Belief

In the words of John Mayer, one of my favorite song writers :  

Everyone believes, in how they think it ought to be.
Oh, everyone believes, and they're not going easily.

Belief is a beautiful armor, that makes for the heaviest sword.

Everyone believes, from emptiness to everything.
Oh, everyone believes, and no one's going quietly.

We're never gonna win the world.
We've never gonna stop the war.
We're never gonna beat this if belief is what we're fighting for.

After years of thinking about life I'm convinced that belief is the most powerful force in the world. Beyond self preservation (Muslims), stronger than personal satisfaction (Celibates), and purer than worldly power (Martyrs); a person's beliefs shape EVERYTHING they become.

Take a look at your own life: A majority of your friends believe what you do. Allocations of your time and money are typically parallel to your beliefs (and if they're not than you have to go back and see if you really believe those things). Your outlook on life and the future is filtered through your beliefs.

The question I have comes from something that one of my college students constantly tells me and my wife. She's always saying that belief is subjective and that belief is a mixture of experience, nature, nurture, and pride. If belief is truly subjective, then how do we know that what we believe is actually true? Not to mention the fact that her statement is just a belief, and by her definition, her definition is subjective itself.

I guess part of this question then comes back to whether or not truth is relative or does absolute truth exist?