Is believing a god exists a choice?
- YES
- NO
0
voters
Is believing a god exists a choice?
Some people think it is.
Some think it isn’t.
mut----how are you defining god…
It’s too complex to boil down to a simple yes or no answer. But you can choose to act as if God exists, and see what happens. In such a case some people might say nothing changed of any import, some people may say some important things changed, but that doesn’t mean God actually exists, while others may come to believe that God exists. In the latter case, would you say that the belief was a choice? Alternatively, you could just commit to the belief that God exists. I’m not sure if it makes sense to equate such a commitment to a belief. A skeptic here would say such a person was committing to a lie about belief. But is there evidence of a “deep down”, where the surface belief doesn’t occur? I’d say yes, but I’d say yes about any belief at all. For any belief, there’s a “deep down” where that belief looks an awful lot like a lie.
It doesn’t matter much, relative to the question being asked.
A supreme being.
A being that exists in some realm outside of the physical world and both knows everything and can do anything.
We don’t choose our beliefs. Beliefs are second-order choices (like hunger, or being sleepy) at best.
No being exists outside the physical world.
Methinks Mutser creates a fantasy supreme being, for the fun of it.
Ierrellus
What I’m going to say might be a bit simplistic but - if one believes in a creator, where was that creator before matter and existence came to be?
And can we presuppose that “being” is a word that can be attributed to the god of creation?
that would depend on the individual I feel. For some people, belief in a god is no choice because they have been deeply indoctrinated in their beliefs…that is, unless and until they come to understand that there is a choice, another way of looking and seeing.
For others, it is a choice. They’ve opened themselves up - they’ve dared to go where others won’t - and made the choice to believe.
Bottom line, when we come to realize that we have both a mind and a will, many things are capable of change.
You think wrong!
My genes tell me to believe in something over and beyond myself. Why not God?
It matters if we dismiss the question and look at the things you’ve said. “God” means a lot of things to a lot of different people. In one of your above posts, you talk about choosing to act as if God exists. The way in which you would go about acting as if God existed would differ for people of different beliefs, sometimes greatly.
I’m just going off on a thought-tangent here. I keep editing and going to say different things and then realize that I’m going off-topic. I’ll stop now LoL
Of course you’re right, Blurry. I just took the main topic of the OP to be doxastic voluntarism, whatever the particular belief in question (a sub-topic). In hindsight, I might have been wrong about that.
No, no, I think you were right. My brain immediately took what you said all over the place and a million questions popped up, and then I realized that where I was going was off-topic, strictly speaking. That’s why I stopped 
I Think it is more complicated than that. I see people thinking they have beliefs, for example, whereas actually they are more ambivalent or unsure then their official stance. They like the idea of believing - and note, I am not thinking yet specifically of theism, but rather beliefs in general - or they Think they should Believe - for any of a number of reasons. These people can realize at some Point that really they did not Believe. Or had a lot of doubts. Or simply thought their family (friends, peers, the masses) must be right, and then realized they never quite bought it.
This raises the issue of whether they believed, but I do Believe they could honestly say, given their levels of self-awareness, they believed X.
I see a level of choice in this. They choose to focus on the part of themselves that has the belief. They choose to look for confirmation and ignore disconfirmation. By acts of choice, some semi-conscious, some conscious, they set it up so that they can honestly say ‘I believe X’, even though at the same time it is more complicated.
And I see this as widespread, people choosing to Think they have this or that belief, and then doing work. This work may actually lead to convincing themselves - or even finding good evidence. It may also simply be a kind of mask one falls for oneself.
I think my analogy still works! People certainly think they are hungry when in fact they are bored or depressed, or they try to convince themselves they are hungry because it’s time to eat, or they know they won’t be able to eat for a long time if they don’t eat now.
Ya, there’s a level of choice in hunger too. If I said “I will give you 1000 dollars if you can become hungry in the next 10 seconds”, you can’t do anything to win the money- either you are hungry or you aren’t. But if I said “I will give you 1000 dollars if you hungry at noon tomorrow”, you could probably do things to ensure you could win the money. None of those things are ‘become hungry’, but they are things that ensure that you will. That’s what I meant by a second-order choice.
Nice Point, though I would then argue that they are also choosing.
It’s a bit panicky a situation, but I know exactly what I would try to do. I would immediately imagine a specific food I love that I don’t get much. I have one in mind now and I did in fact feel a Little saliva seep out from under my tongue. I was not especially hungry Before. The Money might mess up my performance - that’s me as an individual - but I do Think one can choose to make oneself hungry.
And I Think a person can also do things to reduce hunger using self-distraction, reframing, mental imagery. Within limits of course.
One difference here though, is that beliefs can build up or degenerate over time. Which is different from hunger - as far as the choice issue.
If I feel tensions, say, when confronted by peers with different beliefs than my parents, I may choose to move towards their beliefs or to move away. their beliefs my mirror my own doubts. I may avoid these people or seek them out. I may decide to look for things that support what my peers Believe or what my parents Believe. I may choose to simply dismiss evidence that goes against the direction I choose, while spending a lot of time investigating supportive evidence of the position I decide I want to have. Over time this may end up making me solid in the new belief of my peers or pushing away doubts I had, reflected by my peers, and solidifying the alignment with my parents. Here we have a sequence of choices - though perhaps guided by a strong single instance of decision - perhaps motivated by fear, or rebelliousness or some other motivation - that set the later chain of choices in motion.
I do Think there must be some kind of seed, at least, for these choices to work with. At least an experience that gave us doubt or fit with our original positions.
I don’t Think one is purely free to choose - not at all. But I Think choice can and often is a factor in one’s beliefs. Even a central one.
Yeah, you might be able to pull it off, you might not. I'm just saying choosing to be hungry is fundamentally different than choosing to raise your arm in the sense that you need a scheme in order to pull it off. Being sleepy is like that- we need to scheme to make it happen, or to avoid it. And of course, I'm saying this because I think beliefs work in just the same way.
Maybe a better comparison would be not just hunger, but an appetite for a specific sort of food.
I think I agree.
Is there something beyond thought? But everything we know is thought. If there is nothing beyond thought, or there is some thing, they must be related by other than thought. Perhaps that relation is what we have learned to call God.