Do We Choose Our Beliefs?

[Windwalker]

Belief is being convinced by the evidence. It doesn't occur after.

There is no distinction between "hey, that's true," and "I believe."

Don't agree with this. Belief is what speaks to the need. Evidence is found to support the choice after it's already made.

 

[Trailblazer]

What do you suppose causes that time lag (i.e. step lag)?

There is not necessarily a time lag because as we are checking out the evidence we might simultaneously accept the belief as true, rather than waiting until afterwards. That is basically what happened to me; as I was initially reading about the Baha'i Faith I knew it was true, but I did not actually declare my belief and become a Baha'i until after I had read a bunch of books.

 

[Trailblazer]

No issue, except that the convincing is not by choice. We don't choose to be convinced, it just happens.

I fully agree. Being convinced is not a free will choice.
It's not like we can choose to go down to the shoe store and buy a new pair of shoes.

 

[Trailblazer]

Don't agree with this. Belief is what speaks to the need. Evidence is found to support the choice after it's already made.

That would depend upon whether you are a spontaneous type of person or an analytical type.

 

[Willamena]

There is not necessarily a time lag because as we are checking out the evidence we might simultaneously accept the belief as true, rather than waiting until afterwards. That is basically what happened to me; as I was initially reading about the Baha'i Faith I knew it was true, but I did not actually declare my belief and become a Baha'i until after I had read a bunch of books.

A "step" implies time, that's what the metaphor is about. Did you perhaps believe before you declared?

 

[Willamena]

Don't agree with this. Belief is what speaks to the need. Evidence is found to support the choice after it's already made.

I don't follow.
'Evidence' is that bit of information that was convincing, that is set aside post-belief to be drawn upon to support the belief. Is that what you meant?
But what need?

Edit: As I walk, I place each step forward without a thought to whether it might fail, because I believe in the concrete reality of a meaningful world. Belief refers to truth.

 

[Trailblazer]

A "step" implies time, that's what the metaphor is about. Did you perhaps believe before you declared?

Yes, I believed before I declared.

 

[Willamena]

Yes, I believed before I declared.

When the information is accepted as true, that's a belief.

 

[rstrats]

Trailblazer,
re: "...we are presented with evidence for a given belief and if our interpretation of the evidence is convincing to us then we choose to believe."

How would you know when you had the evidence?

 

[Trailblazer]

Trailblazer,
re: "...we are presented with evidence for a given belief and if our interpretation of the evidence is convincing to us then we choose to believe."

How would you know when you had the evidence?

We know we have evidence when what we have indicates that the belief is true or helps to prove it is true.

evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid. https://www.google.com/search

evidence: anything that helps to prove that something is or is not true:
EVIDENCE | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary

 

[Windwalker]

I don't follow.
'Evidence' is that bit of information that was convincing, that is set aside post-belief to be drawn upon to support the belief. Is that what you meant?
But what need?

You had said originally that, "Belief is being convinced by the evidence. It doesn't occur after". What I was saying is that people don't follow the evidence to conclude their beliefs. They find the evidence to support their beliefs, after they have already chosen what they want to believe.

For instance, you hear the neo-atheist crying, "Where's your evidence?", to the Biblical literalist, assuming it's simply "blind faith" and nothing more for them. But in fact, they do have their supporting evidences in hand to justify their beliefs. It's just that the quality and nature of that evidence is insufficient to support a different type of belief structure, such as you would find in Modernity with scientific evidences. The "evidence" to the literalist is "The Bible is God's word, and it says so. Therefore, we have evidence from God Himself," they argue.

No amount of evidence that supports other beliefs will mean anything to someone whose belief structure don't allow for it. In other words, if they are not open to it ahead of time, it's nothing to them. They follow their hearts first, not the evidence. Someone can have had all the evidence of evolution presented to them for years, such as you see happen on this site all the time, but it is not until after they have had some letdown, so failure of their current belief structures to support their evolving faith, their change of heart on the matter, that it is even recognizable as possibly true.

Here's a great quote that captures this. "A man convinced against his will, remains of same opinion still". We aren't rational creatures first who follow the evidence to conclude beliefs. We are non-rational creatures primarily, who use the rational mind to support what we emotionally are ready to believe first. The rational mind likes to try to convince us it's got everything under control because it is "dispassionate", when it fact, it's blind if the heart doesn't want to hear something.

Edit: As I walk, I place each step forward without a thought to whether it might fail, because I believe in the concrete reality of a meaningful world. Belief refers to truth.

You didn't follow the evidence to conclude you could walk. You simply intuitively, instinctively just got up and started walking. The body knows what to do, without the rational mind needing to follow the evidence. In fact, the rational mind very much gets in the way of this natural impulse. And that all agrees with my point. People believe what they "feel", not what they think. They then after the fact, find evidences to support it. "See? I didn't fall."

 

[Windwalker]

That would depend upon whether you are a spontaneous type of person or an analytical type.

I'll argue that analytic types are still blinded by their feelings, perhaps even more so than non-analytic types. An over-emphasis on rationality may well happen when one is less in touch with their own emotional landscapes and knowing how to hear and navigate that terrain. It becomes "safer" for them to just be a Mr. Spock without needing to deal with that unpredictable mess down there.

