There no reason to make up a new abbreviation for it. Especially one that isn't opaque to other people.
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For me it's very hard to judge individual beliefs changes by those categories.
Replacing belief in God by replacing it with belief in evolution isn't real progress. It sometimes leads to annoying people who think that evolution should dictate their moral choices. It's quite okay for a 11 year old to have a simple view on the world and "believe" in evolution, but developing a rational way of dealing with the subject takes more.
Real progress is more structural. You don't listen to evolution instead of God for moral guidance, but you stop having a single external source of moral guidance.
Most of the major things I believe today that I didn't two years ago are in a form where I couldn't express the belief in the language that I used two years ago.
1Richard_Kennaway
Zero, I think. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
What stands out to me about "epic changes of mind" is that the very scale of the event casts doubt on both sides of the change. By definition, you think whatever you currently believe is true, and the more wrenching the change, the more it will feel as if you have escaped from dreadful error into the pure light of truth. But a belief is not evidence of its own correctness, and the intensity of the feelings casts doubt wherever they are directed.
There is an excellent example in the case of John C. Wright, the science fiction writer, who was a staunch materialist atheist, and employed all his reason in arguing that philosophy. Then he had a heart attack, surgery, and a religious vision, following which he employs his reason in arguing with equal verve for Catholicism. Rationalists will say that something broke in his brain and led him to a state of inescapable error and delusion. He and his co-religionists say that God performed a miracle in saving him from error and delusion, that he might be a soldier of reason for the Christian faith.
If reason can be so readily practised in diametrically opposite directions by the same person, should we accept a conclusion merely because of a formidable argument? Should we believe our beliefs? If not, what should we do about them anyway?
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