Belief (n.) is a sweeping and comprehensive structure. Even the most violent revolutions in an individual's beliefs leave most of one's old order standing and untouched (time and space, cause and effect, nature and history, and ones own biography).
Belief (n.) is really rules for action.
Belief (n.) creates the actual fact.
Belief (n.) is self-fulfilling. If one believes that life is worth living, one's belief will help create the fact.
Belief (n.) is all about repetition. There is nothing so absurd that it cannot be believed as truth if repeated often enough.