So I was just pottering around the house the other day, when Mum and Graham arrived back from some exciting adventure. They were talking about more serious matters or should I say Graham was listening, anyway my mum said, 'You can't assume anything!'
'You can't assume anything', a wise phrase, a true phrase. I think of many times when theories and explanations are based on the sketchiest of assumptions, probably right and fit the idea, look in the right place. These kind of assumptions are littered all over science and maths - some of the best subjects, that's why we always get it wrong more than not. Rationalists never get the full picture right or concluded all of the time, today even more so, old wrong things are being re-written regularly because people questioned the validility of the assumptions they are based upon. Barely a century ago people thought the earth was flat, atoms were the smallest things ever, and I'm overwhelmingly confident someone will sit here in a hundred years time and say the same bashfull things about some of the things we accept today.
Let's stop for a minute though, my mum said this, my mum bless her a bold bulshy women she is said this and she raised me a Christian through and through. Hippocritical is it not, for someone to criticise assuming things that we cannot prove when she herself thinks there is a God, a power larger than ourselves. She assumes there's a God, just like scientists for example who also assume certain things. If you were ever confident and frankly bold enough to ask my mum how she can say such things when she assumes there is a God, she would reply by saying she doesn't assume there's a God, she believes in God, she believes there is a God.
She almost said as if talking about a person she knew perhaps.
So what is the difference between assumption and belief?
I asked myself and many others this question. All coming to the same conclusion, that they are two different things but I don't know why and how, apart from the two seperate words. Assumption is when you expect something is true, or something will happen. We don't take into account in our equation that it will not happen, and crucially if it doesn't, the whole thing doesn't work. Belief - is when you can't prove something will happen or something is real but you think it is inspite of not being to able to prove it, you trust, assume, and expect it. So then is there a difference? I would like to think belief is a much more positive word, than assumption. I believe there is a God, but can you believe there is no God, can't you only assume there is no God. To a rationalist you could say in this respect science and faith are two similar things because they're both based around basic assumptions, science around maths (inspite of it downfalls) and Christianity around the idea of God. You might fairly say you can't prove or disprove any of these assumptions but in a way assumptions form the argument for a belief.
One difference is that many arguments stem from assumptions which support a belief, and a number of assumptions make up a wider belief. Going to the assumptions of mathematics and God, I don't think God is an assumption, God to me is a conclusion. I don't wake up and think there is God - so the scriptures are correct, I read the scriptures showing me God, the scriptures say things that lead me to God. God is the head of the equations when we multiply what we find and it shows us him. God is not an assumption to form belief he is a conclusion. Some might say it is an assumption because you can't prove and without it doesn't work and their right but then you could say that for any part of any religion or scripture it all has to make sense and it all relies on each other which eventually leads us to this conclusion. The bleakness of the rational view is that nothing is real, and I see exactly where the view is coming from. What about me then a practising Christian, to me there are many significant differences.
Assumption is not knowing, and if to you not being able to prove something means not knowing something than so is belief. In as many ways as believing is not knowing everything and relies upon certain basic things that I can't prove and I will never, but they say that seeing is believing. Surely if you can literally see something then because it's there, it's real no two ways about it, 100% it's real, true. Hang on a second, I just said believing and assumming are when you can't prove something. Seeing is believing, often I don't look hard enough. Often in the scriptures it refers to non- Christians as blind because they can't see and so they can't believe, ok so what have I seen, what have I seen that is so mysterious when you see it, you can't prove it is there. I don't talk of a magic trick or of deep spiritual ways, truth is literally in a way my faith or my beliefs are blind ones in the literal sense.
What happens when you see someone? What happens when you see someone in a place and it is just you and them? What happens is that you talk because that person has an unimaginable volume of love for you. What happens when you are seeing, when you talk, when you love, when you share. What happens when you see a human being in your own flesh. This constant seeing of any person leads to you knowing that person. Seeing is believing because through seeing you get to know, you get to feel. I have a belief (cannot be proven) but I'm sure there is a God because I've known him. I might not understand how or why, or easily show you, tell you, but the bottom line is once you have truly known him through great people it sticks with you. Believing is knowing, knowing of something, not understanding, not understanding. When I've gone to strange places and done strange things I've really known God, felt close, ask any young Christian. Let me show you, let yourself see and seeing into knowing, and knowing into believing. (Reference to God in 500 yards post). I can't prove it but I truly know it, because I've experienced it, its not something you can artificially create. Knowing is truly believing. Knowing the person who delievers so much, knowing them, trusting them to deliever (is the only possible assumption), but it's not when you truly know God. Help yourself. This whole idea links in with knowing someone so well, you trust them, have faith in them, after you've seen them.
You can't believe there is no God because rationally, you can't know anything to not believe in, you can't see anything to believe, and seeing is believing, you only assume. Assumption - something you can't prove, experience, feel, know, understand or fully explain. Sounds like a firm foundation to me, not dangerous at all. Not to say I don't believe in science at all, chemistry and physics at A-level for me, but if one thing is clear is that yet again belief is stronger than assumption. So there you have it, assumption and belief, there is difference even if it is a subtle one.
'You can't assume anything!' - Alison Wells
Laurie,, xx
