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Cars_willkillyou Believing you think, are conscious, or perceive, however you want to see it, implies doubt in that. How can you doubt that you think? The simple act of doubting is thinking. You know you exist. You don't believe you exist.
Don't flatter yourself, you didn't exist to me until you posted in this thread. Although that's not entirely true. You existed to me as one of the posters whose name I did not know and whose posts I may or may not have read. And before you joined the forum, you existed to me as part of the unknown populace of the world that I believe exist for reasons I'm not going to explain.
Perception only confirms your existence, it is not the reason for it. You can believe that, but I doubt you do as much as you seem to communicate. Or do you not exist when you're in deep sleep? Or do you exist in a different capacity when you dream? I think it is a mistake to equate consciousness to existence. Consciousness merely confirms ones own existence, I believe it's a mistake to equate consciousness/thought/doubt/perception with existence. You don't know that you do in fact exist when you are incapable of thought/perception/consciousness, but but you don't know that you don't either. You could be right, but that's jumping to a conclusion. You can believe that you fade in and out of existence, that you don't exist when you are unconscious, but I personally believe that I have a physical body that is still here when I'm unconscious. I believe I have a collection of memories that I can process and sort through when I become conscious once again. I believe that is all part of my existence. I must iterate though that that is my believed existence. I believe my existence entails more than just my thought, but I am only aware of the existence of my thought, and only when I am conscious.
You don't know that when you die your consciousness dies with your body. There is no way of knowing, and if you're right, there is no way of proving that. You believe your consciousness dies with your body. Because you believe your consciousness is connected to your body VIA your brain, but you can't confirm that, because you don't know your body exists at all, or even that it is your brain that is really doing the thinking. You think that your brain is doing the thinking because that is what you believe you've learned in classes that you believe you attended. Or you think that because that is what you believe you have deduced because that is where you see from, hear from, and talk from. That's where your conscious voice seems to eminate from to your senses, but I can manipulate myself to perceive my inner voice as residing in my stomach . I believe you have the ability too.
I agree with you partially on synonyms, although I believe a secondary reason for that is because languages merge over the years to form new languages. But for my purposes in the point I'm trying to get across, I believe the differences between faith and belief are inconsequential.
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