How do you choose to believe?

[Chriliman]

How do you get human beings out of the system? Any system?

We humans cannot do that, which is why we have no choice but to either accept what is true or reject what is true. Meaning the truth will be revealed whether we like it or not.

The further you are from the truth when it's revealed the harder it will be to accept and in some cases impossible to accept because of self inflicted delusion. This is why we all must be diligent and earnest when seeking the truth no matter the consequences because it's far too easy to be deceived by someone else or ourselves.

The hope we have is that we can trust that truth will be revealed no matter the personal or social consequences. But this means it's up to us to accept it and change our beliefs and behaviors accordingly.

Truth has a lot of power, I think you can at least understand why many believe God is truth.

 

[In situ]

I agree in principle, but belief is also determined by what you think you know for sure.

I know I think, the rest are assumptions I make. The purpose with any of my assumptions are to construct a coherent and inconsistent view of my thoughts that it is possible to do. I do not say my beliefs are true - they are my beliefs and mine only. I do not say my system of belief is free of inconsistency - but I try to keep inconsistency to a minimal. But what I do say is that I hold beliefs. I do not regard hold beliefs as either true or false, nor do I say belief that I do not hold are false. If I did I would claim knowledge beyond what I already said I have.

So with that clarified: I do not hold the belief that God exists and I do not understand how I can choice to hold the belief that god exist.

Some people who think something may be true (or false), or who are uncertain of their belief, will focus only on arguments and evidence that support their inclination, which can, over time, turn a predilection into a belief or strengthen a faltering belief.

It is their right to do so (i.e. to accept less coherency than I am willing to do), but then what they are saying is that their beliefs are not a choice but a fact. In other words, if they have evidence for their believes then they cannot say it is choice they made.

On the other hand, it makes sense to say I if accept less coherency then I can choice to believe god exists, since it is a choice to accept less coherency. But I don't make that choice, I choice for as much coherency as possible. However, it does not make sense that I am going to be responsible by a god for that decision. The implication would be that the ultimate reason a god would punish an atheist for not believing is because the atheist made a choose to be as coherent he, or she, possible could be.

But, that is not what the Christian doctrine claims people will be judge for. The Christian doctrine rather say the atheists will be judge on their own merits. In other words, there might exist loop-holes on how to get into Heaven which some Christian denies can exist.

Doesn't the Roman-Catholic church recognize this loop-hole even?

 

[dysert]

So biblical prophecies just appeared in front of you?
Who gave you the prophecies to read?
Which prophecies were predicted with 100% accuracy?

They didn't just appear in front of me. I read them along with the rest of the Bible that I was reading. No one gave them to me, they're there (you can read them too!). All prophecies that were supposed to have been fulfilled by now have been fulfilled with 100% accuracy as far as I know.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Determinism is a vast overreach anyway. As if we know enough to be definitive about it.....

It does seem undecidable, given quantum mechanics; but the point was to show that contrary to Dmitri's assertion, there are many formulations of free will (including non-deterministic ones) other than the Christian one.

 

[Albion]

But for the sake of argument, if we assume this possibility then it begs the question how God can hold you responsible for the things he made you resposible by choice. To me that indicates a malicious god.

There is no reason that God couldn't be malicious, either. It's surprising to me that doubters so often volunteer to define God only in order to be able to reject the idea of a God--and then insist that this is a good argument against the existence of one!

That aside, maybe you are onto a key point that has not been explored sufficiently in this discussion. However, I am having a little trouble with the wording above. Are you saying that God is responsible for what Man does or that Man is?

 

[In situ]

Btw, I urge people to keep the subject to the OP's (my) question - I am not interested to filter past irrelevant discussions.

 

[In situ]

There is no reason that God couldn't be malicious, either

I agree, but that is not what the majority of modern Christan claims, rather the contrary. (Yes there is a net in this tennis game and you cannot just pull it down each time it is your time to serve).

I am trying to make sense of the claim that we can choice to believe in god or not.

 

[KCfromNC]

That is a misunderstanding of Albion's point. He does not mean that atheism is the religion of atheists from what I can see, but is saying that most atheists will cling to a type of religion that suits them

If you're consistent in applying the label religion to those sorts of beliefs, then believers have them too. That means that most Christians follow multiple religions - Christianity plus the non-Christian stuff that non-believers believe. That approach makes a mess of the word religion and just serves to confuse the discussion.

 

[Chriliman]

Somehow I don't find answers such as "in a world of magic everything is possible therefor I have reason to think this or that might be the case". I think one should weight things - which thing is more likely than not - and I think you do that to.

But for the sake of argument, if we assume this possibility then it begs the question how God can hold you responsible for the things he made you resposible by choice. To me that indicates a malicious god.

He simply gives us a choice to either accept Him or reject Him and He already knows who will accept Him and who will reject Him because he's omniscient and we're not. This freedom of choice is a gift from God, so if you reject God you have rejected his mercy and condemned yourself.

