Opinion vs. belief

["61510::GILSON" <cbmvax!uunet!CCF3.NRL.NAVY.MIL!pucc.PRINCETON.EDU!gilson!61510.decnet>]

Lojbab says:

>The following pair use speaker attitudinals, which are incidental and
>discursive to a claim (tome of voice conveys such discursive content in
>English), to make it clear that the main predicate is the arrival, with
>John as the subject.
>
>pe'i    la djan ba   klamu'o caze'a      la bicac.
>I opine John    will arrive  at-interval 8:00
>
>.ia       la djan ba   klamu'o caze'a      la bicac.
>I believe John    will arrive  at-interval 8:00
>
>
>The following has the speaker's belief as the predicate, and
>the speaker as the subject.  (The parallel sentence for opinion is
>expressed by substituting jinvi for krici)
>
>mi krici   ledu'u          la djan ba   klamu'o caze'a      la bicac.
>I  believe the predication John    will arrive  at-interval 8:00

I am curious as to what difference there is between "believe/belief" and
"opine/opinion" here; to me they are exact synonyms.

                                            Bruce R. Gilson