Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: What are India's beliefs?
Religion in India is characterised by a diversity of religious beliefs and practices. India is a secular state with no state religion. The Indian subcontinent is the birthplace of four of the world's major religions; namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Throughout India's history, religion has been an important part of the country's culture. Religious diversity and religious tolerance are both established in the country by the law and custom; the Constitution of India has declared the right to freedom of religion to be a fundamental right.[1]
A collective belief is referred to when people speak of what 'we' believe when this is not simply elliptical for what 'we all' believe.
At least sometimes, the justifier of a belief is another belief. When, to return to the earlier example, the woman believes that her husband is having an affair, she bases that belief on other beliefs—namely, beliefs about the lipstick and perfume. Strictly speaking, her belief isn't based on the evidence itself—after all, what if she did not believe it? What if she thought that all of that evidence were just a hoax? What if her husband commonly wears perfume and lipstick on business trips? For that matter, what if the evidence existed, but she did not know about it? Then, of course, her belief that her husband is having an affair wouldn't be based on that evidence, because she did not know it was there at all; or, if she thought that the evidence were a hoax, then surely her belief couldn't be based on that evidence.
Many philosophers argue to the contrary, believing that, for example, the laws of thought cannot be revised and may be "held come what may". Quine believed that all beliefs are linked by a web of beliefs, in which a belief is linked to another belief by supporting relations, but if one belief is found untrue, there is ground to find the linked beliefs also untrue.
In Jonathan Kvanvig's essay, "Why Inquiring Minds Want to Know?: Meno Problems and Epistemological Axiology" he asserts that epistemology has no place in philosophical study. The value of knowledge originates from the Socratic dialogue written by Plato called Meno. In Meno, Socrates' distinction between "true belief" and "knowledge" forms the basis of the philosophical definition of knowledge as "justified true belief". Socrates explains the similarities and differences between "true belief" and "knowledge", arguing that justified true belief fails to "stay in their place" and must be "tethered". According to Kvanvig, true belief is what is necessary to maximize truth and to avoid error, thus dropping justification from the equation of knowledge. He argues that once we recognize what the manipulated boundary notion of non-Gettierized account of knowledge is, then it becomes clear that there is nothing valuable about the anti-Gettier condition on knowledge. Kvanvig acknowledges that true belief falls short of knowledge, however to him, true belief is no less valuable than knowledge. Kvanvig believes that epistemology should be focused on understanding, an epistemic standing that Kvanvig maintains is of more value than knowledge and justified true belief.
Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief. Much debate in epistemology centers on four areas: (1) the philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and how it relates to such concepts as truth, belief, and justification,[2][3] (2) various problems of skepticism, (3) the sources and scope of knowledge and justified belief, and (4) the criteria for knowledge and justification. Epistemology addresses such questions as: "What makes justified beliefs justified?",[4] "What does it mean to say that we know something?",[5] and fundamentally "How do we know that we know?"[6]
James went on to apply the pragmatic method to the epistemological problem of truth. He would seek the meaning of 'true' by examining how the idea functioned in our lives. A belief was true, he said, if it worked for all of us, and guided us expeditiously through our semihospitable world. James was anxious to uncover what true beliefs amounted to in human life, what their "cash value" was, and what consequences they led to. A belief was not a mental entity which somehow mysteriously corresponded to an external reality if the belief were true. Beliefs were ways of acting with reference to a precarious environment, and to say they were true was to say they were efficacious in this environment. In this sense the pragmatic theory of truth applied Darwinian ideas in philosophy; it made survival the test of intellectual as well as biological fitness.
Another factor would be religious/cultural beliefs and customs, which have a significant impact on the food that was eaten. For instance, Jewish and Islamic cultures have rules for not only what they can eat, but how to prepare the food and what it can be paired with. To eat specific food items they must be Kosher (for Jews) and Halal (for Muslims). The most obvious example is that neither can eat pork because pigs are considered unclean. Another example is that many people of India generally do not consume beef because many devout Hindus believe the cow is a sacred animal. Buddhism encourage vegetarianism so that limits what Buddhist can eat. These practices and beliefs encourage what is not eaten and society but also what can be eaten. For instance, the Buddhists have a history of preparing and eating tofu to get protein. There is also the role of the state when it comes to these issues sometimes dictating how meals should be prepared. An example of this would be that of edicts of Ashoka who declared that many animals shall be given decent treatment and limited the numbers that could be consumed. Although, it should be noted Ashoka was a very devout Buddhist and that affected his policies.
