RE: Is belief really a choice?
March 23, 2013 at 1:30 pm
(This post was last modified: March 23, 2013 at 1:35 pm by everythingafter.)
(March 23, 2013 at 12:58 pm)Joel Wrote:(March 23, 2013 at 12:24 pm)CleanShavenJesus Wrote: Assuming we're talking about religious belief, of course it is a choice. It is our choice whether to believe in God or not.
How do you choose what you believe?
Determinism has probably been beaten to death on this site, but before that question can be considered, wouldn't we have to differentiate between decisions we make as sentient beings using reason and logic (or not in the case of religion) versus the larger theory that everything that has happened in the universe has led up to where we are right now, including our personal circumstances, which may have some bearing on what we believe or not?
As for the first kind, I definitely chose to be a nonbeliever because of the cumulative case I made against God's existence, particularly the Christian brand of religion. But from the theological perspective, Christians like to parrot this claim that God allows us to have free will so that we aren't slavish robots praising him out of compulsion. But I don't see what difference it makes whether we believe and praise God now or in heaven? According to believers, we either must bow the knee now so we can bow the knee in the afterlife, or else, we will face the fire. There are no other options from the Christian perspective. So, I hardly see how Christians can claim they or nonbelievers are exercising a free will bestowed by God. Where is the choice, for instance, to just live our lives and rot in the ground when we die? Where is the choice not to be caught up in this spiritual game that God has unwillingly tossed us into? Where is the choice to believe in some other God or follow some other belief system. How is free will granted by God free will at all so long as we are captives in this good versus evil chess match?
As for the more general view of determinism, which humans will probably be debating until the end of time, I'll let someone else take a stab at that.
Our Daily Train blog at jeremystyron.com
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We have lingered in the chambers of the sea | By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown | Till human voices wake us, and we drown. — T.S. Eliot
"... man always has to decide for himself in the darkness, that he must want beyond what he knows. ..." — Simone de Beauvoir
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." — Albert Camus, "The Stranger"
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We have lingered in the chambers of the sea | By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown | Till human voices wake us, and we drown. — T.S. Eliot
"... man always has to decide for himself in the darkness, that he must want beyond what he knows. ..." — Simone de Beauvoir
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." — Albert Camus, "The Stranger"
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