Beliefs are often a bit too crude relative to the modern rational mindset we should encourage in ourselves and others. A scientist may, in casual conversation

Beliefs are often a bit too crude relative to the modern rational mindset we should encourage in ourselves and others. A scientist may, in casual conversation speak about whether they "believe" in aliens or not, but if you ask them to be precise, they'll correct themselves and talk about probabilities and possibilities, not beliefs. The thing that bothers me about the "do you believe" question is that it seems to exclude this moment of hesitancy and letting things sit in "superposition" of possible outcomes. I.e. if you ask someone "do you believe in God" and they answer "maybe I do", you might consider their response sarcastic. Another problem with "do you believe" is that it often targets very broad and very fuzzy concepts, that everyone understands however they wish, but we insist on calling by a common name. It's very crude, and doesn't help further the debate.