Superstitions are usually attributed to a lack of education. But, in India educated people have also been observed following beliefs that may be considered superstitious. The literacy rate of India, according to the 2011 census is at 74%. The beliefs and practices vary from region to region, with many regions having their own specific beliefs. The practices may range from harmless lemon-and-chilli totems for warding off evil eye to serious concerns like witch-burning. Some of these beliefs and practices are centuries old and are considered part of the tradition and religion, as a result introduction of new prohibitory laws often face opposition.
Residential buildings in India:
The residential building sector is one of the largest consumers of electricity in India. Continuous urbanisation and the growth of population result in increasing power consumption in buildings. Thus, while experts express the huge potential for energy conservations in this sector, the belief still predominates among stakeholders that energy-efficient buildings are more expensive than conventional buildings, which adversely affects the “greening” of the building sector. This belief is contested by studies finding evidence for the opposite being the case.
In 1961, Supreme court found Henry Rodrigues guilty of insulting religious beliefs of the Roman Catholics, and acting with a malicious intention in publishing and printing the same in 'Crusader' magazine. The defendant, who was a Roman Catholic, stated that he had criticized certain practices and beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church, which were contrary to what had been stated in the Holy Bible. He further stated that similar views have been expressed in many other well-known work. He was sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 200/-and in default of payment of fine, to undergo simple imprisonment for one month.
Daniel C. Dennett's theory of mental content, the intentional stance, tries to view the behavior of things in terms of mental properties. According to Dennett: 
"Here is how it works: first you decide to treat the object whose behavior is to be predicted as a rational agent; then you figure out what beliefs that agent ought to have, given its place in the world and its purpose. Then you figure out what desires it ought to have, on the same considerations, and finally you predict that this rational agent will act to further its goals in the light of its beliefs. A little practical reasoning from the chosen set of beliefs and desires will in most instances yield a decision about what the agent ought to do; that is what you predict the agent will do."
As a theory of truth, coherentism restricts "true" sentences to those that cohere with some specified set of sentences. Someone's belief is true if and only if it is "coherent" with all or most of his or her other (true) beliefs. The terminology of coherence is then said to correlate with truth via some concept of what qualifies all truth, such as absoluteness or universalism. These further terms become the qualifiers of what is meant by a truth statement, and the truth-statements then decide what is meant by a true belief. Usually, coherence is taken to imply something stronger than mere consistency. Statements that are comprehensive and meet the requirements of Occam's razor are usually to be preferred.
Intersex issues in India may often be perceived as third gender issues. The most well-known third gender groups in India are the "hijras". After interviewing and studying "hijras" for many years, Serena Nanda writes in her book, "Neither Man Nor Woman: The hijras of India", as follows: "There is a widespread belief in India that hijras are born hermaphrodites [intersex] and are taken away by the hijra community at birth or in childhood, but I found no evidence to support this belief among the hijras I met, all of whom joined the community voluntarily, often in their teens." Sangam literature uses the word "pedi" to refer to people born intersex, but the indigenous gender minorities in India were clear about intersex people and referred to them as "mabedi usili" and gave a distinct identity to denote them. Also, there is evidence that few intersex people choose to identify as transgender.
In order to explore the philosophy of what it is people are talking about when they discuss beliefs, Miller talks to Colin McGinn, who notes that the word belief covers things as diverse as ("I believe there is a table in front of me" to "I believe in democracy") and also argues that beliefs are dispositional or implicit rather than occurrent. McGinn goes on to explain that the question of beliefs only comes up when one is faced with a question which is debatable, and gives religion and politics as examples. Miller then states that politics differs from religion in being about what "ought" to be, while religion primarily deals with what "is" the case.
