Talk:believe in

RFV

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Rfv-sense: To ascribe some powers or other attributes to. Is believing in Jesus any different to believing in God? Seems redundant to me. ---> Tooironic (talk) 00:27, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Citations from a sympathetic observer (not me) might help. The usage example is insufficient to convey the idea. DCDuring TALK 03:03, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Believing in Jesus is different from believing in G-d because for Jesus the question is whether he is what New Testament says he is, but for G-d the question is simply whether he exists. But, I would say sense #2 is pretty much the same as sense #4. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 07:18, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• I think that meaning does exist, but "Do you believe in Jesus" is perhaps not the best example for it. Years ago, Peter Pan peanut butter had the slogan "Do you believe in peanut butter?", which I think is what this definition is going for. Clearly they weren't simply asking if you believe peanut butter exists. —Angr 11:33, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

  But what do think about it being the same as sense #4? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 11:39, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

  Hmm, sense 4 seems awfully specific. Maybe if it were made a little more general, sense 2 could be merged into it. —Angr 11:56, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

  Sense 4 is about expectations of future performance, I think. I think the direction of further generalization is in the wording that is now restricted to people, singly or in groups. I could imagine it being applied to securities or currencies or products or technologies as well as animals. "I believe in Secretariat/Dow 30,000/the Tigers/nanotechnology." DCDuring TALK 13:10, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

  But all the senses are synecdoches, aren't they? We are just selecting instances that span the range of usage possiblities, a "minimal spanning set" of definitions. DCDuring TALK 13:17, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• I can see a justification for sense 2 when one says: I believe in ESP, or, I believe in the Atkins diet.Leasnam (talk) 00:06, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

{{look}}

RFV-failed. - -sche (discuss) 05:18, 4 February 2013 (UTC)