he had been hounding, Peter writes in the sand with his own blood (the first blow, to his head - wasn't fatal) CREDO.)I picked the essay because it shows just what a paradoxical concept belief really is. Everyone knows that someone's saying that she believes something means nothing, at least not on its own. People recite creeds without knowing what they're saying all the time. They may even believe they believe something - but we can see from their actions that they don't. Belief is revealed or confirmed (or disconfirmed) by action, but it's not the same as action. The deliberate performance of a belief rightly makes us suspicious: he's just saying that.
Lopez shows that the concept of belief leads to paradoxes whenever you try to spell out what exactly you're talking about. Belief has a different relationship to action and feeling and desire than knowledge, but I defy you to clarify that relationship without confusion. Lopez quotes Michel de Certeau who said (as Kant did) that belief is a kind of wager. Buddhists would say belief is an illusion, along with the self. Many Christians say that belief is a gift, or relationship, or a pledge - none of them the ordinary meaning of belief. Belief used to mean be-love (believing in God meant trusting in God, pledging allegiance to God), but in modern times it seems to have a more or less benign element of self-delusion in it: think of "I'd really like to believe she's telling the truth" or "I can't believe I ate the whole thing," or even the baffling phrase "cherished belief." As a religious studies person I think we misunderstand religious traditions and religious people if we focus on belief. At the very least we need a more supple or dynamic conception (so we can understand "I believe, help me in my unbelief," for instance.) Lopez suggests we'd be better off without it entirely.
In the context of a course on religion and theater the weirdness of belief (and its nevertheless seeming the most unproblematic thing) seems to me a central question. Actors in some sense need to internalize or embody the characters of their characters - beliefs and all, but of course they don't really believe what the characters believe, not in the same way... Further, performances are often praised as "believable." (The very existence of the word "believable" shows what a slippery character the concept of belief is!) I thought these students would be more receptive than my students in other classes to the problematic character of something that can't be performed without paradox, but the faith in belief is widespread and strong (especially among those who hate and fear religion)!