In his book "Why Would Anyone Believe in God?" he suggests that "belief in God is an almost inevitable consequence of the kind of minds we have. Most of what we believe comes from mental tools working below our conscious awareness. And what we believe consciously is in large part driven by these unconscious beliefs." and "that beliefs in gods match up well with these automatic assumptions; beliefs in an all-knowing, all-powerful God match up even better."
In humans, different cultures have different beliefs about what the basic unit of the culture is. These assumptions affect their beliefs about what the proper concern of the government should be.
The second and third parts of the sutta discuss the 62 beliefs (ditthi) which are clung to by ascetics in India. These are divided into: 18 beliefs related to the past (pubbantanuditthino), and 44 beliefs about the future (aparantakappika).
Imagination is different from belief because the subject understands that what is personally invented by the mind does not necessarily affect the course of action taken in the apparently shared world, while beliefs are part of what one holds as truths about both the shared and personal worlds. The play of imagination, apart from the obvious limitations (e.g. of avoiding explicit self-contradiction), is conditioned only by the general trend of the mind at a given moment. Belief, on the other hand, is immediately related to practical activity: it is perfectly possible to imagine oneself a millionaire, but unless one believes it one does not, therefore, act as such. Belief endeavors to conform to the subject's experienced conditions or faith in the possibility of those conditions; whereas imagination as such is specifically free. The dividing line between imagination and belief varies widely in different stages of technological development. Thus in more extreme cases, someone from a primitive culture who ill frames an ideal reconstruction of the causes of his illness, and attributes it to the hostile magic of an enemy based on faith and tradition rather than science. In ignorance of the science of pathology the subject is satisfied with this explanation, and actually believes in it, sometimes to the point of death, due to what is known as the nocebo effect. It follows that the learned distinction between imagination and belief depends in practice on religion, tradition, and culture.
In his paper, "A Rationale for Reliabilism," Bach weighs in on the debate between internalist and externalist theories of justification by introducing a distinction between justified "belief" and justified "believers." According to Bach, “a belief can be justified even in the absence of any action on the part of the believer, as in the case of beliefs formed automatically or routinely without any deliberate consideration;” whereas “a person is justified in believing something to the extent that he holds the belief rationally and responsibly.” On this view, the root of the debate over what constitutes justification between internalists and externalists is that internalists are interested in what makes a believer justified and externalists are concerned with what makes a belief justified.
The poem's focus on Hinduism became an important topic to Southey because of the British colonial interest in India. He was advised by William Taylor that focusing on India would allow for the work to become popular as the Empire became greater. The poem also marks the shift in view of the "exotic" from China to India and the appeal the religion started to hold. This transition was furthered by the translations of William Jones of Sanskrit along with possible connections between Hinduism and other theological traditions including Christianity. Southey knew of various translations and read "Shakuntala" (from the "Mahabharata") and the "Bhagavad Gita", which helped to form a basis for his knowledge of India. His rationalism kept Southey from accepting many of the beliefs he considered superstitious. Instead he wished to hide what he thought were deformities, to promote his own view.
Most of what is known of the Sabians comes from ibn Wahshiyya's "The Nabatean Agriculture", translated in 904 CE from Syriac sources. The text discusses beliefs attributed to the Sabians, in particular that they were people who lived in Pre-Adamite times, that Adam had parents and that he came from India.
"[We] were able to change the face of Indian cricket. That's what I'm proud of, because I think we made a huge difference. People used to think that we would simply roll over when playing out of India, but we changed the image. [...] [The team wouldn't take any crap from any opposition] Absolutely, and that came from self-belief that, that we had the ability to do well outside India."
Within this basic framework of foundationalism exist a number of views regarding which types of beliefs qualify as "properly" basic; that is, what sorts of beliefs can be justifiably held without the justification of other beliefs.
Superstition in India is considered a widespread social problem. Superstition refers to any belief or practice which is explained by supernatural causality, and is in contradiction to modern science. Some beliefs and practices, which are considered superstitious by some, may not be considered so by others. The gap, between what is superstitious and what is not, widens even more when considering the opinions of the general public and scientists. This article notes beliefs or practices in India, which have been deemed of being superstitions or pseudoscience, though opinions may vary on some issues.