Belief...a choice?

I might.No, you have no evidence that there is a god, unless you believe that the heavens declare the glory of him and the universe his majesty.
Evidence would crush the premise called faith, on which the deal rests.

Ok my bad for not including that option. It just didn't come to mind. I choose to believe in what I believe because there is where my hart takes me. I'm not going to go into details on this because its off topic.

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Ponlo todo en las manos de Dios y que se joda el mundo. El principio de la sabiduria es el temor a Jehova

jazzlover_PR writes:

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It just didn't come to mind. I choose to believe in what I believe because there is where my hart takes me. I'm not going to go into details on this because its off topic.

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I'm confused. Of course you don't have to go into the details of your beliefs if you don't want to, but in a thread entitled "Belief...a choice?" how would that be off-topic?

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Dog is my copilot.

Discussion of what caused you to believe is exactly on topic. The whole thing is about choosing to believe. I say that without a certain amount of evidence (this varies from person to person) that you cannot choose to believe something. The crux of this discussion is: Can a person choose to believe something despite evidence that they perceive as contradictary to that belief or in the face of what they perceive is a lack of evidence to support that belief? I say no.If we explore the basis of your belief then we may find that you actually used a certain amount of reason to determine that the evidence supporting the existence of the Christian God was enough for you to believe. You may have actually required something to change your beliefs.With that said and if you are willing, could you elaborate on the circumstances where you chose to believe in your perception of God?

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"We are a Bible believing church...All men please proceed to the Deuteronomy 23:1 inspection station before going into the Main Sanctuary"

Well if you insist, I'll tell you why I believe in what I believe. My own personal spiritual experiences with God are the ones that have the hardest pull when you take all the different facts about the existence or non existence of God. And other historical facts like evidence of the existence of Jesus and the other apostles, remains of the solomon temple, among others which make me point towards the existence of God. You come to the question Where all of them really who they said they were or are they all crazy? All of them believed in the same God so they were all crazy or they were all right.

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Ponlo todo en las manos de Dios y que se joda el mundo. El principio de la sabiduria es el temor a Jehova

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All of them believed in the same God so they were all crazy or they were all right.

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Off-topic, but just wanted to point out that this statement seems to be pretty broad analysis and implies an extreme either/or situation where there is none (akin to saying that disproving evolution proves creation). What of outside influences, of societal standards, of each person's individual experiences, of the chance that they were misled? I doubt that they were all crazy but that certainly doesn't mean they were all right.Unless, of course, you mean the term "all right" as "okay". They might very well have been all right guys.

No no that was not my intention. I was only talking about the existence of God without taking into account evolution or creation.

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Ponlo todo en las manos de Dios y que se joda el mundo. El principio de la sabiduria es el temor a Jehova

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No no that was not my intention. I was only talking about the existence of God without taking into account evolution or creation.

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I know - I was simply using it as an analogy to another either/or fallacy commonly seen here for comparison; I apologize if that wasn't clear.

Your "spiritual experiences" and "all the different facts..." caused you to be conviced of God's existence or that Christianity is the right religion or both. You did not just choose to believe. The evidence was strong enough, for you, to instill belief.Perhaps we are not communicating well. You seemed to indicate earlier that belief is a choice yet your statements show that you did not just choose to believe. You may have chosen to follow, but belief was already there. Not necessarily and either/or situation...there may be a third choice. Perhaps they were deceived, for example.

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"We are a Bible believing church...All men please proceed to the Deuteronomy 23:1 inspection station before going into the Main Sanctuary"

Yes those are things that motivate me to believe the same way you have your own reasons that make you an atheist or skeptic (I suppose) but still you have to make a choice. Its like having two versions of a particular story and have evidence that favor and go against both at the same time. All you have to do is choose which of the two versions youre gonna go with. If that was the case then I'd have to ask. Decieved by who?

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Ponlo todo en las manos de Dios y que se joda el mundo. El principio de la sabiduria es el temor a Jehova

Then you don't concern yourself with the validity of the evidence? Perhaps you just assumed that the evidence was valid when it supported BibleGod belief and invalid when it did not. Regardless, you still had evidence that caused you to believe. The choice was whether to follow God or not...it was not whether to believe or not...from what I can gather from the facts you present.If you look in post 34 you can see the restatement of my reason for this thread. My statement is still no...he can'tBy saying that belief is a choice then you are saying that no amount of information refuting your belief will change your mind about it as long as you choose to believe it. Then you can choose to believe that 2+2=5 despite all evidence against it.I don't have that capability. I can't just believe something because someone tells me that it is the right thing to believe.

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"We are a Bible believing church...All men please proceed to the Deuteronomy 23:1 inspection station before going into the Main Sanctuary"

You do not believe in a greater power than your self? You sound like my 14 yr old daughter. Do you deny the force of the wind & the impact it can have on our lives? I have never, ever seen the wind but I can tell you it causes a lot of "change" whenever it blows thru.

Hi, welcome to EvC. It seems to be that there is quite a bit of evidence that wind exists. It seems to me it would be harder to believe wind didn't exist than that it does.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Welcome to EvC. I'm sure you'll find a lot to talk about here.Your problem with not seeing the wind is that you want to use the literal word "see". The correct word to use is "observe".We observe with many more senses and capabilities (some highly technical) than just seeing with our naked eyes. You have, I presume, used binoculars? With them you observe something that you can not, unaided, see.No one here is argueing with the existance of things which are, in some way, observable. Some do, however, find it difficult to decide which of a large number of unobservable things one should believe in.Again, welcome, you will find the level of discourse here at a rather higher level than that offered in your first post however.

Hi zol! Actually, you have "seen" the wind through the physical effects it has on the things it passes by including the pressure on the nerve endings on the skin.Besides, I am not saying that there is or is not physical evidence of the existence of God. I am addressing the fact that many Christians express that a person can choose to change their beliefs. I have heard it said by Christians that athiests would be no worse off than they are now if they chose to believe in Christ...kinda as a "just in case" the athiest was wrong about God not existing. Now, in a religion that is all about what you believe, I am reasonably sure that God is going to know if you are faking belief. So, an athiest that is faking or "going through the motions" is really no better off, in God's eyes, than if he just stayed away from the church.Also, I doubt that Jesus would like the idea of his "Way" being a fall back plan.Remember Matthew 22:37 where Jesus is saying the greatest commandment 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'. I think that God would notice if you were faking that. Therefore the belief must be genuine.You may be able to choose to follow the rules of Christianity but just following the rules without belief doesn't get you to heaven.Belief does. So....back to the original question: Can you choose to believe?

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"We are a Bible believing church...All men please proceed to the Deuteronomy 23:1 inspection station before going into the Main Sanctuary"