Choosing to/not to Believe? Not Possible?

[Angrboda]

Are you saying that love and hatred are a choice?  Seems to me those are simply responses to stimuli.  I'd like to see some psychological research to back up your belief.

They are a choice.

"That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

I suspect one can encourage the inclination to love another, or discourage that inclination, but the inclination itself is not a matter of volition. If things were as you say, people would not regularly be ending relationships simply because they no longer love the other person. Surely, simply choosing to love the other person would be more beneficial than giving up what they have already invested in the relationship. What you say makes no sense.

Love of God will hold on to proofs of God and cling to certainty of him, while hate towards his proofs and way and the holy sacred name of his, will make people oppose proofs. It's a choice.

This also suggests, particularly if that love is a choice, that a Muslim will persist in their belief in spite of clear evidence to the contrary, that the Quran is a fraud, and that the proofs are not such. But this is what you are suggesting, that the decision to love or hate is independent of the conditions one finds oneself in, and of the logical force of facts and reason.

[drfuzzy]

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.

I believed because I was taught that God exists and Jesus exists and that if you believe and pray you'll go to heaven - from before I was old enough to string a sentence together.  I believed also because 98% of my friends and neighbors held the same belief, and because we went to church 3 times a week (at the minimum), so this was my environment.  This was the way the world was.  A fear element was also included: the world was evil, non-believers were evil, and if you don't pray hard enough or try hard enough to be good you will go to hell and burn forever.  An element of superiority was also there: only WE were good and deserving of heaven because we were smart enough to worship Jesus.

I started questioning these things as a child and was punished.  I started to really question in college, but did not abandon the idea that a loving God could possibly exist at that time.

But after another couple of decades, I started hearing the stories and the sermons and they just STOMPED on logic and decency.  The whole premise was irrational and absurd and ridiculously tribal and abusive.  Not only was there no scientific proof of any deities (in an age when disseminating that proof to the entire globe would take seconds) but the existence  of such a creature seemed pretty unlikely.  And if it did exist, it certainly would bear no resemblance to the monster described in the Torah, Bible, or Koran. 

At this point, belief was no longer a possibility.

[Mystic]

They are a choice.

"That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

I suspect one can encourage the inclination to love another, or discourage that inclination, but the inclination itself is not a matter of volition.  If things were as you say, people would not regularly be ending relationships simply because they no longer love the other person.  Surely, simply choosing to love the other person would be more beneficial than giving up what they have already invested in the relationship.  What you say makes no sense.

Love of God will hold on to proofs of God and cling to certainty of him, while hate towards his proofs and way and the holy sacred name of his, will make people oppose proofs. It's a choice.

This also suggests, particularly if that love is a choice, that a Muslim will persist in their belief in spite of clear evidence to the contrary, that the Quran is a fraud, and that the proofs are not such.  But this is what you are suggesting, that the decision to love or hate is independent of the conditions one finds oneself in, and of the logical force of facts and reason.

Many Muslims do believe without proof, but love of God makes people want to attain certainty and realize his religion upon clear evidence and proofs, that's called being truthful to oneself.

The degree of enough love will drive people to search for proofs of his path and way and religion.   While the opposite is also true, those who hate the truth, no matter what evidence is shown, their disease will reject clear proofs.

[Minimalist]

People willingly believe in all sorts of stupid shit. It is only the inherent bias of the theist which prevents them from seeing their religion as equivalent stupid shit.

[The Industrial Atheist]

Maybe sometimes you can, but it's not as simple as just wanting to believe/not believe. It takes either convincing arguments, or something like brain washing, or extremely strong emotion.
The devout Christians are often raised into it. Either way they spend time reading a holy book, in Church with others who believe or say they do, sometimes they listen to Christian music in place of what most people do, read Christian books, even watch Christian movies.

Some atheists stop believing because they see the immorality that is often present in Churches, their doctrines, manipulating people to get their money by reinterpreting scripture, homophobia, transphobia, blind reinforcement of tradition, etc. Or reasoned arguments, some of which concern these things and why god I supposedly supporting them.
Maybe a religious authority said or did something that personally offended them or harmed them. Maybe a mix of these things.

Even when it seemed like somebody decided in an instant to believe or disbelieve, the seeds were likely planted long ago.

[Angrboda]

"That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

I suspect one can encourage the inclination to love another, or discourage that inclination, but the inclination itself is not a matter of volition.  If things were as you say, people would not regularly be ending relationships simply because they no longer love the other person.  Surely, simply choosing to love the other person would be more beneficial than giving up what they have already invested in the relationship.  What you say makes no sense.


This also suggests, particularly if that love is a choice, that a Muslim will persist in their belief in spite of clear evidence to the contrary, that the Quran is a fraud, and that the proofs are not such.  But this is what you are suggesting, that the decision to love or hate is independent of the conditions one finds oneself in, and of the logical force of facts and reason.

