I've said something like, "I can't just stop everything and choose to believe in the Christian God unless I fake my belief.. and God would see right through me" probably 4 or 5 times since I've been posting here. I've seen others make similar statements a countless number of times. IIRC, posts like that have gone unanswered or non-answered by theists every single time.

How about it, care to take a stab in this thread?

Or more specifically...

Christians: Can you choose to believe in Allah right now?

I think this topic has been danced around because it's a tough one so this may be long.

"I can't just stop everything and choose to believe in the Christian God unless I fake my belief.. and God would see right through me" <-- true. It's impossible to fake anything with God. Just given the attributes that we have already assigned to God, (can create man from dust, can flood the entire planet) I'm pretty sure He could see right through you. Kind of like Santa Claus.... ya know.. "He knows if you've been bad or good".
I'm pretty sure that a large number of Christians dodge this subject because they are afraid their lack of belief and/or faith may expose them to this very thing.

"Can you choose to believe in Allah right now?" Can I? First I would have to develop a "want to believe" possibly derived from a perceived "need to believe". Or I could take this on solely as an experiment... much like Lee Strobel did with Christianity. I would gather as much written material as I could possibly get my hands on and it wouldn't come from an internet poker site either. I wold have to speak with many of those who do follow Allah...possibly to the extent of going to a country that largely followed Allah so I could learn from multiple generations. After weighing all the evidence, it would be then and only then that I could determine if Allah exists or not.

Belief = Choice? We could play semantics all day with that one. I can make a choice to not believe but I don't think you can make a choice to believe unless you rely on faith.
I'm not a believer in God. I'm a knower. (go ahead...make fun)
The difference to me is that I don't say I believe because that sounds like a choice was made based solely on faith and not knowledge.
Let's give an example using cards in Black Jack.
How many times have you heard a player at the table say "I don't think he has it" referring to the dealers hole card? LOTS! They are making a choice to believe or not believe solely on faith alone and desired outcome. Now the guy sitting at third base is a card counter and knows the true count is at +7 with a G base deep into a 2 deck shoe so he KNOWS that there is only 1 more Ace in the deck and there are only 3 more 10 values, 2 of which are up on the table so the mathematical odds are 1 in about 15 (undealt cards left) so he makes a decision based on FACTS. That dealers hole card is what it is... no matter if the guy "feels lucky" or doesn't believe he has it. However... when the cards are revealed... if the guy was right he cheers and says "I KNEW he didn't have it.. I had a feeling". He made a choice to believe in something based on nothing more than a feeling.
Can you do that with God? Yup. Does it make it right or true? Nope.

Can you convince yourself that what you choose to believe in is, in fact, true? Personally I don't think so. Deep down... you know if you are faking it or not.

So in short (too late, I know) IN MY OPINION.... no you can not choose to believe in anything. Not truly believe... you can fake it.. if it's not real important you can pretend. I can say I believe in Bigfoot or UFO's just because I don't really care either way but I don't think that's the kind of belief you are referring to.

What point are you trying to make, or what question are you trying to ask?

You've stated your paradigm and formulated a question that seems rhetorical.

If I am understanding it correctly your post is saying that belief on your part would require suspension of non belief. Am I right? That thus far evidence that supports non belief is so strong that it would be rationally unjustifiable to believe.

if so, that is just a statement of your position, and if you want a response, mine would be. "Okay".

Is what you are really asking: "Why on the Christian world view would I be held accountable/burned in Hell, when all I am guilty of is having not been subject to any evidence that would make my belief rational"? If you are asking that, I assume that by asking you are implying that the absurdity of you burning in Hell for your rational stance is enough to demonstrate that Christianity is absurd.

Or are you just telling us that you don't believe?

I agree with OP, but think it is equally true for Christians. In general I would posit that trying to consciously change one's beliefs for things that don't have immediate and concrete earthly verifiable is very difficult for anyone.

Personally, I have been told many times to "take a leap of faith" and "search openly for God and you will find him" and other such things. I don't think people who say this appreciate how enormously difficult it would be for me to genuinely do this. I could fake the motions, but since I simply do not believe in god with about the same surety that I believe my handle on these forums is uke_master I couldn't genuinely make a move to the opposite. And, dare I say, could a genuinely religious person actually suddenly make a conscious decision to genuinely believe in a naturalistic world view.

That said, people CAN obviously change their mind over time. Argument, reason, evidence and the like has moved atheists to theists and theists to atheists. But it takes some time and can't be just "decided" on, at least not very easily.

Yeah, it's partially the burning in hell thing you mentioned.

Mainly, it is for times in this forum when a Christian says something to an atheist/non-Christian (usually trying to either convert, or question their non-belief) and the person replies back that they cannot just choose to believe. The Christian has never successfully countered that point. Usually they just ignore it, or leave the thread or something, which is why I started a thread about the issue. I want to see if Christians agree.

