Belief
Back to Topic
Click to Print
Useful Websites
Glossary Term Selection
This article is 5 years old.
Click here to view the latest articles for this topic.
Religious systems often include beliefs about the world (both seen and unseen), which describe (or dictate) how the world operates. Subscribing to a set of beliefs (orthodoxy) is not always essential for belonging to a religion.
By Luke Burns
Believing in the unseen
One of the most prominent and well-known aspects of religion in the Western world is faith. This term often comes with a variety of associated meanings and implications, but at its root we can say that faith involves belief in a set of doctrines or creeds which provide meaning and direction, often in the absence of empirical evidence.
Since the relationship between religious belief and scientific empiricism has often been contentious, it’s worthwhile looking a little more closely at how people believe in things, and what this means.
There are different types of belief, and not all of them are considered religious; for example, very few of us have examined cells under microscopes, but we are all (I think!) happy to accept...
Want to see the rest of this article?
Would you like to see the rest of this article and all the other benefits that Issues Online can provide with?
- Useful related articles
- Video and multimedia references
- Statistical information and reference material
- Glossary of terms
- Key Facts and figures
- Related assignments
- Resource material and websites
