Pretty much self explanatory. Is belief in God or belief in general a choice?

This is a question that comes up a lot in RGT especially when it comes to salvation and its always interested me. I pretty much have my view and will stay out of the thread but would like to hear other points of view.



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Belief by definition alone implies that a choice exists.
Belief: confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof. Do we sometimes try to convince ourselves by claiming we believe something... maybe because we really want it to be true? Probably so.

"I believe one day I am going to get out of debt." Now current payment history and spending more than one makes may not provide rigorous proof of this possibility but we may want to believe it will happen.

One may believe in extraterrestrials simply because they want for something other to exist. Do they really "believe" that life exists outside this world? Probably not because the lack of any evidence so far.

Now... to aim more directly at what I think you are trying to get at.... can people make a choice to believe in God? Sure.... but do they really believe anymore than those wanting a Bigfoot to be found or a UFO to be discovered? Or have they made a choice to believe simply to fit in a social group or just out of fear?
I've said before that I am not a believer.... but a knower. I didn't make a choice to believe... it became known to me that God exists.

I *think* this is what you are getting at:

There are differing opinions on this in the Christian community. An Arminian
would say that belief/faith comes before conversion, a Calvinist would say
that belief/faith is a gift from God and comes after conversion, i.e. that
God is the one that opens one's eyes to see the truth, and God is the one
that "makes the first move."

Personally, I think the Calvinist position is more Biblical, but I also think it's
the harder one to swallow from a humanist perspective.

http://arminianperspectives.wordpres...arative-study/

Kind of but I think a better classification is an educated guess. Like anything else, you take a look at the evidence presented by both sides and process it to figure out which answer fits better. Eventually you come to a conclusion that feels "right" without making a conscious choice. At least that is how it worked for me.

I put kind of though I think its a difficult answer to classify.

I don't think we outright choose our beliefs. We are taught a large of 'beliefs' before we even think to question things.

We choose so far as we see evidence for and agrainst and idea and can come to a conclusion based on what we see. These are instances where we 'choose'. Though what we're really doing is running this through our ingrained filters... some which we may be able to overrule and others we will not.

I could not "choose" to believe now. Something out of my control would have to change for me to now believe: new evidence to weigh, some life changing event that changes how I process information, a change in brain chemistry?, etc.

Is the OP asking if we believe in philosophical determinism or not?

If one believes in philosophical determinism, in some sense none of us
make free choices, and are bound by our environment, and previously
existing causes.

determinism, in philosophy, theory that all events, including moral choices, are completely determined by previously existing causes that preclude free will and the possibility that humans could have acted otherwise. The theory holds that the universe is utterly rational because complete knowledge of any given situation assures that unerring knowledge of its future is also possible. Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace, in the 18th century framed the classical formulation of this thesis. For him, the present state of the universe is the effect of its previous state and the cause of the state that follows it. If a mind, at any given moment, could know all of the forces operating in nature and the respective positions of all its components, it would thereby know with certainty the future and the past of every entity, large or small. The Persian poet Omar Khayyam expressed a similar deterministic view of the world in the concluding half of one of his quatrains: “And the first Morning of Creation wrote / What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.”

Indeterminism, on the other hand, though not denying the influence of behavioral patterns and certain extrinsic forces on human actions, insists on the reality of free choice. Exponents of determinism strive to defend their theory as compatible with moral responsibility by saying, for example, that evil results of certain actions can be foreseen, and this in itself imposes moral responsibility and creates a deterrent external cause that can influence actions.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...26/determinism

I think you're overthinking it.

This comes from a repeated idea we see on here where some theists accuse atheists of choosing to not believe in God (usually because they want to be immoral). They say that if atheists chose to they could snap their fingers and believe in God.

Many argue that its ridiculous to think one can choose what they believe. (choose to believe you have become an elephant. I contend no sane person can choose to believe what they want.)

We need a good definition of choice. For example, did you choose to believe in floors? Not me, I just always assumed that they exist. Is that a choice, or simply something that was never conciously considered?

Pretty much this is what i mean. I cant choose to belief (make a snap decision) in God anymore then i can choose to believe Adriana Lima is my girl friend.
You would have to ask others what they mean when they say i have a choice to believe in God because idk what they mean. Its like your floor, their was no choice afaik.

Can anyone link to a good neuroscience article on this?

I guess I will add my personal testimony, because I know no other way to reference an answer to this question.

I became a christian a long time ago, and rolled along well for a few years.

I backslid, as it were, about as bad as you can do it.

It all started with a girl, and a bad experience with a christian mentor. The girl, who I had a lifelong crush on since childhood, suddenly threw herself at me, and it proved too much. I was ashamed of being a christian, and realized it while I dated her. I therefore shelved my faith.

I then entered into a purely baccanalistic lifestyle for a period. If I wasn't at a rock concert, I was at a dance club, and if I wasn't at a club, I was in a casino, or at a party, or I was at a bookstore.

