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Original poster

Do you CHOOSE to believe...

29 replies

EasterBunnylicious · 23/03/2008 21:34

DH and I had a debate in the car to my MIL's about belief, or you could call it faith, in things like God, fairies, etc. He says that it's not a chose you just believe or you you don't based on evidence. I say that you make a choice to believe in something, obviously that choice may be affected by your past experiences or social aspects, but you choose to believe.

E.g. I am an atheist, I don't believe in God but I could easily change my mind, nothing would happen, I wouldn't be presented with any new evidence or anything I would just change my mind and choose to believe in God, and once I had made that decision I expect that I would start to see things in a new light that would reinforce that belief. But it would have to be a choice, how else would it happen.

DH doesn't have an alternative explanation but he doesn't see it as a choice.

What do you think?

OP posts:
ScienceTeacher · 24/03/2008 07:34

Your DH is right. It's not something you can switch on and off.

Also, the Christian faith is a journey - you don't "get" it all on day 1.

fireflytoo · 24/03/2008 07:44

But the nature of your faith can change dramatically.

I grew up christian and did Biblical studies at university. I have also on my own made really deep studies of certain faith issues in the Bible. The more my intellect got involved the shakier my faith became. And then I had a personal experience which stamped that faith (in the veracity of the Bible anyway) quite thoroughly into the ground. I still feel I have some sort of a relationship with God, but it is not the institutionalised religion I grew up with. However it is still rooted firmly in the groundwork laid when I was a child.

I talked to my DD1 (15) last weekend about God and her understanding as I have not brought my girls up as christians. She does believe in God but her understanding and views are very different from mine... much more Buddhist for some reason. I am not a Budhist.

I have therefore come to the conclusion I think, that even though you can make choices, they are invariably based on experience and knowledge.

TrinityTheProgressingRhino · 24/03/2008 07:56

deffo a choice, crazy one but still a choice

Podmog · 24/03/2008 08:02

Message withdrawn

Original poster
EasterBunnylicious · 24/03/2008 09:10

I agree it's a journey, hence my point that when you do believe you look for things that reinforce that belief. But sure the whole point of faith is that there is no evidence (not irrefutable evidence anyway) that's why it's called faith.

You do have things that are irrefutable, e.g. 2+2=4, you don't choose to believe that, it's just the way it is. But belief in God (or other things, fairies, gnomes, aliens etc.) is surely a choice. There are things that can be construed as evidence for an existence in God (alleged miracles, which can potentially have other more mundane explanations) but you have to make the choice to see these things as evidence for the existence of God.

Surely in order for me to go from being an atheist to a believer (what's the opposite of atheist? Theist?) I would have to make a choice to believe. If I am sitting around waiting for a miracle or some other proof of God's existence that's not faith is it? Isn't belief just synonymous with opinion which is sure a choice, admittedly one shaped by experiences in life?

FWIW this isn't an argument for the existence or not of God (although I guess in a way it is because if you believe in God maybe you don't see it as a choice).

I used to believe in God btw, I grew up in a religious family, and we ended up in a born-again Christian church, with ultimately led to the dissipation of my belief. But I believe that I choose not to believe in God now.

OP posts:
FAQ · 24/03/2008 09:13

I don't know - I knew an atheist who came to our Alpha course with the aim to "pick holes in everything and prove it's all nonsense"........that was about 8yrs ago - and he's now training to be ordained !

Greyriverside · 24/03/2008 10:03

I've never understood 'faith' if it means without any proof at all. I know some things are true because I have seen them or they can be deduced from what I have seen.

There are thousands of other things that I 'believe' are true beyond reasonable doubt. For example I've not personally seen the pyramids, but for them to be fake would require a huge and pointless conspiracy. Same for viruses.

I can have 'faith' in a person, but that really just means that having known someone many years my experience tells me that they would act in a certain way. It's a prediction based on facts.

So I'd say that to believe in something without any proof you'd have to choose to do so. And I have never worked out how someone would do that.

totalmisfit · 24/03/2008 16:36

yes and no. i'm on the christian journey and have been, properly at least for about 6 months now. I made a decision not to try and force it, dp and i have been attending church every week more or less and trying to learn about Jesus' teachings directly by reading the bible for ourselves. So far, i don't yet have faith, but I would like to get to a point where i do have it. So you could say i've decided to try to have
faith.

But that initial catalyst, the thing which sent me back to church (where a couple of weeks beforehand i would have to have been dragged kicking and screaming into the building) was not a decision. It was a feeling i woke up with one day, probably due to stressful life circumstances. But i've always had stresses of one kind or another in my life, so i do wonder 'why now?' and that thought only strengthens my drive to explore christianity for myself.

princessosyth · 24/03/2008 16:46

I don't think you can choose to believe. I was having this conversation recently with my friend who is a devout catholic. Ds missed out on getting into a church primary school as we are not church goers, one of the secondary schools also gives priority to church families. I was saying to my friend that we will probably be in the same boat 5 years down the line as I don't want to be a hypocrite by going to church just to get a school place and she said that I wouldn't be a hypocrite if I chose to believe and that as I was christened I should start going to church and believing! .

I'm not an atheist, I suppose I'm agnostic, I'm not sure that I can just suddenly choose to believe in something that I'm not sure I believe in if that makes any sense!

Cammelia · 24/03/2008 16:52

I don't see it as a choice, more as something makes sense

Cammelia · 24/03/2008 16:52

Sorry, something that makes sense

SueBaroo · 24/03/2008 17:28

yes, I think you make a choice. It's a perspective thing, I suppose.

From God's perspective, faith is a gift, it isn't something we can possibly do alone. But from our perspective, we have evidence, brains, will and emotions, and we make a choice based on all those things, in matters of religion as much as anything else.

