Is belief and/or disbelief a choice?

[LostOne4Ever]

Kind of got into this in another forum but I thought it would make a good thread here.

ULTIMATELY, do you think belief/disbelief is a choice? I am not talking about something like "which denomination do you like best," but rather something like "do you A) hold claim X to be true, B) hold claim X to be false, C) neither hold claim X to be true or false, or D)whatever else may lay between."

Can you make yourself believe in something simply because you want to? Or is belief involuntary. Can you make yourself believe that there are really such things as Unicorns simply by wanting to believe and in a way that is more than just putting on an act?

Or, do we have no control over what we believe? You either believe or you don't.

FOR ARGUMENT SAKE, can we please accept the following definition of belief for this poll and discussion?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief

Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a conjecture or premise to be true.

3 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Neither belief nor disbelief are choices
	0 (0%)
	Belief is a Choice, disbelief is not
	2 (67%)
	Disbelief is a Choice, belief is not
	0 (0%)
	There is a component to belief/disbelief that is a choice, and a part that is not
	0 (0%)
	Both Belief and Disbelief are Choices
	1 (33%)
	I don't know
	0 (0%)
	I believe in beer!
	0 (0%)
	I like to vote!
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[rrneck]

1. Everyone has to believe in something or you lay down and die.

What to believe can get pretty complicated.

[LostOne4Ever]

2. For the Record

I do not believe belief or disbelief to be choices.

I did not chose to disbelieve. I did not chose to be a part of the most disliked demographic in this country because I wanted to. I certainly would not chose to (not) believe in something that would cause strife in my family merely by me saying what I (don't) believe.

If I had a CHOICE I would have chosen to be a pagan or polytheist out of my love of greek mythology. But I can't make myself believe in that simply because I want to...

I never had a choice, and I BELIEVE that is true for many believers and fellow non-believers as well.

[Act_of_Reparation]

10. Did you choose to believe that?

Sorry, couldn't resist

[deucemagnet]

3. OK, since I'm likely snowed-in in a state ill-prepared for snow, I'll play.

In the absence of evidence, disbelief is the default position, so how can it be a choice?

[WovenGems]

12. Indeed! n/t

[longship]

4. I don't know for sure.

I suspect that nobody knows the answer to your question. I also suspect that those who do are merely reporting their opinion, not based on informed data.

I suspect that this delves deeply into the free choice question, neurology, and evolutionary psychology. The first is guaranteed to get you into a fist fight in any philosophy department, the second likewise in any medical school, and the third in either the biology or psychology departments.

Myself, I think it is not a choice, but I have no hard data. I know that I've never believed in spite of my attending church for the first 13 years of my life.

Then there's the copious neurological data which seems to indicate that the brain is the physiological source of awareness. There goes dualism.

Evo-psych is dodgy, but there could be something there. Maybe all behavior is congenital. Who in the fuck knows how to test that? I guess one should ask Steven Pinker about that.

[Prophet 451]

5. EvoPsych is wildly speculative

Not to cast aspersions on my colleagues but even they admit that most of it is a wild-ass guess.

[longship]

8. Yes, it's got this testability problem.

But Pinker seems to like it. At least it isn't implausible that behavior is congenital. But how the hell does one figure it out?

I guess one makes wild-assed guesses.

[Prophet 451]

6. I don't think either are choices

Even Pascal (of the famous wager) recognised that one could not simply choose to believe or not. Even if belief is a result of internalised cultural learning, appropriation and ingroup identification, it isn't a choice made by the subject.

My grandmother (who raised me) was very quietly but devoutly Christian (when I say "quietly", I don't mean she hid her faith but religion is considered a deeply private matter here (UK) to the extent that it's considered over-familiar to ask about someone's faith who you do not know well) and she exemplified the very best teachings of Christianity (she spent her life caring for disabled and disturbed children). From her, I gained a respect for the teachings of Jesus but I turned out to be a Luciferian Satanist (in simple terms, I believe god to be a sadistic tyrant and Lucifer-called-Satan to be the wiser, fairer deity). At various times, I have read many faiths and attended church at the buildings of many. Yet none of them struck me as true in the way my current faith does. And I doubt that belief to be voluntary simply because it would be far easier for me to be either a follower of teh dominant faith or of no faith at all.

[rug]

7. The question contains the premise that belief or disbelief is a conclusion from known facts.

Which brings us to the question of epistemology.

Since methods of learning, tests of what constitutes acceptable knowledge, are a matter of choice, so are their conclusions.

I choose door number 5.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

9. My choice was not to choose

in the poll above, because I think, like most things, it can't be the same for everyone. I so suspect, however, that most believers haven't chosen to believe. They were indoctrinated at an early age and never seriously questioned it. I think many could choose to examine the evidence and, just as they realized that Santa Clause was not real, would realize the same about god. But for some, nothing could change their minds.

Many just cannot overcome something ingrained in them from childhood. These same people, I would bet all the money I have, if they had been switched at birth and brought up in a home of a totally different faith, would now be just as faithful adherents to the faith their substitute parents taught them as they turned out to be to the faith they were actually raised in. The geographic distribution of belief around the world surely proves that this would be true in the great majority of cases.

I, like LostOne4Ever above, did not choose to be an atheist. As much as religious people nowadays like to believe they are persecuted, they are part of a privileged majority. Even by some non-religious people they are seen as somehow superior to non-believers. Their belief is elevated to such a status that the organization leading this belief is not even expected to pay taxes. Their belief is considered "sacred," a status special status bestowed upon their belief system by their belief system.

I was raised by a Catholic dad and a Methodist mother, and everyone I grew up with believed in god. I wanted to fit in like every other kid. I tried extremely hard to believe in god. So many things in my life would have been so much easier if I did. But I simply did not. If I hadn't been told of the god idea, it would never have occurred to me to invent one.

The first time I told my mother that I didn't believe in god, she asked, "Aren't you afraid you'll be struck by lightening for saying that!?" You can imagine how isolated that made me feel, not least because the fact that she could even ask that question told me that she simply didn't understand me. How could she think I could possibly be afraid of the wrath of a nonexistent thing?

Being a non-believer in a world that treats religious belief as sacred is not an easy thing for a child. If I could have chosen to believe, I would have.

[cbayer]

11. I have pondered this question and had a few discussions with other members here.

I think it is a choice for some, but not for others.

I base this on my own personal experience in addition to exposure I have had to both believers and non-believers.

Like sexuality, I tend to think there is a spectrum and not a bright line.

Those on the ends of the spectrum appear to have no choice, whether they be believers or non-believers. They could not "choose" to become the other.

But for those in the grey areas (let's call them agnostics), there seems to be more flexibility and I think they might be able to choose - or they simply don't care.

I reject (once again) the comparison of religious beliefs to the belief in unicorns. IMHO, the analogy is only used to belittle and dismiss religious believers.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. You can choose to examine your belief or disbelief, which may alter it

I'd say that would be more likely to alter belief to disbelief than the other way round.

[rug]

15. That's probably true.

Social issues aside, it's the easier intellectual path.

[hrmjustin]

14. They are choices.