I don't even remember when I had started to think of myself as an atheist, or a secular humanist, but it must have been after I got my first computer and went online and was exposed to all of the freethought literature there, which I ate up.

In fact, I spent my down time playing chess on the internet chess club, and found the religion channel there.
I spent a lot of time there debating from the agnostic/atheist side.
I read Dawkins, Russel, Gould, et al.
Debates were in real time. Much fun.

A few years ago, I was flying, and it was the worst flight of my life. We hit a storm cell, and the turbulence racked us, and overhead bins opened with crap flying out, and I prayed.

I wasn't the only one.

I got to thinking afterward how unconscious the prayer seemed. Instinctual. Though I had never been faced with a situation like that before.

'There are no atheists in foxholes' was on my mind the whole time I was in Costa Rica.

I prayed!
I couldn't shake it.
Maybe I did believe. Maybe belief isn't a choice.
Did I fear God?

I started to really examine the little, often overlooked things of life.

Was I superstitious?

Did I not like to fly because I was afraid God was going to take me out for fighting against Him?

"Ok. Doggg. Curse the Holy Ghost right now and prove that you don't fear God."

Couldn't do it. Wouldn't.

I feared God.

It made no rational sense to me.
Certainly there were things, nagging issues that bothered me as a self-proclaimed atheist.
But despite a subscription to freethought today, despite the vehement objections, there was unfinished business between me and God.

And so I made a conscious decision to finish what I started years before.
I was going to attend church next sunday, and start to pray again, and read the Bible, and this time, walk boldly, unashamed-- I was going to live and walk by faith. And if God doesn't reveal Himself to me, I will walk away.

I know you are not to test God, but I prayed BIG, impossible prayers.
You would think I was setting it up to be a failure.
I stopped worrying completely. I only spoke confidence in God's promises.
If I was going to be embarrassed, it was going to be because God's Word failed and that it was not true.
It wasn't going to be because I didn't have faith.
I was willing to be humiliated (just once!) by my faith.
And I really feel like that is the line that most cannot cross.
I also believe now that that is the line you need to cross in order to meet God in a powerful and real way.

I won't go into detail about the prayers, but God made the impossible possible.
Horrific and unresolved situations that had caused me worry and stress had cleared themselves up.
Physical ailments all but disappeared.

I could not argue against a demonstration of the power and love of God.

I took care of God's business, and God did His part, and took care of mine.

There are two relevant scriptures here:

So, did I choose to believe, or simply choose to live by faith?

I don't know if there is a difference, really.

Yes it is. The actual clicking factors in your brain might not be a choice, but you always have the choice of investigating and researching...and the choice of making a hypothesis to challenge...thus you always have the choice of shaping your beliefs.

I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I have long since lost count on the times I have researched an issue and found myself to be wrong based on the available evidence.

You also have the choice of instead trying to challenge your belief, to try and affirm them...and this is extremely dangerous; If say a hypothetical person A believes the world is secretly run by shapeshifting lizardmen, then it is very, very easy to affirm this belief...because it is a belief that is worded in a manner as to make all evidence fit. If he/she instead tries to challenge them...it is almost a foregone conclusion that the belief will be found wanting.

I agree with everything you say here, but disagree that this qualifies for "choosing your beliefs". You can choose to seek evidence for your beliefs, but you can't know in advance whether the evidence you find is going to be for or against them. That's why if a person decided to look for evidence for/against the existence of god, they might either believe or disbelieve in god in the end of that quest, depending on the type of evidence they find. So, they haven't actually chosen to believe in god.

As for affirming one's beliefs, I agree that this is something you can choose to do, precisely the way you explained it. Though, confirmation bias is most of the time a pretty automatic process too, so you don't even have to put all that much effort.

I disagree. Nothing anyone outlines in an attempt to justify that position ever goes any further than explaining how actions are supposedly choices, as if it's supposed to follow that because actions can affect beliefs, the beliefs are choices.

At best, all you can assert is that "investigation" is a choice. That's not the same thing IMO.

No choice then.

It is not a choice to believe something. Can you make choices that lead you to eventually coming to a particular belief? Of course you can. You can decide to take art history classes, and through them come to believe that Cezanne's techniques in dimensional representation were as important to the development of Cubism as anything Picasso ever did (for example).

However, as a pure intellectual exercise it is not possible to choose to believe. If you disagree, I challenge you to decide that you have $37,456 in your pocket. Let us know how that works out.

This question must be split into two, IMO. Firstly, if a deity exists as, say, the deity of the Christian bible as motivating an answer. Secondly, if a deity does not exist and we look to our understanding of the human brain and the like.

For the first question, I think the bible is fairly clear in that it indicates free choice and that people do have the ability to believe or not believe. But I am not a biblical scholar, so maybe that is contentious.

