Is Believing in God(s) a Choice?

[mikkel_the_dane]

"They seem to work" would appear to be the very essence of evidence.

White swans, and all that.

Well, we end with the Evil Demon of Descartes, how it is methodological naturalism and not philosophical naturalism, and how in effect that the world is X is for all cases of positive metaphysics an axiomatic assumption and without evidence.

So I have no evidence what the world is. I have in effect faith, since I trust the world to be epistemologically fair.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I am not doing any special pleading. That is when proof is required. What do you mean by 'natural'.

Not any other variant as supernatural or anything else, but natural.

 

[firedragon]

I mentioned my stance.

Well .Thank you for your contribution Aup, I am just stating it's not relevant.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Light, heat, atoms, waves, force fields, radiation, Quantum Mechanics are all natural.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Well .Thank you for your contribution Aup, I am just stating it's not relevant.

You do know that relevance is a judgement in a person based on a worldview. If something is irrelevant to you, it can still be relevant to somebody else.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Light, heat, atoms, waves, force fields, radiation, Quantum Mechanics are all natural.

So it a belief in a God. There is nothing unnatural in a human believing in a God.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Nothing unnatural. When in trouble, children call for father or mother. God is a nice idea for people who look for help, ever ready to extend help.

 

[firedragon]

You do know that relevance is a judgement in a person based on a worldview. If something is irrelevant to you, it can still be relevant to somebody else.

Its not relevant.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Its not relevant.

Everything in the world is interconnected as parts of the world. How you model that is in you, how I do that is in me. And your model is not the only relevant one for all humans, no matter how much you claim the correct methodology. My model is neither that, it is just different from yours.

 

[firedragon]

Everything in the world is interconnected as parts of the world. How you model that is in you, how I do that is in me. And your model is not the only relevant one for all humans, no matter how much you claim the correct methodology. My model is neither that, it is just different from yours.

Irrelevant.

 

[PureX]

I'm convinced of something, or I'm not. Being convinced of a thing doesn't make someone right. It just means they're convinced of a thing.

I'm not convinced that god(s) exist because I haven't seen anything that convinces me that they exist. That doesn't mean I say they don't exist. Or that I'm right. It just means I'm not convinced. I didn't make a conscious choice to be convinced or not.

You chose in the way that you are deciding what the "evidence" is, or is not. And in deciding that there is not enough of it for you to be convinced. Those are determinations that you have chosen for yourself. And you could have chosen otherwise. You still can. All it requires is your acknowledgement that you could have been wrong. Once you acknowledge that, you are acknowledging that the other options that you did not choose could have been the right ones. And then they become viable, again.

There is plenty of evidence we don't "invent ourselves."
I'm just talking about whether being convinced of something is a choice or not. I don't think it's a conscious choice.

An unconscious choice is still a choice. And you are choosing what you are accepting or rejecting as "evidence". Consciously or unconsciously. You are also choosing the threshold necessary for that evidence to become convincing. And once convinced, you are choosing how long and hard you will defend it. There is no force outside yourself making all these determinations for you.

We can determine the nature of existence (or some God(s)) via evidence. And we have and continue to do so.

That depends on how we define God. By the nearly all definitions, we have no way of determining the nature or existence of God, because God "exists" beyond and prior to everything that exists as we know it. That is the "creator God", and in many instances the "overseer God". The essence of the god-concept is that it transcends any knowledge and control of existence as we comprehend it.

This thread is about whether believing in God is a choice or not. I say I don't have a choice in determining whether or not I am convinced of something. I am, or I'm not. Or, I just don't know.

You can say it all you like. But logic indicates otherwise. There is nothing outside yourself controlling when or how you are determining whether or not you are convinced of some truth proposal. So it is YOU who is determining this. And it is YOU who could determine otherwise if you so choose.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Irrelevant.

