Choosing to/not to Believe? Not Possible?

[JairCrawford]

Hey guys! First of all I apologize for not hanging around much since I first joined. Life has been hectic.

This is an honest question as I'm genuinely curious what perspectives you all have on this. I recently read an article where a Christian apologist used the argument to atheists that they "choose not to believe in God". This claim was promptly met by much backlash in the comments, with many athiests claiming that such a thing was impossible.

In fact many of them went on to assert that we do not, and cannot by definition, choose to believe something.

Now this is very interesting to me because I have heard this argument from certain Christian denominations before (namely Calvinism, which I am not of that camp) but from the inverse idea that one cannot choose to believe God because only God can choose us. Now I am a Christian but fall under the Arminianism camp that believes in free will and the ability to choose. This was the first time I had heard a similar argument from the athiest viewpoint.

I'm puzzled by the notion though, because to assert that we do not or cannot choose what to believe is essentially akin to saying that we are incapable of willfully embracing faith (and by proxy, incapable of willfully rejecting a religious belief we've grown up into), no?

This isn't meant to be a challenge or apologetic. I'm honestly intrigued as to what the consensus is here on this.

[AFTT47]

Can you choose to believe 1 + 1 = 3? Seriously?

What if I placed a single apple on a table and you did the same. Then we each counted, and found there are now two apples on the table.

Could you have so deluded yourself by choice into believing there should now be 3 apples on the table so that you would now be astonished to see that there are actually only two?

I can't do that. I doubt you can either.

I don't doubt that you can self-delude yourself into believing something that isn't so obviously false as 1 + 1 = 3. You just avert your eyes or plug your ears or wall off your mind when you are confronted with evidence that your belief isn't true. But atheists don't do that. We embrace evidence and once learned, cannot easily be unlearned. And why would a person who embraces logic want to deliberately delude himself.

You speak of willfully embracing faith. That is the same as deliberate, self-delusion. I can no more do that to myself than deliberately bash myself in the head with a hammer.

[JairCrawford]

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. Now yes, I understand that there is a burden of proof issue but that's a different topic.

I guess what I am wondering is, do you believe that by definition, faith is an impossibility? If so, why?

[ignoramus]

Yes, I agree, we cannot chose to have faith in any particular deity.

Our parents do that for us. It's done through indoctrination. It's a psychological loophole which only works while the mind is undeveloped and we trust our parents unquestioningly as kids. If there was no child indoctrination, all corporate religions would die in one generation as they would be seen for the absurdity that they are....

[JairCrawford]

I think parents play a big role there, yes. But that does not explain those who embrace (or change) faith later on in life, so that cannot be the end all explanation either. If that were so, only those raised in very religious homes would remain religious, but that is not necessarily always the case.

[purplepurpose]

I think parents play a big role there, yes. But that does not explain those who embrace (or change) faith later on in life, so that cannot be the end all explanation either. If that were so, only those raised in very religious homes would remain religious, but that is not necessarily always the case.

On youtbube there is a veteran among atheists, Matt Dilahaunty, check him out.

[AFTT47]

No, I don't believe faith is impossible. In fact, some degree of it is necessary.

I see a doctor every 6 months to monitor my health. I have never done research to probe the man's history to find out for certain if he really is a doctor. Instead, I rely on the system which does a very good job of exposing false doctors. It is very unlikely that I would fall victim to a jaded auto mechanic who thought it might be fun to practice medicine while skipping that whole burdensome medical school thing.

I similarly do not research the supply chain of my local grocer to make sure all the produce is safe.

I don't research every driver who drives the same route I do on the freeway at 5:00 in the morning to make certain each of them are competent.

It would be impractical to live one's life like that. We are forced by necessity to practice some degree of faith.

But...

The type of faith you are talking about is literally insane, IMO. You are talking about dealing with things unseen which cannot be dis-proven and believing they are true for no other reason than you feel they should be true or you want them to be true. That is self-delusion. The ONLY way to KNOW that a thing is true is to be able to logically demonstrate that it is true - or at least to show the probability of it being true is very high.

I am honestly amazed this is not obvious to anybody. Can't you understand that your particular fantasy (Christianity) is no more likely to be true than anyone else's fantasy? The Muslims have faith equal to your own. So do the Hindus and the Buddhists. Contemporary science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard created Scientology and millions believe it with the same fervor you believe in Christianity.

The take-away here: Faith is not a way by which you can know if a thing is true. The type of faith you are talking about is self-delusion. Nothing more.

I recognize that many people are capable of self-delusion but NOT if they recognize that it IS self-delusion. That is why you cannot con yourself into believing 1 + 1 =3. You recognize that trying to do so is self-delusion. Unfortunately, you do not recognize that your religious beliefs are exactly the same thing.

We atheists DO recognize it. That is why we are no more capable of believing in fantasy religions than we are capable of believing that 1 + 1 = 3. We have looked at the evidence without blinders and can clearly see that every religion we are aware of is OBVIOUSLY invented by man. To take one of them seriously would be a self-delusion. Before we can take any of them seriously, we would need to hear a convincing argument that they might not be.

We cannot take seriously what is obviously nonsense. We cannot willingly self-delude.

[Whateverist]

I choose to believe four is my favorite color.

[AFTT47]

I choose to believe four is my favorite color.

Woof!

[JairCrawford]

I think anyone from any religion, if they allow themselves to ask questions, will wonder about the faith of others in different religions from their own. So not everyone is completely oblivious to this. Hearing your explanation though, makes more sense. Essentially you have learned things and built up a perspective where you would have to deny too much of what you know to accept an existing religion. That makes more sense when explained rather than simply saying we can't choose what to believe.