I'm sure I could not just chose to be an athiest. I can't chose to believe in catholasism anymore either. However It would be much easier to say I chose either and participate accordingly. So I would say practice is a choice and belief isnt.

Practice is only good for proving yourself to other humans. Is that what Christians are most concerned with? Is that what they want out of me when they ask me to drop everything and start believing in their God?

It might be true for Christians, but it is not equally true. If it were, we would not just see conversions both ways, but the conversions would be in similar percentages and would occur for similar reasons.

But that's not the case. In fact, when we stop to look at it, we see the exact opposite. Conversions away from Christianity happen much more frequently and, for the most part, tend to happen for rational reasons. Conversions into Christianity tend to be out of ignorance or for emotional reasons and they rarely happen at all.

I am not quite sure how one quantifies either of those claims, but my point with the saying it is "equally true" was just that it is true that it is hard for anybody to start believing something they don't believe.

Ahh, makes sense.

I guess my issue (and why I started the thread) is that it is believers who ask the impossible task of instantaneously changing beliefs (our eternal fate depends on it, etc.), and they have never backed up the reasoning behind their request when asked. In fact, many (most? they're not posting in this thread, so I don't know) Christians disagree and think that belief IS a choice.

I would really like to hear from more Christians about this. If you think belief is a choice, and non-Christians could start believing in the Christian God right away, post why you think this is. Conversely, if you think belief is not a choice, why do you tell us God expects us to start acting like we believe in him (whether we really believe in him or not)?

Everything that we do, we do it with a reason. As long as the reason is not satisfactory, we will not do it. Now changing your belief is most of the time like changing the color that you like: You like orange and now you want to start to like blue. The reason is usually not convincing cause you are still favouring a color. For that you change your favorite color, their must usually something extraordinary happen. This means everyone could right now choose another belief, if he had a satisfactory reason. For example you could right now choose another car, but as long as you don't have a satisfactory reason, you won't do it, you will keep driving your old car.

I don't follow your reasoning. First, liking orange does not preclude me from liking blue. Either I like blue or I don't. If I like orange, wearing blue for the rest of my life isn't going to change that I like orange.

IME, there is already a satisfactory reason to follow Christianity...community. But I could say the same for Mormons, Muslims, and JW's. I see in each group a sense of solidarity, commitment to family and community, and generosity towards those in need. But I don't believe any of their faith claims. So how does one like me (or Our House) obtain a satisfactory reason for choosing belief?

Upon thinking of this further I'm gonna say it may be possible to influence belief with choices in practice. Ie you can't just chose to believe in the Muslim faith however if you make a conciouse choice to practice and explore the entire mulsin experiance and belief system you may find something that inspires you to change your beliefs that would have never been possible without your initial choice.
Substatute Muslim for any belief obviously.

Yes, you can go through motions that would obtain a belief later on in life, but I thought this was understood. It's not the same as outright changing your beliefs.

Look, my friend John has the ultimate religion. Better than any religion you've ever come across before. Oh yeah, and it's also true! All you have to do is dedicate the next 10 years of your life to understanding what John has to say. You can start believing anytime now...

(BTW, how you feel about my friend John is how I feel about Islam or Christianity)

I would say we are more or less asking the same thing of theists. We might want them to change beliefs that they have fervently believed to be the absolute truth for the entirety of their lives, perhaps with various religious experiences which ipso facto demonstrate to them the undeniable veracity of their beliefs. This is certainly not necessarily an easy thing to do.

Personally, I think the atheists have much the better side of the argument with reason and evidence behind it. However, just because we might have the better side objectively - something many would dispute - still doesn't mean it is anything remotely close to an easy transition from theism to atheism for many people.

Except, of course, reason suggests you fabricated the thought experiment of John just to prove a point, and so there is no compelling reason to think it is true. This is certainly not true of Christianity and its billions of followers.

Feel free to replace John for a religion with lots of followers and carry on.

EDIT: Although I personally feel there are great deal of reasons to fabricate a "real" religion, so whatever.

Theists are in a much different position (as you said in the <snip> part). All we have to do is play a game of "which doesn't belong" for theists to see the err of their thinking*. It's really a shame to see smart people use rational thinking throughout their entire lives and then suspend that rational thinking when it comes to the cognitive dissonance of their religion. Of course, I also believe this should exclude those people who have had very strong and very specific personal experiences.

But again, this goes back to what I said before about conversion rates in each direction, and the accompanying reasons for the switch.

*I'm not saying this to be snide or anything. Even if Christianity is true, I'd maintain that the large majority of people who got it right got it right for the wrong reasons.

In the same sense that losing a pinball game is a choice...you could certainly argue why this was not what you desired, but you'd be hard pressed to show that you had no say in the matter, and you certainly can be held accountable.

The question is somewhat of a red herring, if you ask me. A bit like asking if falling over was unavoidable (the herring being that "was falling over unavoidable" is not the same question as "is falling over unavoidable").