Many Muslims do believe without proof, but love of God makes people want to attain certainty and realize his religion upon clear evidence and proofs, that's called being truthful to oneself.

The degree of enough love will drive people to search for proofs of his path and way and religion.   While the opposite is also true, those who hate the truth, no matter what evidence is shown, their disease will reject clear proofs.

Or perhaps you've got it backwards. The love of the Muslim drives him to believe things that are untrue, and the atheists hatred for falsehood drives them to reject these diseased Muslims. Do you have anything but your moronic worship of your own opinion to testify to one or the other? No, you cling to this idea that we reject your proofs because we are defective simply because you cannot face the fact that we might reject your proofs because they aren't valid. You're an intellectual coward who stands behind a bunch of slander to avoid facing his own poverty. We don't hate Allah. We don't believe he exists. Nor do we hate truth. We do tend to anger towards deluded fucks who accuse us of being defective simply to protect their own fragile egos, as you do.

Apparently, some Muslims do believe irrationally, yet you consider yourself immune to such possibility, apparently. Upon what do you rest this confidence? You are aware that one of the symptoms of schizophrenia is irrational beliefs.

You must also understand that your statement that "those who hate the truth, no matter what evidence is shown, their disease will reject clear proofs," applies to you as much as to anyone else. You hated the truths of atheism and were inclined to reject them even before you found reason to do so. They made you so anxious that you spent a mere two weeks considering them before you bailed. The evidence is more in favor of you being the one who hates truth and so is diseased and thus rejects clear proof and evidence against your beliefs. So how do you defend against the charge that you are the one who might be diseased and irrationally attached to falsehood?

We even have evidence that Mohammed himself believed that he was under the influence of dark forces. (See 2:25-3:35 in the video)





Furthermore, there appears to be a small positive correlation between a country being Islamic and that country being corrupt. There appears to be a negative correlation between irreligion (atheism) and corruption. This seems to suggest that Muslims are more likely to be under the influence of dark forces than atheists, thus leading to immoral behavior. As the author states in the conclusion section, "Again, it does not follow that Islam causes corruption [it could be that] some other, confounding, characteristic could both cause corruption and lead people to Islam (though it’s not clear what)."

See: Tara does the Stats - is there an Association between Religion and Corruption?

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Reading about how Zakir Naik and even Mohammed himself paid people to encourage them to convert to Islam. Apparently the truth of Islam is something that can be secured with silver and gold!

Heehee! Apparently, according to beloved Islamic scholar Zakir Naik, homo sapiens went extinct 500,000 years ago. Yes, apparently love of the Quran does result in certain truth!

[Mystic]

You hate the truth of God's light, you hate all that is good. God is all that is good, and so your hate towards his believers, stems from hate towards his chosen ones, which is all linked to hating him the glorified source of all good.

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And yes I have plenty of proofs to believe while Atheists are betting all bets on conjecture.

[Angrboda]

You hate the truth of God's light, you hate all that is good. God is all that is good, and so your hate towards his believers, stems from hate towards his chosen ones, which is all linked to hating him the glorified source of all good.

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And yes I have plenty of proofs to believe while Atheists are betting all bets on conjecture.

So, no foundation for your confidence other than your own opinion?

No, I do not hate all that is good. I would have to believe that your god is all that is good for that to have any validity. Not only do I not believe that, I've given you good reason not to believe it in The argument from power thread. Yet you reject my arguments because you hate truth and reject reason and proofs of such because you are under the influence of dark forces.

Prove me wrong!

[Mystic]

You hate the truth of God's light, you hate all that is good. God is all that is good, and so your hate towards his believers, stems from hate towards his chosen ones, which is all linked to hating him the glorified source of all good.

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And yes I have plenty of proofs to believe while Atheists are betting all bets on conjecture.

So, no foundation for your confidence other than your own opinion?

I present the proofs, you guys say they are not proofs, but you have no proof they are not proofs other then relying on your ignorance. As for Quran and it's nature, you guys aren't give it the proper due reflection to analyze whether or not what I testify about it is true or not.

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Prove me wrong!

I already have time and time again, and will continue to do so in the future.

[Angrboda]

So, no foundation for your confidence other than your own opinion?

I present the proofs, you guys say they are not proofs, but you have no proof they are not proofs other then relying on your ignorance. As for Quran and it's nature, you guys aren't give it the proper due reflection to analyze whether or not what I testify about it is true or not.

Wrong. We reject it based on confidence in our ability to reason fruitfully and productively, a confidence which is justified by experience in most cases. This is nothing more than more falsehood and slander on your part. We reason from the same fundamental premises that you reason from. You want to claim our reasoning is different in order to explain away your personal failure. That's nothing but vanity.

Whether we give the Quran its proper due or not, that's simply yet another opinion of yours which is magically elevated to fact by it being your opinion.

Prove me wrong!

I already have time and time again, and will continue to do so in the future.

You've proven that you aren't under the influence of dark forces? By all means, link me to this proof and I shall endeavor to investigate it at once!