λ the β-Redex Reducer
β-Redex Reducing Member
Dictionaries seem to be pretty clear about it: "To accept as true or real." "To credit with veracity." "To expect or suppose; think."And to your first question instead of beleive I would use the word "know" or maybe "acknoledge" or "accept". Just a bit less fuzzy and religious than beleive.
"know" is wrong because that only refers to true beliefs, "acknowledge" can mean having heard something without believing it, and "accept" can mean accepting something emotionally or physically. All those words are either wrong or ambiguous as well. IMO "believe" is a great word to express the concept of believing.
In Dutch the word for "belief" is often used synonymous with the word for "religion". Their meaning is separate but can overlap, not all beliefs are religious beliefs and not all religious ideas are believed in by their practitioners. It's just a case of sloppy language making language more ambiguous and less expressive. If this usage of the words gets popular then the Dutch language will lose the capability to quickly and unambiguously express the concept of believing in favour of having 2 words for the concept of religion.
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