Is Believing in God(s) a Choice?

[mikkel_the_dane]

Irrelevant.

Yeah, localized in time, space and sense for you. That is correct for you. I do get that. But you are still not the only positive relevance in the everyday world and neither am I.

 

[firedragon]

Yeah, localized in time, space and sense for you. That is correct for you. I do get that. But you are still not the only positive relevance in the everyday world and neither am I.

Irrelevant.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Irrelevant.

Irrelevant as I have time for now.

 

[firedragon]

Irrelevant as I have time for now.

Then that's okay.

 

[SkepticThinker]

So an axiomatic assumption is evidence, is that your claim?

"It works" isn't an assumption. It's the evidence of a thing working.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

"It works" isn't an assumption. It's the evidence of a thing working.

It is an assumption for what objective reality is. You have to learn how skepticism informs methodological naturalism.

You take your culture of that the world is natural as a fact. It is not. It is a cognitive construct and there are other ones possible.

 

[SkepticThinker]

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.
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.

I don't know what your quarrel is. I haven't posited anything about things outside myself controlling anything.
I'm just telling you what it means for me to be convinced of something or not.

 

[SkepticThinker]

It is an assumption for what objective reality is. You have to learn how skepticism informs methodological naturalism.

You take your culture of that the world is natural as a fact. It is not. It is a cognitive construct and there are other ones possible.

I don't have to do any of that.

"It works" is the essence of evidence, as another poster pointed out.

All we can really do is interact with reality as we know it, because we don't really have any other choice.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I don't have to do any of that.

"It works" is the essence of evidence, as another poster pointed out.

All we can really do is interact with reality as we know it, because we don't really have any other choice.

There is no one reality in practice. And we are not really only an universal we. That is your version of Objective Authority.
You control what reality is for all humans for all time, space and senses. You don't and neither do I.
And there is no one knowledge. I am a member of a culture, where we have 8 different versions in the end.

Get your Anglo-Saxon culture of knowledge out of my culture and I will keep out of yours.

 

[PureX]

I don't know what your quarrel is. I haven't posited anything about things outside myself controlling anything.
I'm just telling you what it means for me to be convinced of something or not.

I'm not quarreling. I'm just trying to point out to you that you are convincing yourself. That no outside power is making you believe anything. And that being the case, you can change your mind anytime you choose. We all can. "Truth" is not a physical phenomenon external to us. It's a presumption. A presumption that we make about our experience and conception of that external phenomena. A 'viewpoint'. An 'opinion'. And these are always subject to change ... by us. In fact, we become unhealthy when we become unable or unwilling to change our opinions and viewpoints because we are so fully convinced that we are right.

You are able to choose, and it's important that you know this.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'm not quarreling. I'm just trying to point out to you that you are convincing yourself. That no outside power is making you believe anything. And that being the case, you can change your mind anytime you choose. We all can. "Truth" is not a physical phenomenon external to us. It's a presumption. A presumption that we make about our experience and conception of that external phenomena. A 'viewpoint'. An 'opinion'. And these are always subject to change ... by us. In fact, we become unhealthy when we become unable or unwilling to change our opinions and viewpoints because we are so fully convinced that we are right.

You are able to choose, and it's important that you know this.

There are as an over-reduction two kinds of skeptics. The ones that has found the Truth, because they can doubt all other versions than their own. And the absurd ones as the strong ones as "I know nothing about the Truth".

 

[We Never Know]

As a fervent god believer when i was a child i made a conscious choice to leave my belief behind. So i see it as a choice.

Maybe you simply walked away from your choice of believing.

 

[PureX]

There are as an over-reduction two kinds of skeptics. The ones that has found the Truth, because they can doubt all other versions than their own. And the absurd ones as the strong ones as "I know nothing about the Truth".

But that first group aren't skeptics at all. They're the true believers (in their own version of truth). They have eschewed skepticism in favor of their convictions. That's why they are claiming they have no choice in the matter. They can no longer recognize that it was always a choice.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

But that first group aren't skeptics at all. They're the true believers (in their own version of truth). They have eschewed skepticism in favor of their convictions. That's why they are claiming they have no choice in the matter. They can no longer recognize that it was always a choice.

Yeah, but that is the methodology of skepticism as positive foundationalism. It is out there in the wild as if we just doubt the subjective, we are saved.
And they don't get it, because in an absurd sense they are so their culture, but they are not, because there is no culture in what knowledge is in their culture. They are so subjective in their objectivity, that they get it differently., because they are the objective standard for what the world is, including the subjective.
Their God is without God yet Objective Reality as a form of God.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

But that first group aren't skeptics at all. They're the true believers (in their own version of truth). They have eschewed skepticism in favor of their convictions. That's why they are claiming they have no choice in the matter. They can no longer recognize that it was always a choice.

I owe you a thank. You helped me find my version of God even as an atheist and skeptic. Thanks.

 

[SkepticThinker]

There is no one reality in practice. And we are not really only an universal we. That is your version of Objective Authority.
You control what reality is for all humans for all time, space and senses. You don't and neither do I.
And there is no one knowledge. I am a member of a culture, where we have 8 different versions in the end.

Get your Anglo-Saxon culture of knowledge out of my culture and I will keep out of yours.

I have no idea what you're going on about.

I'm not quarreling. I'm just trying to point out to you that you are convincing yourself. That no outside power is making you believe anything. And that being the case, you can change your mind anytime you choose. We all can. "Truth" is not a physical phenomenon external to us. It's a presumption. A presumption that we make about our experience and conception of that external phenomena. A 'viewpoint'. An 'opinion'. And these are always subject to change ... by us. In fact, we become unhealthy when we become unable or unwilling to change our opinions and viewpoints because we are so fully convinced that we are right.

You are able to choose, and it's important that you know this.

I don't recall ever saying anything about any "outside power" convincing me of anything.

I can't "change my mind" and force myself to believe things for which I am not convinced of.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I have no idea what you're going on about.
...

I can't point to God. Nor can I point to reality. They are both first person cognitive abstracts and not concretes like say a stone.
You are confusing concretes as the only real things, for which neither real or things are concretes. They are also abstracts.

It is called that fallacy of reification. Reality is not a concrete object. It is an idea like God is an idea.
You are a product of a certain philosophical tradition. I am a product of another one.

Read the site manifest: It is about culture and religion. Learn to spot your own culture and don't take it for granted, if you want to point out that other people take theirs for granted.

 

[Audie]

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.
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.

Choosing to believe is just self deception /
intellectual dishonesty, a failure of integrity.

And religious people consider that a great virtue.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Choosing to believe is just self deception /
intellectual dishonesty, a failure of integrity.

And religious people consider that a great virtue.

Yeah, that is your belief, unless you have evidence.

 

[Alien826]

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".

I think you are being unfair to these people, or maybe applying too strict a definition of belief.

Ask a typical Southern Baptist if he believes there is a God and you will get very definite "yes". I lived in GA for a number of years and experienced it directly. These people live and breathe "God" and their conversation reflects it. "The high winds didn't blow down my tree" is stated as "God saved my tree from being blown down". (An actual conversation I recall).

Now the basis for their belief system might be dubious from a skeptical pov, but nevertheless they do believe, and very strongly in most cases. It's a lot more than being pressured to adopt a certain "front". They will listen to your skeptical arguments, if you want to tread that dangerous path, but in the end their essential belief rebounds, like a spring after you stop compressing it. It's belief, no matter how it was formed, and they feel very comfortable with it.