“Simply put, belief is the antithesis (”the exact opposite ... joy is the antithesis of sorrow”) of fact.”
No, it is not. One can believe in facts. Fiction is the antithesis of fact. Your pop-intellect jingoism just don’t fly, bubba.
Just a quick exercise for you:
Name any group of men ever, who lived in poverty and allowed themselves to be tortured and killed for something they knew was a lie.
Also - please give us some known historical facts, and how it is established that they are, indeed, facts.
I’m waiting....
Oh my, now you’re on the verge of unsettling the fiction in the poster’s mind which accounts for his mental stability. When you take away the delusions of grandeur, what will be left for them to hang onto, since they cannot face reality?
My tagline is a link to the book "Darwin's Ghost." The book is a modern update to Darwin's original work ... that is "free" and loaded with facts.
Happy reading!