I hear this all the time, even from fundamentalist Christians who misapply scriptural passages to justify suppressing their emotional bodies citing, "The heart is deceitfully wicked, who can trust it?" They rely on external authority to tell them what is truth, because they are afraid to listen to what their hearts say, which may challenge their beliefs. In either case, they are still making an emotional choice first. It's just that that emotion is fear. Fear of themselves.

The best I feel is to be an analytic person, who is equally if not more intuitively self-aware. That's ideal. That's like gaining a greater sense of balance with the body, so you can ride that bicycle without hands, using the whole body to steer it. It results in greater awareness and connection, and trust. It results in greater freedom.

 

[Willamena]

You had said originally that, "Belief is being convinced by the evidence. It doesn't occur after". What I was saying is that people don't follow the evidence to conclude their beliefs. They find the evidence to support their beliefs, after they have already chosen what they want to believe.

For instance, you hear the neo-atheist crying, "Where's your evidence?", to the Biblical literalist, assuming it's simply "blind faith" and nothing more for them. But in fact, they do have their supporting evidences in hand to justify their beliefs. It's just that the quality and nature of that evidence is insufficient to support a different type of belief structure, such as you would find in Modernity with scientific evidences. The "evidence" to the literalist is "The Bible is God's word, and it says so. Therefore, we have evidence from God Himself," they argue.

No amount of evidence that supports other beliefs will mean anything to someone whose belief structure don't allow for it. In other words, if they are not open to it ahead of time, it's nothing to them. They follow their hearts first, not the evidence. Someone can have had all the evidence of evolution presented to them for years, such as you see happen on this site all the time, but it is not until after they have had some letdown, so failure of their current belief structures to support their evolving faith, their change of heart on the matter, that it is even recognizable as possibly true.

Here's a great quote that captures this. "A man convinced against his will, remains of same opinion still". We aren't rational creatures first who follow the evidence to conclude beliefs. We are non-rational creatures primarily, who use the rational mind to support what we emotionally are ready to believe first. The rational mind likes to try to convince us it's got everything under control because it is "dispassionate", when it fact, it's blind if the heart doesn't want to hear something.


You didn't follow the evidence to conclude you could walk. You simply intuitively, instinctively just got up and started walking. The body knows what to do, without the rational mind needing to follow the evidence. In fact, the rational mind very much gets in the way of this natural impulse. And that all agrees with my point. People believe what they "feel", not what they think. They then after the fact, find evidences to support it. "See? I didn't fall."

No, I didn't follow a string of evidence to conclude I could walk, but I did use evidence--we use evidence with every waking moment to make belief judgements about the world. In the example, the evidence of our eyes, our feet, our senses, convinces us about the concreteness of the world we step into. That, "being convinced of the evidence," is essential belief. I honestly believe that we all use evidence in the same manner, albeit not always about the same subject. I'm not going to argue against other ways of looking at belief, but this is a valid and essential one, and I support Left Coast in arguing it.

 

[Windwalker]

No, I didn't follow a string of evidence to conclude I could walk, but I did use evidence--we use evidence with every waking moment to make belief judgements about the world. In the example, the evidence of our eyes, our feet, our senses, convinces us about the concreteness of the world we step into. That, "being convinced of the evidence," is essential belief. I honestly believe that we all use evidence in the same manner, albeit not always about the same subject. I'm not going to argue against other ways of looking at belief, but this is a valid and essential one, and I support Left Coast in arguing it.

I don't disagree we all use evidence to support our beliefs, no matter what they are. I fully accept that as a fact. I just don't agree that the evidence is what leads to the belief in the first place. "A man convinced against his will, remains of same opinion still." It's not rationality that leads belief.

 

[PureX]

Keep in mind that we choose what we deem to be valid "evidence", and we choose what kind and degree of evidence we demand as 'convincing proof'. So even when we claim that we don't choose our beliefs because they are based on evidence, and not on desire, we still chose that result by choosing the methodology that produced it. And we could have chosen otherwise at any point.

 

[Windwalker]

We are in agreement that there is a loop. We disagree that emotion necessarily precedes rationality.

I'd like your thoughts further on this if you will? This is one of those things that are so interrelated that it's really hard to put one ahead of the other. I used to follow the standard CBT model that thoughts lead the emotions like a train and its caboose. But I don't think that can be held as strictly true.

As an example, something anyone should be able to relate to, I saw this great meme on FB some time ago that had an image of this gigantic monster figure towering over tall buildings with this guy standing on one of them looking up at this terror with a caption that says over the monster, "Something socially awkward I said when I was 13 years old", and then over the man in the picture, "Me at 3:00 in the morning".

That's a perfect example most anyone can relate to of an state of emotion, anxiety from waking at odd hours, finding a thought, any thought it can out of thousands of choices that will get you to feed the anxiety monster with "worry". This is a case of emotion leading thought. In observing my own thoughts and emotions through witnessing, I've notice a tendency that when my thoughts are fixing on negative things, I can usually find some physical discomfort that makes me ill-at-ease. It's not the actual thought that is the culprit or the actual worry. It's simply some state of the physical or emotional being that calls forth thoughts, which then of course feed the anxiety, or stress, or whatever you are experiencing.

