'Belief' and 'Believe'
Belief:
"Confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof" (Dictionary.com)
"The state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, with or without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty. (Wikipedia)
"A
feeling of being sure that someone or something exists or that something is
true." (Merriam-Webster.com)
Believe:
"To have confidence or faith in, and consequently to rely on or trust to, a person or a god or the name of a god." "To have confidence in the truth or accuracy of a statement, doctrine, etc" (Oxford English Dictionary)
"To accept as true or real" (The Free Dictionary)
"To
have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something,
although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so"
(Dictionary.com)
Often the objects right in front of us, in plain sight, have more significance than we realize, such as the words and numbers we see and use everyday. The clues to the truth could be right under our noses, the 2+2=4 connections may be literally staring us in the face—but we don't see it. As we grow up we are 'educated'; gently diverted away from learning the truth about our world, through school and the media, and we're taught from an early age to gloss over apparent inconsistencies, ignore obvious connections, leave correlations unexplored. That's why real educators say the best questions are asked by the youngest of children.
Let's now take a fresh look at this word 'believe', see if the letters within the word itself can give us a clue. Without too much effort we can see that 'believe' has the word 'lie' embedded within:
be/lie/ve
If we further break it down into belie/ve and be/lieve, we gain additional clues. We all know what the word 'lie' means. Likewise, 'belie' means to give a false representation, to misrepresent. 'Lieve' is an archaic word meaning glad or willing. It's a kind of amalgam of 'lie' and 'live'...to live a lie?
The best way to control people is to get them to believe something. Whatever you want them to believe. It's so much easier and smarter than trying to physically force them to do your bidding; it just requires a thorough understanding of the human mind—what they call 'psychology' and what others call mind control. And, importantly, a turtle-like appreciation of just how long it takes to achieve certain outcomes in the belief system of the general public.
The human mind is plastic, malleable, has an inherent herd-like mentality, and above all is easily lead by authority figures that they themselves invest with that authority.
In only one generation, 25 years or so, the relatively smaller propaganda agendas can be accomplished—such as getting women to smoke (1920s), or men to suddenly stop wearing hats and embrace long hair (1960s); in the '40s getting women to work in factories in WWII riveting warplanes and ten years later getting them all to be nice little housewives, thumbing through Home Beautiful magazine while they're getting their hair done. Or everyone in the western world to like wearing jeans and a t-shirt (still with us).
Unfortunately for us, in that short span of a generation it's actually possible to get a whole society to forget some pretty basic decent human values, and completely turn things about. This is what we are seeing now. The whole agenda or societal meme of 'kids rebelling against their parents', for example: that project's been running for at least 50 years if not much longer, and can now be seen for what it was/is: the goal of our Rulers to break up the family unit structure, their biggest enemy, at least in Western countries where the resistance is strongest.
The truth is that far too much human effort, not to mention large swathes of the human race at all stages of history including the present time, has been invested in, and sacrificed upon, the altar of 'belief'.
The big question is whether they are right: are we are forever destined to be blind slaves, loving our prison (to paraphrase Plato's Cave and Aldous Huxley)? Or can we handle the truth?