A belief is a guess or hope. An assertion could be either a fact or belief presented forcefully. When I speak of belief I tend to speak to what I want to be true and what I stand behind when taking a factual action. If my belief is not supported by fact or has a reasonable chance of failure my belief fails to spur action. Belief without action is useful only as a psychological tool. Belief as a springboard to action though drives results. And belief in opposition to known fact is destructive and I think one of the pillars of evil in the world today. Yet it also has a basis in fact in that people are constantly taking concrete action based on flawed beliefs that garner very real results. Like building a bomb to destroy a building based on flawed religious or nationalistic bias. Your bias may be flawed and wrong yet the bomb works as it was intended.

I try not to use the word but I still use it big I can't find a better word.

I believe in many things. I also have faith. I accept science as fact, not belief. Beliefs change with the tide. I have faith in people, nature, driving next to someone both of us doing 60+ mph that he won't swerve into my lane (though in Texas, people do turn right from the left lane and visa versa). I do not believe in gods, goddesses, avatars, demons, demi-gods, or devils. They are simply mechanisms of fear.

There is faith based belief and fact based belief.

I have belief that when I step out of bed, the floor will be there.

I believe that all the claims of the bible are factually and historically correct.

Please know that if someone plays the semantic gotcha game with this, that it is a semantic arguement and this is a diversion tactic.

I will defer to the man:

"I started out on burgundy
But soon hit the harder stuff
Everybody said they'd stand behind me
When the game got rough
But the joke was on me
There was nobody even there to call my bluff
I'm going back to New York City
I do believe I've had enough:

Bob Dylan - Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

"Knock knock"
"Hello, whos there?"
"Hello, we are Jehovahs burglars and we are being persecuted by the state for our beliefs"
"What are your beliefs"
"We believe that you have valuables in your house"

Belief is an accepted lie, as nothing is truly knowable.

Beliefs are created in the absence of sufficient data, which is why they're called beliefs. That being said, if Al Roker told me "I believe it might rain tomorrow..." his understanding of how weather works, and storm fronts, wind, all that stuff... his 'belief' is worth a listen. When my grandmother tells me it's going to rain tomorrow because her knee is aching, that is a belief that I'm not necessarily going to give much credence to.

But if we don't understand the nature of beliefs, we then start to think they're true, and then the belief takes over and we no longer believe, we "know...." And this is when we become dangerous. We can't get away from beliefs because they're baked into the cake. We're programmed to believe.

I think we should use beliefs on purpose to help us, but then be willing to discard them once they are no longer relevant. This takes a certain amount of self-awareness, which is why so few do it, but we need to

I don't know that all beliefs can be asserted, nor that the assertion of a belief is equal/same as that belief.

i don't use believe the same way all the time. if i say i believe man landed on the moon it is because i am convinced of it. if i say i believe it might rain, i mean i am guessing. english is flexible, unlike some of the people who get really heated (as you have noticed) about the differences between atheists and agnostics. i had to block someone this morning because after i explained why i am an atheist, he said i was an agnostic whether i liked it or not, PERIOD. so i told him he didn't get to tell me who or what i was, period. to this he cackled that he just had, and added that i was just calling myself an atheist because i thought it sounded cool, whereas in fact it made me sound ignorant. that is when i blocked him. is one label COOL or IGNORANT? i use words to describe or identify, as best i can, what i am trying to say. i don't use them to be cool and although i may be ignorant in some areas (please do not ask me about trigonometry) i am not overall an ignorant person, and i am certainly not ignorant about my reasons for being an atheist. so... back to beliefs: i believe i am an atheist and that is one of those "i'm convinced" beliefs. i believe i will go back to bed soon, but i am not totally convinced of that because it's almost lunchtime and i have a doctor's appointment i believe i might cancel. i won't say i believe i have covered this topic comprehensively but i hope i've made some sense.

g

To me belief is an admission of unknowing but looking to an identifiable outcome.Assertion is s more militant form of belief where the speaker implies confidence in that belief. To consider belief’s counter it’s necessary to look to faith which is an inner conviction of one’s understanding. Belief is externalisation, faith is internalisation.

Both. Depends on the topic.
There is more than one way to feel about any given thing, and no one is required to feel the exact same way about everything all the time.

For me belief is more like accepting the idea. Assertion is more like declaring it’s true.

I can’t answer your question exactly as both option do not reflect how I feel, but I think I would go with the ‘guess’ one over the other.