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Do We Choose Our Beliefs?

icehorse

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
Muffled said:
I believe if the only evidence one will accept is personal experience then the fact you haven't been in either place makes the evidence nonexistent for you. The reason you see the evidence as weak is that it comes from another person and you are not willing to accept that person's testimony.
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As a secular humanist, I would say that evidence isn't evidence if it's not observable, predictable and repeatable.
 
Trailblazer

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Muffled said:
I believe as children we believe everything although some may have preconceptions from a previous life.
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You believe in reincarnation?
Muffled said:
As we mature we tend to question beliefs that appear to lack evidence or have conflicting facts. At some point people start questioning the evidence as well.
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Some people do, some people don't. Some people just keep believing what they were taught as children.
Muffled said:
When a person questions evidence then they are choosing what evidence to believe and what evidence not to believe.
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Yes, I think people decide what evidence to believe and what evidence not to believe. This is a conscious process but also a subconscious process. The former we have control over, the latter we don't.
 
IndigoChild5559

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
halbhh said:
Consider: would you rather think your own thoughts, or merely have the viewpoint someone else has told you?
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Where is the dividing line between them? If someone says something and you accept it because you trust them, does it not become "your own thought?"
 
halbhh

halbhh

The wonder and awe of "all things".
IndigoChild5559 said:
Where is the dividing line between them? If someone says something and you accept it because you trust them, does it not become "your own thought?"
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Well, having read quite a variety of prominent thinkers, I did certainly at times pick some things from various ones, but I also critically compared their ideas to my own experience and to other ideas. So, instead of an ideology, I had a personally chosen set of ideas, and then added my own.

I often thought for each:where's he falling short, missing it? Making an idea that isn't realistic.

That way I could discard ideas constantly.
 
TheTruthReaper

TheTruthReaper

Member
Left Coast said:
Several times recently in conversations with theists, they have said things about choosing what we believe. It's almost as though in their minds beliefs are like clothes in the closet. I go to the closet, and I could pick the red t shirt or the green t shirt, so I'll pick the red. Or perhaps, I know my significant other likes the red more than the green, so I'll pick the red one to please him.

In my experience, this is not how belief works at all. If to believe means to be convinced something is true or real, then we don't choose our beliefs at all. We are presented with evidence and whatever interpretation of that evidence is most convincing to us is what we believe. We can't stop believing that until something intervenes - we see new evidence, or we realize our thought process was illogical before, etc. I can't simply wake up and choose a different belief this morning. I am genuinely convinced of what I believe (and don't).

What do you think? Do we choose our beliefs?
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Do you think your own thoughts?
 
Agnostisch

Agnostisch

Egyptian Man
I am puzzled about this 'belief' concept. There is nothing in my life that I need to believe in. I don't need to believe the sun will rise tomorrow. I don't need to believe in evolution, general relativity, gravity, quantum mechanics, or that the stock market will go up or down tomorrow. All of these things are demonstrable and consistent. What's to believe?
 
TheTruthReaper

TheTruthReaper

Member
Agnostisch said:
I am puzzled about this 'belief' concept. There is nothing in my life that I need to believe in. I don't need to believe the sun will rise tomorrow. I don't need to believe in evolution, general relativity, gravity, quantum mechanics, or that the stock market will go up or down tomorrow. All of these things are demonstrable and consistent. What's to believe?
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You have no control over anything.
 
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