Is atheism/theism a choice?

[msrisotto]

Someone I follow on twitter posted this picture along with the line "atheism is not a choice"

I guess the point of it is that once upon a time (and to this day), unexplainable things were 'explained' as being acts of god. Now we know a lot more, science has investigated many of these things and increasingly, 'god' is out of the picture.

But i'm not sure this is the reason I don't believe in 'god'. I was indoctrinated brought up to be christian and can't remember actually believing any of it. I outed myself as atheist around the age of 12. Was that because I knew scientific theories? Or was it just because I didn't have that faith feeling? It wasn't a choice for me anyway. I just didn't believe. I have often thought how it must be reassuring to have faith of an afterlife, particularly when people close to me have died....but I don't. I can't make myself.

Is it a coincidence that scientists are generally atheist? Do they lack faith and go looking for answers in science? Or did an interest in science give them explanations that eliminated rational evidence of a god?

Is faith or lack of, a choice for you?

It wasn't a choice for me.

I never believed it when I was a child, ever. I refused to sing in assembly when I was about six and was told off by the teacher. I can remember thinking, 'You're an adult, this is obviously made up, you can't believe this?!'

Dp is a Christian and I respect that he does need to believe in something. I think some people would go mad if they saw this was all there was.

I think you can choose to believe in something.

What do you mean by up to date literature?

What did you mean by telling me to look at the history of science?

Nevermind, i've taken the thread off topic and I am more interested in the choice angle than the science/religion thing.

If you look at science throughout history, you will find a great many scientists were religious. Indeed Roger Bacon the man credited with introducing the Scientific Method to Europe in 13C was a friar. So to say that science and religion are incompatible is incorrect. For many scientists, having a religion is not and has not been a problem at all.

I don't think it is a choice. Or if it is, it's not a free choice.

Because you can't choose to believe in something if you don't think it is actually real.

However, you can choose to look more deeply into another person's beliefs, and accept that the outcome may be that you change what you believe.

I don't think science is compatible with religion - christianity of others. The scientific method requires evidence and there is none of a god. Religion relies on faith NOT evidence.

Sorry, the muslims were some the greatest scientists in history (this stopped with the conquest of their lands). The Catholic church, with its fear of dissent, did not approve of questioning minds, but Muslims are ordered by the Quran to study and question.

Msrisotto - having read your newspaper article I wondered if you're aware the Professor Lynn is well known for controversial statements on eugenics, particularly the links between IQ and race?
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2124100/High-IQ-linked-to-atheism-claim-attacked.html

I'm not really interested in Professor Lynn. I'm interested in peoples experiences of choice in their faith or lack of.

I think the default is agnosticism. How can you prove there is no God? Higher IQ is also linked to depression.

I was an atheist until my late 20s because I didn't believe that god existed. Then I believed. Neither was a choice.

I could have chosen to pretend to believe and vice versa. My actual beliefs weren't a choice.

Being an atheist is not a choice for me either. Like others I have trouble imagining how someone could get up one morning and 'choose' to believe in something. Suppose I got up and believed that kettles boiled better when not plugged in? or that stepping out of the window is perfectly safe? It seems a strange notion.

On the other hand, yes I see that someone could try to convince themselves that something was true if they wished it were badly enough. They could hang out with believers and avoid textbooks that might make it harder. Don't a lot of faiths encourage repetitive rituals - chants, prayers or bead counting etc - for people having doubts? to help them avoid thinking about it.

Cherrypi, you're right about agnosticism except that many of us who call ourselves atheist mean that we don't believe in god. Not that we believe he doesn't exist. The meanings of agnostic and atheist have blurred a little.

As alluded to above faith and reason are not incompatible, at least for Catholic Christians. I didn't wake up one morning and decide to believe something and I can use my reason to accept scientific theories about the world and the universe. The Pope is a chemist and a Jesuit - a member of the Catholic Society of Jesus. The Jesuits have always focused on academics, I think they have at least 8 years of study before they are ordained. I was just chatting to a Catholic nun this weekend, a Franciscan who is a midwife. She spent 38 years in Zaire practicing and also being the academic head of a Midwifery school and teaching. She told me one of the surgeons was a Jesuit.

