Do you control what you believe?

[Aroura]

if you aren't really technically even choosing what to have for dinner, how can you choose to question a belief?

At any rate, I don't think we choose belief or lack-of. I came to atheism very gradually at first, then all of a sudden near the end. Not quite an epiphany, just a quick realization. I didn't choose it, it just sort of happened to me.

I have studied books, videos, lectures, everything I can on determinism and free will, and due to the way my brain works I guess, have ended up a hard-determinist. I think ALL choice is an illusion.

I have to say accepting that thought was equally as difficult for me as discarding the notion of god.

What goes around coming around? Hard to see how "accepting a thought" is much different than "choosing to question a belief". Both of you seem to accept that there is a role for you to play in deliberation. Neither of you is saying: no thought is necessary, just relax and enjoy the ride. So I take it you must believe that when you really put some effort into it, the choice you make will be the one you are 'determined' to make. But so long as there is the possibility of getting it wrong, there is some freedom in the system. Perfect, god-like freedom? Of course not.

As sentient and sapient beings we are aware of multiple attractions and outcomes to avoid. I want to define 'free will" as the necessity of choosing between a plethora of relevant options, in most cases without certain knowledge of which outcome will please us most (or displease us least). If the actual choice I end up making is already determined by my DNA and environment, but I am unaware of what that choice may be, that doesn't really do me a fat lot of good. There is obviously enough freedom in the system for me to act in ways which are not what my DNA and environment would incline me toward.

From my perspective as a conscious being, I cannot be free from the necessity of choosing. Nor can I take a laissez faire attitude toward the task of choosing. I must expend some effort for any choice to get made. So long as I am constrained to participate and so long as I am unaware of what the the inevitable outcome should be, I remain -perhaps regrettably- free. Free to fuck up. Free to be disinterested. Free to be self-destructive. Free to join a movement and make their cause my own. Or .. free to accept uncertainty and the necessity of choosing for myself. Choosing the latter, I say I have free will.

No, accepting the thought was hard, but it wasn't choice. It would be like saying, breaking my arm was painful and the recovery was hard. The recovery isn't a choice, it just happens after you have a break. Sometimes it's easy or heals well, sometimes it's hard or heals badly. That isn't a choice you make. It's an effect after a cause.

Choice is something often implied in language, because the illusion of it is there.
I've read Sam Harris's The Moral Landscape, Daniel Dennett's Freedom Evolves (As well as watching TED talks on it, and watching other lectures, etc). These all influenced how I view the topic, of course. I used to firmly believe in free will.
I have no choice about how I view free will anymore, anymore than I have a choice on how I view god, but naturally now I realize I didn't before either! lol.

Just because we may be unaware of all of the factors that cause us to have no choice when faced with that plethora of options, giving us the appearance of having "chosen" one, it does not mean those factors aren't there. And if we are indeed part of a giant Rube Goldberg machine, without any real choice, that doesn't mean you give up and stop doing things. That isn't human nature.

At any rate, ultimately it matters little. Whether it is an illusion or not, we mostly all operate as if it were true, because humans evolved to need the idea of free-will. Well, IMO I should say, because I'm not saying this is 100% true, it's just what scientifically appears to be true, from what I know of it. Future scientific discoveries could indeed uncover evidence of true free-will.