Belief is a Choice

I have long struggled with the idea of belief. I have never understood it's definition or it's purpose. If belief is based on concrete observation or irrefutable logic then why call it belief; it is knownledge. And if belief is irational, if it means to accept something as true without any evidence, then what is it based on and why is it a good thing?

It has become clear to me that baseless belief or blind faith is simply stupidity. Anyone that claims a given fact to be true without any evidence, simply because they believe it, is acting foolishly.

So what then does it mean to believe? What place, if any, does belief have in our lives?

I would like to suggest the following theory.

People misunderstand and misuse the vital role of belief. They expect it to function as a tool for uncovering or discerning truth and use it as such.

The truth is however, it was never meant for that. 

Belief was never meant to be the mechanism by which we find or establish truths ; instead it is nothing more than simply a mechanism for living. 

When we are asking the question and attempting to discern whether something is true or false, fact or fiction; belief is not the correct tool for resolving this. It would be ludicrous to say, "I know it's the truth because I believe it is". 

The tools for discerning truth are our senses and intellect. If we can sense it with our senses or calculate intellectually that something is, then and only then should it be accepted as a fact. In the absence of these, faith and belief should have nothing to say about the matter.

Belief is meant to be used in an entirely different context and answers an entirely different question. That question is: how should we live.

See, the problem is that we are limited humans and our intellectual capacity is limited. Sometimes we are simply not capable of finding the truth with our brains.
Say, for example, one is pondering the question of G-d's existence. I suspect that many honest, open minded people will fail to comprehensively answer this question completely. Instead they will be left with serious doubt. On one hand there are very strong reasons to suspect He does exist. On the other hand strong arguments can be made to the contrary.

The problem however is, that this question cannot remain unresolved. The way in which we will live our day to day very real lives, rests in a large part on this question.

This is the part where belief enters the equation. We will choose to belief in G-d. This doesn't mean that we now know it to be true on the truth scale. Rather we believe it to be true on the behavior scale. As if to say, we will choose to act as if G-d exists. 

This doesn't mean that we remain unsure. We actually do resolve the question on the level of our daily life. In our day to day life, the issue is resolved. G-d exists, we believe this is so and we act accordingly with no doubt or hesitation. 

However this is only true in the realm of our behavior and day to day life. When we return to the truth scale and ponder the objective and abstract theoretical question of does G-d exist, the answer will still be: "I don't know".

Why a person chooses to believe something might be for any number of reasons. Quality of life, meaning, it's the safer bet, he intellectually leans more to that side, it fills an emotional need, to be part of a community, it's what they're good at etc. The reason is irrelevant and any reason can be legitimate. The point is belief is a choice. It's something you choose to accept as "true" in the governing of your life. Once you make the choice though, you're all in. It becomes your identity and you no longer waver.

This I believe is the function of belief and what it was intended for.