(June 26, 2018 at 11:05 pm)JairCrawford Wrote: I understand your analogy but faith typically deals with things not concretely seen. You can provide visual proof that 1+1=2 with the apples and thus I would have to either ignore it or willfully delude myself in order to ignore that evidence and choose to believe 1+1=3.
But when dealing with things unseen, we can't really disprove them.
And with this right here you've actually answered your own question. Faith by definition requires one to believe without proof. To accept that things which are unseen and cannot really be disproved are real. To willfully delude oneself into accepting that the unseen which cannot be proven is real.
This by definition is a choice. Even if you were indoctrinated from birth, it is still a choice. In those cases its just a choice that someone else made for you but it was still a choice.
Accepting evidence that can be repeated is our default state of being. Even primates understand that 2+2 does not equal 3 and will get visibly upset if you trick them and make things seem otherwise. Faith, in any reasonably educated being is therefore a choice. Therefore not having faith for any being educated enough to know such a concept exists, is also a choice.
I choose to accept that there is no evidence that god exists. And I choose to reject theism because of it. Likewise every theist is a theist because a choice was made either by them or by some elder relative.
