No. You can't choose to believe in god anymore than you can choose what music you like or what foods taste good. You're not being skeptical you're being outright dismissive.
Are you trying to say we all just have some arbitrary disposition, or some sort of 'the chosen have a calling' thing?
Why are you bothering with this conversation if you're going to actively ignore what's being said? All you do is just offhandedly dismiss it by saying, "Derp, sucking up to sky daddy, derp derp." Do you not notice just how arrogant you're being by telling religious people what they believe and why? Is the notion of loving God for the sake of itself so absurd to you that you can't even entertain the idea that other people might believe in it? And for that matter, how does this argument you're making apply to religions that don't believe in hell? What about Judaism? They don't put much of an emphasis on any sort of afterlife, so why do they bother with their beliefs if nothing bad happens if they don't? What about Christians who don't believe hell actually exists? It's actually not that unheard of. The idea is put forward by a number of the Churches bright lights, such as Origin. Does it bothered you at all that you're carrying on in the same willful ignorance that many of the Christians you can't stand do? Do you realize that you would have made an excellent fundamentalist? Or has the obvious irony not rubbed off on you? Just wondering.
I have no problem with someone saying they believe there's a creator. But to say that worship is based on some unconditional love of something intangible is a bit far fetched. Religious people want to go to heaven. Which is fine but let's not pretend it's a less shallow motive than Pascal's wager.
I'm sure people saying they love God unconditionally has nothing to with the fact that they believe he's the gatekeeper to eternal paradise. Yeah, no ulterior motive there. and even if you didn't want to go to heaven, God decides if your life is easy or hard. Would you really say you loved him if he didn't have so much sway over pain and pleasure? Why would you?
We love our parents because: 1) We've known them personally for years 2) They sacrificed to make our lives better 3) They love us unconditionally With God: 1) You don't know him personally 2) God didn't sacrifice anything to make your life better or worse 3) God has conditions for his "love" So how can you say you love him?
thats absolutely not true...the default setting for a person is atheist, you are NOT born believing in a god... Belief is taught and learned, it is not an instinct or something that is always there... people convert to different religions all the time and people also lose their faiths... and with music you like or food, that can be controlled through conditioning...kids don't like lots of food until you make them eat it enough, then they grow to like it...same with music everything you said is a choice....you choose to hold a belief in god
I think what xuro means is that you don't simply choose to believe something to be true. I would say xuro is saying that you have to be convinced of the truth of a proposition. Sent from my SCH-I535 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
the word choice means the act of selecting or making a decision.... belief means an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.... a belief is a choice, because to accept something as true, you have to go through the act of making that decision... and that's done with facts or faith (believing without evidence)
You literally just repeated what you said several times before without giving anymore reason for why you think that way; you're basically just saying, "I think it's stupid so it's stupid, derrrrr." You never answered why religious people who don't believe in hell bother with their beliefs. But let's add on to that: what about religious experiences? Lots of people have them and they've been the subject of many psychological thesis and analysis, many times with the results in the religious' favor. Or what about all of the beautiful art work which was religiously inspired? Do you think that when Dostoevsky was writing The Brothers Karamazov he was looking up to the sky, saying, "Look sky-daddy, look what I'm doing for you. You'll certainly let me into Heaven now, hey bud?" Or Dante's Divine Comedy, or Milton's Paradise Lost, or the poetry of St John of the Cross, or the paintings of Rembrandt, or even the Psalms? How can these and countless others have possibly produced such amazing and beautiful works of art if they were simply motivated by a desire to suck up to God?
I'm not sure we disagree all to much. What I mean is that we can't simply adopt beliefs because we want to believe it. Beliefs aren't something a person can willy nilly take on and dismiss. They are based on 'likelihood of truth'. A person can't start believing that bus benches are possessed and fly around tormenting people for no reason. They have to be convinced that this is actually the case through some means. Sent from my SCH-I535 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
I'm not sure that is absolutely true either though. The way of thinking I got very into for a long time was something like 'reality tunnels,' or that our beliefs filter our perceptions, thoughts on and experiences of reality. Anyway, an idea often found in this line of thought is that our beliefs are somewhat arbitrary. That it's not so much about the one 'actuality' underlying all of our tunnel realities, but rather our tunnel reality is the only reality that has any meaning relative to us. An idea common to this way of thinking is that of shifting our reality tunnels. And also, seeing beliefs as something like play-things, rather than something to be taken very seriously. So here, often a certain idea or practice is to take on belief systems, sort of 'as if' you believe them, without ever actually being attached to 'really' believing them or absolutely thinking they are true. And then you can easily switch between belief systems, because you're never really attached to any particular belief system being 'really' true in the first place.
That's pretty interesting, but it doesn't exactly explain why people choose to believe what they believe, particularly those who don't subscribe to the idea of "reality tunnels". Whether you think your beliefs are frivolous or not, you still need some reason to believe them. And when changing your views you need some sort of reason as well, and these reasons need to be somewhat persuasive to you. All actions, even mental actions, need some motivating force or cause. Also, this might be irrelevant to the conversation, but doesn't the idea of "reality tunnels" make some pretty firm epistemological statements itself? Wouldn't this sort of contradict its own view that beliefs should be seen as play-things? I'm not trying to be antagonistic, I'm generally curious.
Yeah I get what you're saying...but if someone wants to believe something bad enough, they in most cases attribute something that is unexplainable by them to the wanted belief, and it then the belief grows, but under flase means... Like ghosts, a lot of people don't believe in them but would kinda like to because its intresting/different from reality...so if the door slams or the tv cuts off...the ghosts did it, I knew it I told you they were real...then just surround yourself with likeminded people and the belief just grows and grows because its in the correct enviroment... That's kinda what your saying with the being convinced to gain the belief, but if you want something bad enough, you will convince yourself... Like the religious nuts that killed their kids or whatever, if you sat down with them they will be able to back up what they did with scripture and the whole 9...they've convinced themselves they are right...they had the idea and then went and made the evidence fit for them
I don't disagree with either of you guys about belief. I think we converge on similar key points. My point is that a person needs convincing of the truth of a statement, proposition, etc to take it as likely to be correct. (By some form of persuasion) And I think you would agree. Sent from my SCH-I535 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Another point to consider here...is that much of what is religious or spiritual, is not just un-proven but is essentially unprovable, or far beyond our ability to prove or disprove at this point in time anyways. Given that, there really doesn't have to be much of a basis...it's more like, the person can't prove it, no one else can disprove it...it could be true, it could not be true...Irvin if it were definitely true, you couldn't prove it...so, you choose to believe what you believe for whatever reason it is that makes it appealing to you...and this belief then has some effect on your overall being and consciousness, and it is perhaps that effect that defines spirituality more than the doctrine which one believes...or maybe the lack of evidence makes all spirituality nonsense...or maybe there is some spiritual aspect of reality, which would make it really about the most important thing...but you can't prove that...