(n.) Assent to a proposition or affirmation, or the acceptance of a fact, opinion, or assertion as real or true, without immediate personal knowledge; reliance upon word or testimony; partial or full assurance without positive knowledge or absolute certainty; persuasion; conviction; confidence; as, belief of a witness; the belief of our senses.
(n.) A persuasion of the truths of religion; faith.
(n.) The thing believed; the object of belief.
(n.) A tenet, or the body of tenets, held by the advocates of any class of views; doctrine; creed.
Example Sentences:
(1) You can see where the religious meme sprung from: when the world was an inexplicable and scary place, a belief in the supernatural was both comforting and socially adhesive.
(2) Our parents had no religious beliefs and there will be no funeral."
(3) The sexual attitudes and beliefs of 20 children who have been present at the labor and delivery of sibs and have observed the birth process are compared with 20 children who have not been present at delivery.
(4) Responding to a “We the People” petition, launched after Snowden’s initial leaks were published in the Guardian two years ago, the Obama administration on Tuesday reiterated its belief that he should face criminal charges for his actions.
(5) The spirit is great here, the players work very hard, we kept the belief when we were in third place and now we are here.
(6) The Hindu belief system accommodates this by prescribing use in such a way that this effect becomes beneficial.
(7) Despite tthree resignations and his reputation as a tribal operator in the Blair-Brown wars, however, his belief in the party he joined on his 15th birthday is undimmed.
(8) There can’t be something, someone that could fix this and chooses not to.” Years of agnosticism and an open attitude to religious beliefs thrust under the bus, acknowledging the shame that comes from sitting down with those the world forgot.
(9) It's not egotism, it's something else, a weird unshakeable belief.
(10) He restated his belief that it was in the national interest to remain in the EU, and said he was "confident" he could secure a successful renegotiation of Britain's relationship that could be put to the public.
(11) One view of these results stems from the belief that contraception is a necessary evil and the pill is the closest to a 'natural' sex act.
(12) What emerges strongly is the expressed belief of many that Isis can be persuasive, liberating and empowering.
(13) Following the cognitive orientation theory, we hypothesized that beliefs concerning goals, norms, oneself, and general beliefs would predict the extent of improvement following acupuncture.
(14) Curriculum writers and instructors of preservice elementary teachers could be more effective if they were aware of this group's beliefs about school-related AIDS issues.
(15) It is our belief that the reproductive and maternal capabilities of the colony-born females were adversely affected by the practice of removing neonates from their mothers at weaning and raising them with age-mates.
(16) But whether it arose from religious belief, from a noblesse oblige or from a sense of solidarity, duty in Britain has been, to most people, the foundation of rights rather than their consequence.
(17) The definition of midwife is given as midwives trained in a community setting to assist in delivery within the confines of accepted cultural beliefs.
(18) It has arisen from semantic errors, and a belief in ischaemia for which there is no scientific evidence.
(19) Many well-meaning female leadership development programmes share this belief, teaching women to negotiate, network and make decisions “like a man”.
(20) Hillary Clinton said that people who are pro-life have to change our religious beliefs,” said Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal in a statement released by the American Future project , which is backing his undeclared presidential campaign.
Shibboleth
Definition:
(n.) A word which was made the criterion by which to distinguish the Ephraimites from the Gileadites. The Ephraimites, not being able to pronounce sh, called the word sibboleth. See Judges xii.
(n.) Also in an extended sense.
(n.) Hence, the criterion, test, or watchword of a party; a party cry or pet phrase.
Example Sentences:
(1) If the former foreign secretary does narrowly win after all, he will take over a party where the ground has shifted decisively against New Labour shibboleths, where his rivals now command powerful constituencies and where the battle over cuts will shape the political agenda.
(2) One camp might allege Islamophobia while the other makes reference to extremism and radicalisation, and claims that the great shibboleths of diversity and multiculturalism excuse no end of sins.
(3) They make a shibboleth of a single tax rate and allow symbolism to trump real reform.
(4) Trump ends California swing marked by bold remarks, criticism and violence Read more “So tonight,” he said, “to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans, I ask for your support.” Nixon had created a cultural shibboleth: the silent majority , the conservative masses, appalled at the cultural and political advances of the 1960s, ready to reel them back in.
(5) But as one New Labour shibboleth after another, from nationalisation to higher taxes on the rich, has fallen under the pressure of the crisis, it has certainly underlined the price of the corporate embrace that has been its lodestar from its inception (and the Conservatives', naturally, long before that).
(6) Labour, he says, is in danger of turning high marginal tax rates, a large state, and "snapshots of income inequality" into shibboleths.
(7) The shibboleths would indeed be disregarded and, by 2002, the not much better Network Rail had replaced Railtrack.
(8) Huhne was making enemies by his willingness to challenge Tory shibboleths in public and in his confident, abrasive way.
(9) Essentially, her committee was saying, by 1998, what a subsequent transport minister, Stephen Byers, would be admitting in 2001, that Railtrack was no good, that partial renationalisation at least was a very strong option and that shibboleths should be disregarded.
(10) They will also have to work out where they sit in a new political system that will take shape free of no end of shibboleths – not least the 20th-century assumption that the centre-left should be led by Labour.
(11) But what he called "the fight against bad English" is too often understood, thanks to the perversities of his own example, as a philistine and joyless campaign in favour of that shibboleth of dull pedants "plain English".
(12) He dumped liberal shibboleths to cast himself as pro-business and -trade, tough on crime and welfare.
(13) Entire papers, conferences, consultancies and even startup businesses, can be spun out of those shibboleths.
(14) Yet inegalitarian shibboleths such as balanced budgets and corporate tax relief will be retained.
(15) It is a classic example of old progressive myopia, making a shibboleth of one aspect of the tax system rather than looking at it in the round.
(16) Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Shibboleth’, by Colombian artist Doris Salcedo.
(17) It will be stripped of "liberal shibboleths" – all that namby-pamby stuff about children expressing their creativity, presumably – in favour of no-nonsense drilling in literacy and numeracy, lots of sport and "martial values" of self-discipline and respect.
(18) For reasons that remain obscure the rejection of climate science has become a shibboleth for rightwing culture warriors, whose views drive not only Abbott himself, but the majority of his backbench.
(19) America Magazine and the Tablet : America Magazine, published by the Catholic Jesuit order, has already begun reporting on moves to resist immigration raids, and regularly features opinion contrasting the teachings of Pope Francis with the shibboleths of American conservatism.
(20) A mere tax "shibboleth", he said, at a time when real reform would focus on taxing unearned wealth and pollution.