I don't think you've rejected God because you're still not even convinced he's real. Someday the realness of God will become apparent and you'll have a choice to make. I hope you choose wisely

 

[KCfromNC]

Can religion be defined as a set of beliefs?

Doesn't matter. You're trying to define a single lack of belief into a religion, not a set of positive beliefs.

 

[Albion]

I agree, but that is not what the majority of modern Christan claims, rather the contrary.

Very well, but then what is the issue here?

The thrust of the OP and the prevailing sentiment on the part of the non-Christians commenting afterwards has been directed towards the reasonableness (or the lack of it) of believing in God. Period. It hasn't been that the Christian view of God is wrong but some other theism is fine with them.

So when I read your reply here, I think you are contending against the Christian idea of God in particular. Is that what we are to discuss--whether or not the Bible's idea of God is convincing--and, if not, that some other religion's belief in God might be?

I am trying to make sense of the claim that we can choice to believe in god or not.

As I explained above, that does not in fact appear to be the meaning of the reply you just gave me.

 

[Albion]

Doesn't matter. You're trying to define a single lack of belief into a religion, not a set of positive beliefs.

Not at all. the point there is that, for a non-theist, the absence of a conventional religion is often filled by some other commitment that, for all intents and purposes, is like a conventional religion except that it doesn't posit the existence of an all-powerful and personal deity.

 

[KCfromNC]

Not at all. the point there is that, for a non-theist, the absence of a conventional religion is often filled by some other commitment that, for all intents and purposes, is like a conventional religion except that it doesn't posit the existence of an all-powerful and personal deity.

Or any of the other things which make religions religions.

But let's see your research on this - how often does this sort of thing occur and how do you know?

 

[Albion]

Or any of the other things which make religions religions.

No. That is the issue that the atheists and agnostics here seem desperate to refute, but of course most of what marks any religion as a religion is present in these "alternative" devotions or commitments.

 

[Chriliman]

Doesn't matter. You're trying to define a single lack of belief into a religion, not a set of positive beliefs.

It's the agreement between many people to lack belief in a certain thing that I'm questioning whether constitutes a religion or not. Is anti-religion by definition actually a religion?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Oh, I don't think we can go that far.
There's no reason to think that adherence to some set of morals or ethics "doesn't count," or, for that matter, that religion requires a highly organized institution.

How far should we go? If having a set of morals or ethics 'counts' as having (a) religion, then all humans are religious - unless you know some that don't have morals or ethics?

No-one said a religion had to be 'highly' organized, just organized. What this means to me is that the members hold the tenets of a particular belief system in common, typically including specified moral and ethical values, with a distinct spiritual or supernatural component. There may or may not be a physical organizational structure or institution.

I was referring to Unitarianism or what's called Ethical School or several other "non-religion religions" which include many or, in some cases, a majority of members who are definitely non-theists.

From a look at their web page, Unitarians are a kind of liberal 'umbrella' community who describe themselves as religious, believe in God as the Holy Spirit (in various guises), and talk of their faith... it looks to me like a broadly theist religious community. I can't find anything about 'Ethical School', so I can't comment on that.

The important point as I see it, is that, as Wittgenstein has it, the meaning of words obtains from their common usage; there may be specialised domains where words have different meanings, but in my experience, 'religion' is not commonly used to refer to any or all sets of morals & ethics, and in the relevant domain of this forum (philosophy), an explicit distinction is made between normative morals & ethics and religious morals & ethics. It seems to me that the Christian and atheist world views are already sufficiently different to cause misunderstandings in our discussions, without changing the commonly understood meanings of words at the core of the discussions.

 

[KCfromNC]

No. That is the issue that the atheists and agnostics here seem desperate to refute, but of course most of what marks any religion as a religion is present in these "alternative" devotions or commitments.

If we're talking about who is desperate, which one of us is ignoring questions when responding to posts? Still waiting to see your research showing how often atheists invent religions to make up for their lack of traditional ones. All the actual atheists here seem to disagree with you, but maybe you have something concrete to back up your guesses on the topic.

 

[KCfromNC]

It's the agreement between many people to lack belief in a certain thing that I'm questioning whether constitutes a religion or not. Is anti-religion by definition actually a religion?

If you and Muslim both lack belief in unicorns does that mean you both follow the same religion of Islam? If you and an atheist both lack belief in Leprechauns does that make you an atheist?

Nope, sorry, not buying it. Lots of people not doing something isn't an organization.

 

[Albion]

If we're talking about who is desperate

If you were offended by that word, I'll change it for you. The atheists and agnostics seem to me to be determined to bury one particular part of this discussion, which is that they might have a commitment to something other than a conventional religion which has most or all of the characteristics of a religion except for an all-powerful and personal deity. Is that somehow shameful or embarrassing? I wouldn't think so. So why would all these posters be so afraid of admitting to that possibility?

 

[KCfromNC]

seem to me to be determined to bury one particular part of this discussion

Speaking of which, why do you keep cutting out the parts of my post which request you provide some data to back up your guesses on this subject?