Quote:
Originally Posted by Igzy
Just had this discussion with my niece. "Believe in" can also mean "agree with," not just "believe it exists."
|
Right and the etymology of believe is such that to believe in something may not merely mean mental assent but actually mean "to love".
believe 
O.E.
belyfan "to believe," earlier
geleafa (Mercian),
gelefa (Northumbrian),
gelyfan (W.Saxon) "believe," from P.Gmc.
*ga-laubjan "hold dear, love" (cf. O.S.
gilobian, Du.
geloven, O.H.G.
gilouben, Ger.
glauben), from PIE base
*leubh- "to like, desire" (see love). Spelling
beleeve is common till 17c.; then altered perhaps by influence of
relieve. To
believe on instead of
in was more common in 16c. but now is a peculiarity of theology;
believe of also sometimes was used in 17c. So to believe can imply to
belove as in I
belove in Jesus" or I "
belove in the Bill of Rights". Obviously the latter statement is not true of some Chrisitans. For example,
"...Christian Reconstructionism's founder, Rousas John Rushdoony, wrote in his magnum opus, The Institutes of Biblical Law: "The heresy of democracy has since then worked havoc in church and state ...
Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies." He elsewhere said that
"Christianity is completely and radically anti-democratic; it is committed to spiritual aristocracy," and characterized democracy as "the great love of the failures and cowards of life." [11] In the book, he proposed that Old Testament law should be applied to modern society and that there should be a Christian theonomy, a concept developed in his colleague Greg Bahnsen's controversial tome Theonomy and Christian Ethics, which Rushdoony heartily endorsed. In the Institutes of Biblical Law, Rushdoony supported the reinstatement of the Mosaic law's penal sanctions. Under such a system, the list of civil crimes which carried a death sentence would include homosexuality, adultery, incest, lying about one's virginity, bestiality, witchcraft, idolatry or apostasy, public blasphemy, false prophesying, kidnapping, rape, and bearing false witness in a capital case. [12] In short, he sought to cast a vision for the reconstruction of society based on Christian principles and represents the more traditionally understood approach to Reconstructionism." Source:Wikipedia