The problem of your model is that the rest of us still act differently not matter how irrelevant it is to you,

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

You chose in the way that you are deciding what the "evidence" is, or is not. And in deciding that there is not enough of it for you to be convinced. Those are determinations that you have chosen for yourself. And you could have chosen otherwise. You still can. All it requires is your acknowledgement that you could have been wrong. Once you acknowledge that, you are acknowledging that the other options that you did not choose could have been the right ones. And then they become viable, again.

Correct. The objective model of evidence is the belief that everything comes to a human and that there are not really in processes in a human, because everything real is objective.

An unconscious choice is still a choice. And you are choosing what you are accepting or rejecting as "evidence". Consciously or unconsciously. You are also choosing the threshold necessary for that evidence to become convincing. And once convinced, you are choosing how long and hard you will defend it. There is no force outside yourself making all these determinations for you.
That depends on how we define God. By the nearly all definitions, we have no way of determining the nature or existence of God, because God "exists" beyond and prior to everything that exists as we know it. That is the "creator God", and in many instances the "overseer God". The essence of the god-concept is that it transcends any knowledge and control of existence as we comprehend it.
You can say it all you like. But logic indicates otherwise. There is nothing outside yourself controlling when or how you are determining whether or not you are convinced of some truth proposal. So it is YOU who is determining this. And it is YOU who could determine otherwise if you so choose.

Again correct. In cognitive science it is about "automated" and "meta-reflective" choices. But some people can in effect only do automated choices.

 

[PureX]

Cultural pressures are powerful, and don't have to be overt. It's uncomfortable going against the beliefs of one's culture, and people do feel happy when they refrain from doing so.

Our culture can pressure us into behaving a certain way, but it can't pressure us into thinking a certain way. It's important to recognize the difference.

In the South, many people will go to church because that's a strong cultural and social expectation. But that doesn't mean they all believe or agree with what they are being told, and tell each other, while there. So counting them as "theists" is inaccurate. As some number of them don't believe God exists at all. And it may well be a greater number than we realize because in that environment, they will never say what they believe or don't believe out loud. So those people are not being coerced to believe anything. They are only being coerced to show up in church and pretend to believe.

thing I've observed, and I'm not sure how relevant it is to this discussion, is that many "believers" are not really sure what it is they believe in. What I mean is that when asked to explain, or even state, a particular tenet of their belief system are unable to do so. The Bible says that? Really? The posters here are far from typical believers.

I would say that we need to stop counting all those people as "believers", because they are not. They are at best just trying to be faithful to an idea of God that they want or hope to be true. They are "the faithful", not the "believers".

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Our culture can pressure us into behaving a certain way, but it can't pressure us into thinking a certain way. It's important to recognize the difference.

In the South, many people will go to church because that's a strong cultural and social expectation. But that doesn't mean they all believe or agree with what they are being told, and tell each other, while there. So counting them as "theists" is inaccurate. As some number of them don't believe God exists at all. And it may well be a greater number than we realize because in that environment, they will never say what they believe or don't believe out loud. So those people are not being coerced to believe anything. They are only being coerced to show up in church and pretend to believe.
I would say that we need to stop counting all those people as "believers", because they are not. They are at best just trying to be faithful to an idea of God that they want or hope to be true. They are "the faithful", not the "believers".

And their God is not the only version. The Western secual God is physical objective reality as the only really real. And evidence is the Holy Ghost.

 

[firedragon]

The problem of your model is that the rest of us still act differently not matter how irrelevant it is to you,

Thanis, but that its irrelecant.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Thanis, but that its irrelecant.

To you. Not to me.

 

[firedragon]

To you. Not to me.

Irrelevant.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Irrelevant.

Yeah, you really are the objective correct method for all humans for all time, space and senses. But that is irrelevant to me, where I can in fact do it differently than you.

 

[firedragon]

Yeah, you really are the objective correct method for all humans for all time, space and senses. But that is irrelevant to me, where I can in fact do it differently than you.

Irrelevant.