I say: “I’m taking the bus.” Yet I do not know whether the bus will come. Just as no future event can be known with certainty before it has occurred. I do not know whether the bus will come. I believe it. Based on experiences from the past: that it came in the past, that public systems in this city seem reliable, that I have taken a bus before.
I go to the bus stop before I know with certainty that the bus will arrive. Because whether something will actually happen is something I only ever know in hindsight anyway. I plan my actions as if something were certain, even though it is simply just the most probable interpretation derived from the data available to me. There is no knowledge about the occurrence of future events, even when we have facts. Even if we know that water boils at 100°C, we cannot be certain that it will boil when we turn up the stove. The stove could malfunction at that exact moment, the fuse could blow, the pot could have a hole, or it might simply not be pure water but a liquid with a different composition. Every concrete situation contains countless small possibilities that can prevent a general law from manifesting itself in exactly the way we expect at that particular moment.
Belief is this mechanism:
the transfer of past data into the future and the decision to act as if the most probable were the certain.
We all believe constantly. I believe the chocolate will taste good because similar chocolate has tasted good to me before. So I eat it. I believe it will rain soon because the sky looks the way it always looks before it rains. So I take an umbrella with me. I believe and act accordingly.
But what happens when we apply this mechanism of belief to something for which there is no data? When I say: “I believe in heaven and hell,” where does that belief come from? There is no personal experience I have had. There is no one who has returned to report credibly. Near-death experiences are experiences of life, not of death. And books written two thousand years ago are not data, but texts whose truth value I cannot verify.
This makes the difference clear:
- In everyday belief, I have a limited amount of experience from which I extrapolate what is most probable.
- In belief in the afterlife, there are no experiences and thus no data. Everything is possible. Everything I can imagine, and even what I cannot imagine. From this infinite openness, I choose one possibility and then call this choice “belief.”
Even the Duden does not capture this distinction. It defines belief as an “emotional, unconditional certainty or conviction not determined by evidence, facts, or the like.” But this completely blurs the concept: such a definition no longer distinguishes belief from hope or desire. It draws no boundary, but erases it, thus failing to meet even the basic requirement of a definition. Everyday belief and belief in the afterlife do not follow the same mechanism. One is a rational assessment of probabilityon probability, the other is an assumption without any experience whatsoever. Using the same word for both obscures the fact that two entirely different acts are taking place.
But what about those who say: “I have experienced God myself, I have spoken to him, I have felt his presence”? Here, a kind of “database” suddenly seems to appear. But in truth, this is not an experience like the bus, but an interpretation that applies only to the person themselves. No one else can confirm whether it was really “God.” It is not verifiable, not transferable, not confirmable, and not falsifiable. That radically distinguishes it from an everyday experience.
Because with the bus it is different: other people can see it as well, and at the same time. And even if they did not believe beforehand that it would come. They can get on, they can experience it. They can even indirectly verify that I took the bus because I get from A to B faster, because I was seen at the stop, because traces of my journey are observable. Above all, however: if the bus does not come, my belief is shown to be false. It does not depend on my interpretation, but on an external event that occurs independently of me. Belief in the bus is embedded in a network of shared and falsifiable experience. Belief in God, by contrast, remains confined to subjective interpretation: it only appears when it is already believed, it can never be independently confirmed and never refuted.
So when we say “believe in God” or “believe that the bus will come,” we are using the same word for two completely different things:
extrapolating a course of action from experience (bus, chocolate, rain),
assuming something without any experience at all, selecting one option from a multitude of conceivable and simultaneously inconceivable possibilities and holding on to it.
The second is not belief, but a misuse of the word.
Because belief means: acting on the basis of experience as if the most probable were the certain. What happens without experience is something else. It may be a wish, a hope, or a longing. Not everything we do not know should be called “belief.” Perhaps we should preserve this distinction linguistically, because they are two entirely different mechanisms.
Even everyday belief is never a guarantee. Expecting the bus does not mean it will come. Seeing a dark sky does not mean it will rain. Liking similar chocolate does not mean this chocolate will taste good to me. Our data can be biased, incomplete, or simply wrong. Yet even when I am mistaken, the mechanism remains the same: deriving a probability from experience, considering it the most likely, and orienting my actions accordingly.
This is precisely what distinguishes belief from wishing, hoping, and longing: there are no data there that could be interpreted correctly or incorrectly. There is not even a distorted foundation. Where there is nothing to extrapolate from, no belief in the proper sense can arise.
“I believe in heaven and hell” sounds as if it were on the same level as “I believe the bus will come.” In this way, an assumption without any experience is granted the same legitimacy as an assumption grounded in experience. Language thus obscures the difference between projection from data and mere wish. This makes the religious use of the word not only imprecise, but also undeservedly credible. For belief in the proper sense is not a weak feeling, but the thing that comes closest to our form of knowledge.
There is no knowledge about the occurrence of future events, but belief is the mechanism that allows us to act despite uncertainty. It is the strongest form of orientation we possess.
And precisely for that reason, we should not confuse it with hopes that have no experiential basis whatsoever. A wish can comfort, and a hope can sustain, but both follow their own logic.
© Ema, 2025. All rights reserved.
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