Belief...a choice?

It's been decades since I read James THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. The main thing I took from that book is the title but it's a very good point. There is not a single kind of religious person or experience.Belief seems to me to be a part of the phenomena of knowing and knowledge. This means it's very complex and as yet poorly understood.
Belief can range from looking up at clouds in the sky and telling someone "I believe it's going to rain soon" to believing that a supernatural event resulted in the imparting of X amount of truth to person Y and that anyone who disagrees will be subjected to Z consequences.I think some people have sudden conversion experiences but there was a process leading to that moment even if it was largely nonconcious or subliminal. I think that for most people choosing a religious belief is more complex and takes longer than choosing say which item on a menu to get, or even what car to purchase. Though I expect there are people who put more effort into deciding on the car than the religious beliefs. i.e. I want to marry him/her and he/she expects me to convert or they won't marry me, o.k. I'll take the class and join the church.lfen

I agree with you on that. I was thinking about people who for whatever reason find themselves in a position where they are questioning and attempting to choose a belief system for themselves. I think they are a minority but I've no idea what percentage.lfen

"Imagine this butterfly, exactly as it is, but ugly instead of beautiful."
Ludwig WittgensteinTry eating your favorite food but this time as you eat it find it disgusting. Try tasting something you really can't stomach, for me it would be cod liver oil, and imagine it was delicious. I couldn't rationalize that Hagen Das Coffee ice cream tastes as nasty as cod liver oil, or cod liver oil as delicious as Hagen Das.btw, I knew a mother who had to keep the cod liver oil locked up as her preschooler daughter so loved it she would drink from the bottle if she could get to it, and that raised a very real risk of vitamin A poisoning. So I imagine that the little girl found the oil delicious but I can't imagine how she could do that!lfen

It's not a parable. It's a thought experiment meant to demonstrate that we can't choose how we feel about our experience. We can't decide to experience something as ugly or beautiful and we can't change our experience of it at that level. For example, if it's not our free will, what is it that determines if we find a particular butterfly beautiful or ugly?lfen