i don't know what most people think about that. i really don't. i have no access to that information. evangelicals clearly do make that conflation. everyone else? i have no idea. some do and some don't. a majority? where would i get the stats for that?

g

It all comes down to definitions.

If you don't require substantiation then what you see as "knowledge" can come from anyplace -- including holy books, random assertions, or your own ass.

Belief can be based on the preponderance of evidence with some degree of uncertainty (ranging from very very low to quite high) or it can be based on what you want / wish / need to be true or have always been taught is true in which case, again, it can be based on virtually anything and has no real meaning.

My definition of knowledge is "awareness or familiarity gained by experience of fact or situation". My definition of validated knowledge would add that it has been subject to some degree of intersubjective verification; depending on how important and consequential the decisions and beliefs you'll be basing off that knowledge are, the more stringent the verification required, up to and including successfully surviving the process of the scientific method. At that higher level, "knowledge" is "conclusions legitimately drawn from a falsifiable hypotheses and subsequent investigation".

Belief is simply the degree of confidence you have in a conclusion you've arrived at, based on knowledge, logical reasoning, experience and intersubjective verification from others.

If you don't have a valid knowledge position on a matter, then I'm not sure how you'd form a justified belief. Knowledge informs supportable and justifiable belief; that belief is necessarily stillborn in the absence of falsifiable hypotheses supported by relevant data (knowledge).

So yes people conflate knowledge, belief, faith (religious and colloquial), needs, wishes, baseless assertions and a lot of other things.

When you say that knowing something exists does not require belief, I think you are actually conflating different senses of "belief" -- in this case, religious faith is what you really mean, and this is different from a conviction born of trust born in experience and observation.

You're absolutely right that religious belief is of use only where there is no knowledge. So it's significant that gods are non-falsifiable propositions concerning which you can inherently have no knowledge claim, since they can be neither proven nor disproven, because they are not available for empirical observation and verification. They exist outside of the sense realm, outside of nature, in a claimed SUPERnatural realm about which natural creatures inherently can say precisely nothing.

The instant you claim to have supernatural senses you have just brought the supernatural into the natural. The supernatural renders god unknowable and claiming to have knowledge of the supernatural renders it natural. As such the supernatural is a useless and illogical concept.

U got it

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. -Hebrews 11:1.

It's not hard to see how this definition sets the scene for the conflation of belief and knowledge. What is substance in this situation? He seems to indicating that it is tangible evidence of intangibles like the unseen and hoped-for things.

I think most self-respecting Christians would feel that a faith expressed as less than factual would be a weak faith. After all, they have the 'evidence'.

I associate knowledge with facts (The chair is in front of me); and belief with ideology (religion, politics)

I’ve had conversations with Christian fundamentalists where they assert that they know god exists. I reply with - “Then you have no reason to believe in god since you know it exists.” They find that answer difficult to accept since to them there is no distinction between belief and knowing.

Quite agree. Belief is a projection that flows toward a preferred or anticipated outcome. Faith on the other hand is an internal conviction. Neither can impact upon knowledge but knowledge can modify faith and belief. This is why it is important to retain belief and faith but be prepared to attenuate them in the light of newly gained knowledge or experience.

I think you nailed it.