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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wonder if religion/belief is really a choice?

253 replies

TheoriginalLEM · 12/10/2015 21:42

Please excuse my ramblings but i had this thought.

I would imagine that being "religious", be that Catholic, Muslim, Hindu or whatever is a choice, in as much as you choose your religion and or whether to follow it and to what degree.

But belief? What you actually truly believe in your heart of hearts - is there a choice in that?

I believe in God, am Catholic but not practising. I don't feel that i have ever made a conscious "choice" to believe in God and if i were to make an evidence based choice, well i probably wouldn't believe; but i do believe there is a God, i don't know what influence "he" has on my life and on those around me. I believe that "my" God is the same as the Gods of other religions. Its just the religion that is different, but the Gods are one and the same. I don't really know why i feel that. So whilst I believe in a Christian God, i believe that whoever other religions worship are a different version of the same God.

I don't know why - i just "know" and well, my reality is really all that counts to "me" isn't it. My world. my bubble, my perception. Just the same as all of us - it comes down to us as one single being, maybe that,s where i should be looking? If i was looking, that is.

Sorry none of that probably makes any sense outside my own head.

OP posts:
capsium · 14/10/2015 15:25

I couldn't possibly comment on the 'coffee' you 'claim' to be drinking, red, in an existence 'full stop' kind of way. You might be lying or hallucinating or be deceived by a product which claims to be coffee. I have no evidence to support your claim apart from your report...

AbeSaidYes · 14/10/2015 15:43

"How do you propose enforcing what you are advocating?"

I wouldn't attempt to enforce it but I do believe it is unfortunate that people who are given a religion as young children are not getting a choice to remain without religion as they were the day they were born.

I have been raised without a religion, or religion free, and I am not living in a cultural vacuum.

PacificMouse · 14/10/2015 15:52

red I'm sorry but you lost me completely there.
Are you trying to say that things don't exist unless you can see them/feel them like you do with your coffee? Confused

AbeSaidYes · 14/10/2015 15:55

"Thinking that there is no God is a belief though."

no - it's not.
An absence of God / belief /faith is not a belief.

PacificMouse · 14/10/2015 15:55

Abe can I ask, were you raised by parents telling you God doesn't exist?
Or that were saying that it might or might not exist, it will be up to you to decide as an adult. Here are the reasons why some people think God exist. Here are some reasons that some people think God doesn't exist?
For me the first is similar to parents saying to their dcs, God exist.
The second is leaving the door fully open both ways.

PacificMouse · 14/10/2015 15:58

Ok. Sorry I'm not going to engage on the discussion of whether not believing in God is a belief or not.
There are plenty of threads on that already.

But seen that you can't prove that something doesn't exist, saying that God doesn't exist has to be a belief as you can't prove it anyway.

I love how peoe who do g believe say that believing is a belief and therefore rubbish. But not believing isn't a belief so it's a much better truth for a better word.

MaidOfStars · 14/10/2015 16:02

Here are some reasons that some people think God doesn't exist?

What kinds of reasons are you thinking might be offered here, that aren't simply refutations of the "evidence" put forward by those who say Here are the reasons why some people think God exist?

There are no "positive" arguments that god doesn't exist. There is no "evidence" that god doesn't exist. The atheist position is that the evidence offered by theists isn't good enough for god's existence to be believed as true.

This is a very subtle but important point, and underpins the previous answers you've had re: the difference between what people think atheism means (God doesn't exist) and what it actually means (I don't believe god exists).

Thinking "there is no god" is a belief (sorry to disagree, Abe). But that's not what atheism is.

AbeSaidYes · 14/10/2015 16:08

in answer to Pacific.

I was raised without any religion.

I have no early memories of my parents sitting me down to lecture me on how god was a figment of the imagination or that it was something some other people believed.

There was no religion in my life. I was not christened. I did not go to church. It was something we ever talked about in the house or to other people because we didn't really know anyone for whom religion was a thing.

I was kept out of assembly during my early school years.
At 8 years old I had a close friend who was Catholic and went to church which I found interesting but didn't really have any effect on my life or relationship with her other than she wasn't able to come and play on Sunday mornings.

I do remember being in secondary school and the RE teacher asking us all to write down the lords prayer and then being very angry with me for not knowing it. She seemed not to understand that it was something that had been absent from my life, though by that time I was attending assemblies (can't remember if that was my choice or my parents) and so I did know it started with 'our father' ended in 'amen' and had something about trespassing in the middle.

My son has, up until now, had pretty much the same thing - though he did have a 'nativity' play in nursery and I haven't withdrawn him from assemblies - yet.

AbeSaidYes · 14/10/2015 16:14

"Thinking "there is no god" is a belief (sorry to disagree, Abe)."

well I have is 'no religion' and there is no God.

MaidOfStars · 14/10/2015 16:24

Your belief is that there is no God?

You don't hear many atheists arguing that (in a formal debate).

Go on then. Give me evidence to support that belief.

FWIW, I'm as atheist as they come but if I want the burden of proof firmly on the heads of theists, I avoid dogmatic statements about what is and what isn't.

MaidOfStars · 14/10/2015 16:26

(I promise, I didn't mean to sound so preachy)

redstrawberry10 · 14/10/2015 16:30

I'm sorry but you lost me completely there. Are you trying to say that things don't exist unless you can see them/feel them like you do with your coffee?

No, of course not. I am distinguishing between figments of my imagination, which no one can confirm, and things that aren't.

redstrawberry10 · 14/10/2015 16:31

well I have is 'no religion' and there is no God.

to say there definitely is no God is a strong assertion (of course, we have to say what we mean by God first. I can certainly say that a self contradictory god does not exist). But how do you know a god like object isn't hiding on Saturn?

