I Believe...
Think of these sentences for a minute... "I believe in our team." "I believe in God." "I believe in love."
Most would perhaps use "believe" and "know" interchangeably. I would in most situations, however the word "know" is considered to be a state. I feel that believe could fall under different categories. In these three different sentences it is all referring to something different contexts. It's a state of course, but you can stop believing in something (you cannot stop knowing something.) It could be an activity, because its an ongoing process of internal action. I feel the verb believe has many shades of gray and its part of the fine lined linguistical world. What do you guys think? State or Process?
Comments
I don't know if I would use them inerchangeably because to me if you believe something to be true doesn't necessarily make it true. if you know something to be true, on the other hand, you are putting a truth-value on it that committs it to be true. Does that make sense?
And I agree with Karen, that you can stop believing something but you can't stop knowing. Well, unless you develop Aphasia or Dementia or something of the like where you lose memories or knowledge of everyday things, you wont stop knowing something and its properties.