For the second, the question of god is irrelevant. It is just the question of what does it mean to choose to believe anything? God is just an example of one thing we ask if we can choose to believe. The answer ties into the freewill vs determinism debate pretty closely, I think, but certainly no more special than "can we choose to believe horses or unicorns exist"

Worth a read for the entertainment if nothing else:
http://www.philosophybro.com/2011/02...free-will.html

People lie to themselves all the time. Just telling yourself that you believe you will get out of debt doesn't mean that you do believe that.

A belief is a reflection. You look back and recognise what you believe or don't believe.


As others have said: choosing what kind of data to expose yourself to is not the same as choosing what to believe. I can choose not to investigate any further and therefore avoid information that may change my belief - but that's separate from the belief itself.

You can only reflect on your beliefs. You can't dictate them.

I disagree. I think it is possible for belief to be a choice. Your example does not rule out choice for belief in all situations.

Imagine for example that you are a dictator in a world with both dictatorships and democracies. You might well observe that dictatorships prove ultimately less stable and less effective in providing for the welfare of the citizens, but because of the personal power and privilege which you would have to forego to create a democratic system you instead choose to focus on elements of dictatorships that are successful and elements of democracies that create difficulties. Eventual you could rationalize yourself to a belief that your system was for the best even though you would have concluded the opposite if you were not in the privileged position.

A theistic example would be a person who had received sufficient inspiration from God to conclude that He existed but who realized that s(he) would have to make some life choices that were inconvenient to respond fully to that influence. To prevent that, s(he) might expose themself to atheistic venues and viewpoints as part of a program to rationalize away that obligation and to gain the license to make the more pleasurable choices.

With that in mind I voted "kind of" under the assumption that was where "sometimes" belonged.

How is that choosing the belief? You may eventually come to believe it to reduce cognitive dissonance - but that's again something that is not done conciously. Now, if you work through an argument and thereby realise you believe something - again - not a choice. The choice was to engage in the reasoning process - but the belief is a result of that.

Again: the choice is to add to one's data. There is no guarantee that the end result will be one belief or another. And some may say they don't believe, but really do, or say they do believe but really don't. You can only reflect on your position and see what it is.

I understand your point, but in neither case is there anything close to directly choosing to believe. Yes, you can choose a course of action that eventually, if followed, could lead you to come to believe in a particular thing. This is nit* the same as simply choosing to believe (IMO of course).


*unrelated: I just noticed that my Firefox spell check auto-corrected 'nto' to 'nit' instead of 'not.' I'm sure this is because of input from me, but it's still a little funny.

By surrounding yourself with certain data consciously you are in effect indirectly choosing the end belief. You see this all of the time with extreme cases of atheists and theists. They somehow have never come a cross a credible theists/atheist. The rationalize away every reason to listen/believe what the opposing side says.

When someone says "I cannot choose what I believe, it is not my fault that I have never seen a convincing argument from the other side", then you dig into what they have researched to find out that they only listen to side that already agrees with them. So them saying "I cannot choose what I believe" is disingenuous because they never put themselves in a position to objectively look at the opposing side.

A real world example. As many know I was once a YEC. I believed that the age of the earth was somewhere like 10,000 years old. My father is also a YEC. I had never really looked into the subject matter at all (I was too busy getting drunk, lol). When I came to this site I started to do a little research mostly looking at sites and such that my father recommended. All YEC sites. They of course affirmed what I already believed. Upon being pressed by the people in SMP I decided to read/listen to the links provided. After much research I changed my position. My father on the other hand has refused to read/listen to anything that I have sent him. He continues to make the same arguments that he has always made even though I have told him time and time again why the arguments don't even make sense let alone are valid.

My father is not a stupid person, but he makes the choice to continue to only read what already affirms his position. Thereby making a choice as to his final conclusions by surrounding himself with certain data. His mind can never be changed without supporting evidence, which he in effect is avoiding.

This is just one example of how someone can choose what they believe.

Thanks for posting that Doggg, that was a real encouragement.

I agree that our biases will often dictate what sources we look at (or refuse to look at it). But still, we must keep that separate from the belief itself.

Also, just reading sources that are of the opposite view does not dictate belief (I can read Christian theology for example and not believe it).

That might be fair. If I say I've never seen a convincing argument for something but I've never looked for one my bias may be directing what data I look at. I may be protecting myself from being exposed to data that might change my belief. But none of that changes the fact that my belief is not a choice. What I expose myself to may be a choice. And sometimes reading one thing makes one believe the opposite. We don't choose the belief. I became an atheist, for example, simply by not buying what they were selling in my early religious schooling. I'd never heard the term atheist or been exposes to "atheism". I just wasn't convinced by what I was being exposed to.

You've also been exposed to a lot of atheist writings and other religious writings and those haven't convinced you. Again, you study, then reflect on your belief!

No, he doesn't make a choice as to his final conclusions, though he probably increases the odds of having a certain conclusion. But he just as easily could just wake up one day and realise that he doesn't buy it anymore. It won't be his choice either way.

Nope: just what data they see!