Reply #50: Is there no difference between believing you believe something and believing in God, for example?

[BurtWorm]

No difference in the quality of those kinds of believing?

Look at these two statements:


I believe in God.

I believe that I believe in God.


That's the same kind of belief in both cases? They feel very different to me. The first feels like a positive assertion. The second doesn't feel so positive. That's because of the way we tend to actually speak these sentences, when they're really called for. If you tell someone you believe in a belief, it's usually because you're losing your firm grasp of that belief, as though you're trying to will yourself to believe the belief.

Try to explain why you believe in God. Now try to explain why you believe you believe in God.