AbeSaidYes · 14/10/2015 16:33

I do not believe in God. I do not think that people are born with a religion or a faith or a belief in God.
it's not my responsibility to provide proof - the burden of proof lies with those who do believe though I wouldn't bother asking a person who believes in God to provide evidence because I know they can't.

AbeSaidYes · 14/10/2015 16:35

"But how do you know a god like object isn't hiding on Saturn?"

A God like object? Or God?

redstrawberry10 · 14/10/2015 16:37

A God like object? Or God?

as I said, it depends on what you mean.

capsium · 14/10/2015 16:41

There is no burden of proof when you state beliefs since they are beliefs, by very definition they are unproven.

redstrawberry10 · 14/10/2015 16:46

There is no burden of proof when you state beliefs since they are beliefs, by very definition they are unproven.

I think the problem that atheists have with religious beliefs is that the strength of the belief doesn't scale with the evidence supporting the beliefs. We all have beliefs, some of which we would bet our lives on, and some we are really not committed to at all.

As you say, there is a complete lack of evidence for belief in God, yet some people believe in that with every fibre of their being.

AbeSaidYes · 14/10/2015 16:49

my whole reason or posting in the thread was not to prove a disbelief but to explain why I think being religious/ having belief in a god often isn't a choice because children are unfortunately assigned a religion by the family they are born into and so have no choice in the matter until they are old enough to reject what can sometimes be years of conditioning.

capsium · 14/10/2015 17:43

As you say, there is a complete lack of evidence for belief in God, yet some people believe in that with every fibre of their being

I would not say there is a 'complete lack of evidence', there is evidence from the books contained in the Bible, gnostic writings and historical works. Many Christians would also say they have experiencial evidence. There is just not the sort of evidence which is scientifically conclusive.

redstrawberry10 · 14/10/2015 19:52

I regard all those things as either a "complete lack" or close to it. Ancient writings or personal experience which can't be replicated reliably isn't evidence in my books, especially for extraordinary claims.

DioneTheDiabolist · 15/10/2015 01:00

I have a choice about how I frame my belief, but that ultimate belief itself seems pretty deep seated and hard to shake off.

Thank you for putting it into better words than I ever could Jasper.ThanksGrin

ApricotSorbet99 · 15/10/2015 06:40

Saying that god doesn't exist has to be a belief as you can't prove it anyway

You can prove it. Not with 100% certainty (nothing outside of mathematics can be proved to this degree) but certainly enough to make it the only viable conclusion.

"God" is definined by theists, not by atheists.

Once they've put a working definition on the table.....created the universe, answers prayers, sacrificed bimself on a cross, whatever...it is a matter of mere moments to show that such things are highly, highly, highly unlikely. That is as close to "disprove" as we can reasonably get.

On this basis, the beliefs inherent within Christianity have been disproven many times over. So much so, it's a bit embarrassing for our country that so many supposedly educated people claim to still actively believe in them.

Of course, as this thread shows, theists get out of that embarrassing situation by side-stepping actual definitions and relying on "I just feel it really, really deeply". (Impressing other Christians who have previously become unstuck on other similar threads).

Fine. How about if I felt (for no sensible reason) really, really deeply that a giant jellyfish called Fuckface resides on Pluto and telepathically listens to my thoughts? I am of course totally entitled to such a delusion, but would I be entitled to:

*Force, by law, every child to worship Fuckface daily?
*Have fellow believers in Fuckface sitting by right in the House of Lords?
*Use state funds to run schools in the name of Fuckface?
*Use emotional manipulation (DON'T BE RUDE ABOUT MY PERSONALLY HELD BELIEF IN FUCKFACE, YOU RUDE PERSON) to prevent my having to hear other people's opinions about whether Fuckface actually exists or not
*Pretend to have the deepest respect for all other worldviews and yet think nothing of declaring this a Fuckfacian nation, thus demonstrating the lie of my "respect"?

If any Christian (Muslim, whatever) thinks that no, my for-no-good-reason belief in Fuckface of Pluto should not entitle me to the above perhaps you will consider joining the National Secular Society so that we can remove your own version of Fuckface (Yahweh/Allah) from the lives of people who don't actually care to have him in it.

capsium · 15/10/2015 09:32

Apricot part of Christian belief includes the belief that God resides with and in those that believer in Him. So unless we (Christians) remove ourselves from society, your lives, you cannot remove our God from your life.

Do you actually want to ban people from sharing their beliefs? How would you propose to impose this?

Our laws in this society reflect the society at the time they were made. They remain the same until they are changed. It, quite rightly, as it is a serious business, takes a lot of public campaigning and lobbying to change a law.

I am not sure atheists / secularists are representative, in this respect, of what society at large wants. I know very few people who withdraw their children from worship, as is their right - our school informs us of this in their literature. If it were something that they thought caused any serious damage they would. The secularists and atheists on MN cannot be shown to be representative either. I have even read of people, willingly, being what they call 'cultural christians', they don't believe in God but like attending church / worship events for the community, ethos and nice music.

redstrawberry10 · 15/10/2015 09:37

I am not sure atheists / secularists are representative, in this respect, of what society at large wants. I know very few people who withdraw their children from worship, as is their right - our school informs us of this in their literature.

I don't do this for fear of stigmatizing my child.

Sharing beliefs is one thing. Giving special rights to one faith to do so in schools in another. You have many times stated that you are not for sharing beliefs, but feel that christianity should have a special rights in our society. Very different from sharing.