What is Belief?

Belief is readiness to act as if something is true.

Thus, someone can profess to believe something without actually believing it. Note also that belief does not differ only quantitatively from knowledge, as in, to know is just to believe more strongly (or with the support of better evidence), since one can believe something that one doesn't know, and vice versa.

Moreover, one may attain truth without having knowledge; that is, my beliefs may happen to match up with the way things are (that is, they may be true), though I may not have an appropriate basis for believing them.

(If you're wondering why I'm bothering with all the pedantic definitions, click here.)