For me, it's not a choice. I remember as a young child thinking that it didn't make sense - I asked why the bible spoke about Adam and Eve and yet we know we evolved from apes, so how could anyone believe the bible? I never got an answer. Plus the dinosaurs....
Whenever I meet someone who is religious, I am always genuinely surprised. (But don't show it of course!) I always feel surprised that in this day and age, someone still believes in the bible/whatever book it is. I just find it so odd.
However, I think my main issue is the following of a book that's been rewritten to suit others means. I would describe myself as agnostic - I believe there is something else going on, something we can't tap in to easily, but it doesn't involve places of worship and books that have been interpreted a certain way, for other's gain.

Don't a lot of faiths encourage repetitive rituals... ...for people having doubts?

I don't think so. AFAIK, chanting, repetition and prayer beads tend to be used in religions as a way to commune with god, rather than to avoid thinking about it.

I'm an ex-Catholic atheist, and so I'd say that I lost my belief/faith. I come from a religious family and my mother is always trying to get me to read books written by Christians who have overcome their doubts. This idea of having faith despite doubt is quite a strong tradition - the current CoE Archbishop has I think said something along those lines recently. It's quite hard to tell my mother that actually I don't have any doubts, I have fairly actively rejected my childhood faith because it just seems meaningless/ baseless to me now. I'm not sure I could just 'choose' to believe now, and if I did I think I'd feel hugely hypocritical.

Um ... Tinfoilhat, I think you'll find they've changed their mind about humans evolving from apes.

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/21c_pre_2011/evolution/evolutionhormonenervousrev1.shtml

Thanks SBGA! My question was worded as I remember asking it as a child, my main point being that we know we evolved, we didn't all come from one couple that were created.

Atheist here. It's not something with which I struggle or have any doubts about, it's my firm conviction. I'm sure there are sound psychological reasons why some people feel the need of religious faith, when there is not one single jot of identifiable or demonstrable evidence of any deity. I can absolutely understand why early humankind, with no insight into the workings of the natural world, found supernatural explanations for natural occurrences. But, we even now know where the 'god' centre is in our brains. We need to do the best we can in our small lives, secure in the knowledge that is enough and our last breath is final and marks the end of our existence. Knowing that gives me great comfort. One life on this beautiful earth should be enough for anyone.

You're welcome tinfoilhat! However we disagree insofar as I view it that we did come from our own species and not some random primordial soup

Aaah, you're so funny SBGA!

"Um ... Tinfoilhat, I think you'll find they've changed their mind about humans evolving from apes."

What that website says is that humans didn't evolve from existing species of apes like gorillas and chimps. No biologist every thought that though, so nobody 'changed their mind'. Humans do share a common ancestor with existing species of apes, and that common ancestor was an ape or at least ape-like.

Thank you NotDavidTennant.

I don't think that it is a choice for most people. It might be a choice for a few who are on the fence and research in a particular direction. For example some fence sitters go on the Alpha course and are therefore choosing to be exposed to Christian ideas. However DH is a firm atheist and went on the Alpha course. It didn't do anything to make him change his mind.

But also those with a firm conviction either way are unlikely to seek out opportunities to change their mind. For example I have a close friend who is a committed Christian and suggested that I read the Bible to find God. I haven't read the Bible as I don't think that there is a god and didn't want to waste my time.

I don't think that looking at the History of Science is going to get anyone very far in terms of whether religion is compatible with science. The null hypothesis and the importance of falsifiability in science is really a 20th century idea (as far as I can tell). It does underpin much of the scientific method now and is really a cornerstone of science. Therefore looking at historical scientists from before that philosophical breakthrough and using them to prove that science is compatible with religion doesn't make sense.