Your perception of theists

[Catholic_Lady]

blah, blah, blah

[Paraphrasing mine.]

Hey, Catholic Lady.  How come you no vote in my poll poll?

http://atheistforums.org/thread-34462.html

Will do!

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Oh I must have misunderstood you then. I thought you were saying that an Atheist can't really say he has no control over the fact that he does not believe God is real unless he informs himself, investigates, etc.

You said people have no control over what they believe, but you still admire them for investigating (and pyrrho tried to make the stupid comparison between admiration for inanimate objects and sentient beings that supposedly have free will).

I'm saying people do have control. Not necessarily complete control, but they are in control of factors that, in one way or another, lead to their conclusions. That was the point of my bullshit about investigations.

It's not about the result. If you come to the correct conclusion then obviously you have no choice over what your conclusion ought to be. Just the same way you don't get to decide that the Earth is spherical and not flat. But the control of whether the investigation is done scientifically, or accurately is in the hands of the one doing the investigation. Thus, you have some control over what you believe, because you're in control of the investigation. If for example you do a bad investigation of whether the Earth is round, by simply looking into the horizon, then your conclusion is going to be wrong. But you're the one in control of that conclusion. Perhaps not in a direct sense, but in doing a poor or scientifically flawed investigation you've come to the wrong conclusion about the Earth's shape.

Likewise, if you don't investigate at all, and simply deny the Earth's spherical-ness, you're still in control of that. You're in control of whether you bury your head in the sand or whether you seek more knowledge. If you believe in free will, in any form, then it's absurd for you to say you do not have control of your beliefs, because you have control over whether to investigate and how that investigation goes. This was my beef with you earlier when you said people have no control over what it is they believe. They do. Most people don't just pick a belief out of a hat, ofcourse. It's more indirect than that. But they do have control over what they believe through their desire to investigate truth, and how they go about ascertaining that truth.

Sorry it took me a while to understand exactly what you meant. Yeah, if you put it that way I agree. I guess I should have added that in  when I talked about people not having control over their disbelief in God.