Sometimes as well, just random thoughts enter the mind that have nothing to do with anything, but the problem is when we identify with the context of thought as reflective of our person, this creates stress and anxiety around the thought, and then the feedback loop happens as well. So thought does lead the emotion in this case, because it was "random" but something "entertaining" enough for us to buy the ticket for the ride by responding emotionally.

I tend to lean more towards the emotional state being the primary spawning ground of thoughts, like a dust magnet attracting any thought juicy enough for us to bite into and start the loop going. I swear, it's because we are bored and find pleasure in all the dramas it creates. Once we see it for what it is, then we can break that loop.

And that everyone categorizes and discriminates is another universality.

It is. I agree.

No one bias is innate but bias in itself most assuredly is.

I get what you mean, but it is not something we are born with in an active state. It's inevitable it happens because that's part of normal ego development. If someone were never socialized, that might not materialize, theoretically anyway.

Yes and this is where your argument fails. That a specific subset is not necessary does not mean that the specific subset is any less "from the heart."

I think we may be arguing what "from the heart" means to each of us. While someone may be quite earnest that they hate minorities, for instance, I don't view that as an authentic emotion. It's not "from the heart", but rather it's a response to fear and suspicions citing cultural programming to bolster and feedback into that fear loop. Their fear and anger may be real to them because they've been primed culturally to view all Jews as evil, for instance, and that provides the "evidence" for them to support their "beliefs". But I don't call that genuine or authentic. It's an irrational reaction to fear.

I guess I call emotions that are not clouded by fear and anger to be authentic. From the heart to me, means what we truly feel once all that fear and anger is removed. When there is no fear, when there is clarity of mind and emotions, then that is what is authentic, that is from the true heart of the person.

I would agree that it is overrated by many, but i think you here are understating the importance of rationality. Because people erroneously think their decisions wholly rational and this is not so, you want to instead say that they are wholly emotional or "decided in the heart," which os also not so.

In another post I emphasized that I believe that rationality acts as a counter-balance to emotions, where the whole body works together as a whole, like riding your bike without your hands. There is freedom of movement when both complement each other. I don't believe I'm missing the importance of it.

But the point I've been making all along, is that its not rationality that leads the way. Emotion has the primary investment that is asking rationality to have a look at it to make sure it's what we really want. The desire to understand lead the way, and that is emotion.

And it is also easy to fool oneself into thinking emotions play a more substantial part than they do. (Also a symptom of not knowing our own emotions).

We don't choose things rationality that we don't believe will make us happy. It's all in service of emotions, at one level or another. It's under the belief that we will be happy. Therefore, emotions are primary.

The problem comes, and I'm sure you'll agree, is when we don't use the rational mind and go off all half-cocked driven by desire alone. Rational mind, and especially when it is developed to be more effective a tool through practicing critical thought, is like the wiser old uncle to the impetus emotional child. It's still an emotional relationship though. It still is in service of emotion. It's reason telling emotion, you'll be happier if you don't wreck your car when you're angry.

But you did. You suggested that emotional choices such as believing a race is inferior or believing homosexuality is wrong is not "from the heart." Here these are emotional choices. You want to distinguish them by saying they are not natural. Yet categorization and discrimination is natural-universal. You are in effect saying language x is not natural because language x is not necessary, despite acknowledging that language in itself is natural.

I think I may have clarified these points earlier in this post, hopefully. I realize it is based on what I call authentic feelings, versus inauthentic feelings. I believe there is a clear difference. Just because it is felt emotionally, doesn't not mean they are one's authentic emotions. Ask any psychotherapist dealing with clients. Once the garbage is hauled away, the true emotions begin to be exposed.

 

[Willamena]

I just don't agree that the evidence is what leads to the belief in the first place. "A man convinced against his will, remains of same opinion still." It's not rationality that leads belief.

Evidence doesn't always convince. There is evidence for little grey aliens, but it hasn't convinced me about alien visitors. Hence, I don't believe. But where evidence does convince, such as the evidence of a solid earth beneath my feet, then there is acceptance of something as true (the definition of belief).

 

[Thief]

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.

and I buy my own flavor to taste

children lean to their parents
and some never learn to question what they were told

and that goes for nonbelievers as well

 

[Hockeycowboy]

"If
a man were to declare, ‘There is a lamp in the next room which gives no light’, one hearer might be satisfied with his report, but a wiser man goes into the room to judge for himself, and behold, when he finds the light shining brilliantly in the lamp, he knows the truth!” Paris Talks, p. 103

This is good! Let me add something.... If the man saying "there's a lamp in the other room", is your father , it has more of a bearing on your belief, more so than an acquaintance.

How many belong to the religion of their parents? Bunches!

 

[Trailblazer]

How many belong to the religion of their parents? Bunches!

Are you saying that is a good thing or a bad thing?