ScienceTeacher · 24/03/2008 17:31

You can choose to live a new life in Christ, or to continue to live your old earthly life.

InLoveWithSweenyTodd · 01/04/2008 10:21

I don't think you can suddenly choose to believe in God.
Also if you already believe in God your faith is put to a test daily, and you get doubts. Doubt and faith go together IMO. As a writer said once "faith without doubt is dead faith"

cestlavie · 01/04/2008 15:56

As I think Stuart Chase said "for those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible."

That very aptly sums it up. I think even St Augustine said a belief in God cannot be reached by reason alone but requires a leap of faith. To my mind, making a leap of faith is not a question of choice but a question of belief. I can no more choose to 'believe' in God, than I can to 'believe' that there are fairies at the bottom of the garden or that people can perform telekenesis.

I can certainly decide that I am going to act as though there is a God/ fairies/ telekenesis but that is very different to belief. Belief is the mental acceptance that something is wholly true and valid. In the absence of utterly irrefutable evidence and/or a leap of faith, to me at least, it's not something you can choose.

UnquietDad · 01/04/2008 16:02

Some people make a choice, I think. Others have just grown up with a religious background and just believe. Some believe despite all the evidence, others think evidence doesn't matter.

If nobody had ever told you about "God", would you know what to believe in and how to do so?

Myself I see it as something that makes no sense whatsoever. Which is why I choose not to believe in God, for the same reason I don't believe in Zeus, fairies, leprechauns or the Celestial Teapot.

Sorry to poke my heathen head in here again, but it's fun to do so from time to time.

OverMyDeadBody · 01/04/2008 16:17

Everything we do in life is a choice though. What we believe in or don't believe in fall into that surely?

Yes, experience, cultural norms and what we've grown up being told have an influence on the realms of what choices we make and don't make, but it's still a choice.

How could it not be a choice?

Faith is the choice, or active decision, to believe in something despite a lack of evidence proving it, or that just isn't true.

I choose not to believe in anything that makes no sense or isn't true.

UnquietDad · 01/04/2008 16:19

It is still a choice. I can't choose to believe in (chooses random fictional deity) Zarg, though, because nobody has yet told me what Zarg is or what it does. If nobody had told me what God was and what it did, I wouldn't ever have believed in it in the first place. (Which I did. Once. Sort of.)

IorekByrnison · 01/04/2008 16:40

Depends on the denomination: Catholicism is a matter of faith revealed by God, C of E is a lifestyle choice.

I'm joking of course, but having spent some time in churches of both denominations for various reasons, I think there is a tiny grain of truth in there.

I have come across people for whom faith is the same as knowledge - there is no choice about it, it is simply what they know to be true.

On the other hand, I think that there are many people who practise Christianity because they believe that its teachings are good, and that it is a good thing to pray/go to church regularly etc for all sorts of reasons, but not necessarily because they believe that "Jesus was born of a virgin" or whatever.

What was it Sebastian Flyte said in Brideshead Revisited about believing because it was "a nice story"? I always think of it when this kind of discussion comes up but can never quite remember.

UnquietDad · 01/04/2008 17:43

"there is no choice about it, it is simply what they know to be true"

You see, in my world, we call that "arrogance"...

IorekByrnison · 01/04/2008 19:07

Could be arrogant, could be deluded, could be barking. Or none of the above. Doesn't make any difference to whether it is a "choice".

TheFallenMadonna · 01/04/2008 19:13

I'm not sure how it's a choice. I just believe. I've said before that it isn't in the least rational. Actually, the more I learn about psychology, the more I wonder just how much of our cognition is truly rational, but in this case I am accepting of my irrationality.

Greyriverside · 01/04/2008 19:35

TheFallenMadonna, you say "that it isn't in the least rational" which is surely not the usual position that people who have faith take. It seems rational to me that you accept the irrationality of it (which sounds like a joke and isn't)

IorekByrnison mentions "people for whom faith is the same as knowledge - there is no choice about it, it is simply what they know to be true"

That's the position that I don't get and really don't understand.

I really like the color blue. I see no rational reason for prefering one color over another so that's irrational (but harmless). However I don't say that it's really better than other colors, I don't expect others to agree with me.

I also have a powerful phobia about something that can be quite distressing. I am perfectly aware that the object is harmless and I wouldn't dream of saying "I know it's true that it's going to hurt me"

So I think I am saying that irrationality in certain areas is not unusual and maybe not even wrong, but the next step, that this makes it TRUE and everyone should agree, is where it goes off the deep end - at least in my eyes.

IorekByrnison · 01/04/2008 21:25

The question of how the universe came into being or why it exists - the chief dividing line between atheists and believers - has no rational answer because it lies outside the realms of rational enquiry. It is not necessarily less rational to say "it was created" than it is to say "it came from nowhere". It is the certainty of either that is irrational in my opinion.

All of us accept certain things as true either through consensus or because they feel true, rather than because we have weighed up the evidence for and against. I know with certainty that I love my child. This has nothing to do with evidence: I just know it to be true. I imagine that this is a similar kind of knowledge to that which people of faith have in relation to their god.

UnquietDad · 01/04/2008 23:00

I know what you mean about those who have certainty, Iorek (and if you read "The God Delusion" you'll see that even Richard Dawkins doesn't preach certainty). Science always leaves open the possibility of being wrong. That's what makes it great, and so unlike religion.

But I don't make precisely the distinction you do about the dividing line between believers and atheists. For my part, I need to be convinced before I believe in something. Actively. It's not a question of both needing equal conviction, or of my automatically, by default, believing that "the universe came from nowhere" if I don't believe in a Creator.

I just don't believe in God in the same way I don't believe in Zeus or fairies. I don't see the need to "buy the most popular brand on offer", nor indeed any, and so I save my (spiritual) cash.