I am familiar with from my own personal experience. I have personally gone through the stages of this method of propping up a desire-based belief which I subconsciously knew to be wrong.
There is another little trick the subconscious will also let you play on yourself to prop up your beliefs. The belief bridge can cause a feedback loop for you. No, you don’t actually believe in magic, but you’ve convinced yourself that you do hold that belief. And since you believe that you believe that, things from the desire-based belief can be taken as “facts”. It is now a FACT that Jesus rose from the dead because I truly believe that I truly believe that. It is a FACT that the person who disagrees with me is wrong. I know this for a fact even though I have not seen the evidence that they are wrong yet. And if I never find that evidence, or, especially if I am finding evidence that they are not wrong I can just quit looking because it’s out there. The stronger the belief that you hold another belief, the stronger the “facts” from that desire-based belief seem.
The subconscious will only ever let us hold fact-based beliefs, never desire-based beliefs not backed by facts. But our fact based beliefs do not need to be backed by actual facts. Perceived facts are good enough. And our subconscious will allow us to hold a fact-based belief that we do hold a desire-based belief, even though that is impossible for our minds to do. But the subconscious is constantly evaluating our beliefs. It is the subconscious which wants complete control of what we believe after careful evaluation of the facts. What we want is mostly, but not entirely irrelevant to our subconscious when it comes to beliefs. The subconscious, in this context, is just there to do the evaluations for us, and it will evaluate anything we want it to. Have you ever given a good argument and won, even though you figured out halfway through that you were wrong? Yeah, the subconscious knows you’re wrong, but you need to evaluate things in a way to get “I win!” as an outcome and it’s up for the task of evaluating anything you want. Once you’ve consciously accepted that you are wrong the subconscious stops evaluating it and turns its attention toward winning the argument. It no longer needs to evaluate the facts to determine if you’re right or wrong. It has settled that. And it doesn’t care that you’re looking to win an argument when you know you’re wrong. You need evaluation done, it does the evaluation. But until you consciously accept the conclusion that your subconscious has come to it will nag you constantly. It’s annoying. It’s frustrating. It makes you angry. Then you accept it and you’re all dick from there. You’re no longer annoyed, frustrated or angry because the subconscious stopped bugging you about it the moment you accepted it, leaving you free to concentrate on being petty and making the other person annoyed, frustrated and angry.
Keep in mind here, by the way, that I’m not talking about the subconscious in the same way that psychology usually does. In psychology the subconscious usually deals with feelings and emotions and such. I’m talking about the purely analytical subconscious here, the background worker which analyzes reality for us and tells us what is real and what is not. I don’t know enough about psychology to know if it’s the same thing or if they are two distinct parts of the subconscious mind and, being an atheist and, thus, having no emotions, I do not have personal emotional experience from which to draw a conclusion on that or analyze the subconscious in the way psychology usually does. In all seriousness, though, I have only ever given thought to the analytical part of the subconscious as I’ve always been a very logical thinker, so it’s the part that most interests and fascinates me.
That’s it in a nutshell. I probably could have gone on for a couple more chapters if pressed. I’m a talker when it comes to typing out my thoughts. But that’s more than just the basic, general idea. Two types of beliefs, but one of them is not actually a type of belief because we cannot directly hold it as a belief. So there’s really just one type of belief and one type of pseudo-belief that we convince ourselves is a belief. And all the heavy lifting is done by the analytical subconscious, which is impossible for us to trick, but is possible for us to persuade to help us trick ourselves.