Do you believe in God?

[Imari]

A quick search of this "God" thread reveals the term "aliens" has been used on ~173 occasions...

In a 700 page thread? You don't say.

...with well-known member @Imari accounting for several.

And how many of those were me satirising your outrageous ideas?

That news increases the possibility that aliens are here and could account for UFO phenomena including apparitions of Mary and other interactions with humanity involving religious symbolism and meaning.

Er, how so? Given that there's no link between UFOs and aliens to start with, and the link between aliens and religions apparitions is, without anything further to base it on, mildly insane, how in the name of baby cheeses are you linking UFOs and religions apparitions?

Please explain your "logic", if you have any.

Although the TTSA organization releasing the recent UFO news is actively suggesting that aliens are behind the UFOs, and that the phenomena involves human interaction and spiritual elements, for the moment let's deny that aliens are here and have any involvement at all with UFOs, humanity and religion. So how do we then account for the UFOs? It seems to me there's only a few answers remaining - natural Earth processes probably involving plasma particle acceleration in clouds and van Allen belts affecting human consciousness - or supernatural entities including angels, demons, and maybe Jinn.

Last I saw they were actively suggesting that we don't understand what's behind the UFOs. That's different to aliens. You know how this thread tends to rip on theists for assigning anything unexplained to their deity? That goes double for when you do it with aliens.

Not having an explanation doesn't mean you get to make up any crap you feel like as the cause. Unexplained simply means unexplained.

One way would be to exclude discussion of science, sociology, and the explanatory potential of new discoveries and to get down to the business of insult and ridicule, as our erstwhile friend @Imari might prefer.

I'm suggesting that if you're taking the UFO story into alien territory, then perhaps the God thread isn't the right place for it. If you've got any actual sensible link between UFO phenomena and religion, and not just your usual rambling half baked ideas that wouldn't convince a moderately intelligent five year old, then you're more than welcome to throw them out and see where it goes.

But generally, your contributions to "discussion" consists of you doing a drive by with your latest brain fart of the week, and when asked about it further you'll claim that you were merely stimulating discourse or some rubbish. So far you're just throwing out buzzwords.

For my own part, I may not have what it takes to participate in the discussion unless it takes place on a more collegial and respectful level.

If you'd like to participate in the discussion, make your statement of what you think is going on and we can discuss it. If it involves gods, religions or spiritual experiences then that would seem relevant. If it's "the aliens have been here all along", perhaps you can take it somewhere more appropriate.

And yes, if you're going to stick around and continue to post dribble masquerading as intellectualism, I will continue to reserve the right to poke fun at it. If you choose to post a cogent argument or discussion topic, I'd be more than happy to engage respectfully. But I'm not your colleague, and I never will be.

No, I'm not just thinking of science. Personal Spirituality is an evolving entity and can be intertwined with science quite easily if one has an open mind.

How so? What does "personal spirituality" entail to you, and what role does it fulfill that complements science?

 

[Dotini]

...your outrageous ideas...
...mildly insane..you linking...
...explain your "logic", if you have any....
...this thread tends to rip...goes double for you...
...any crap you feel...
... If you've got any actual sensible link ...

...and not just your usual rambling half baked ideas that wouldn't convince a moderately intelligent five year old...

...your contributions to "discussion" consists of you doing a drive by with your latest brain fart of the week...

...and when asked about it further you'll claim that you were merely stimulating discourse or some rubbish...

... So far you're just throwing out buzzwords....

...if you're going to stick around and continue to post dribble masquerading as intellectualism...

...I'm not your colleague, and I never will be...

So many personal attacks and insults! Most impressive!! I'm overwhelmed by your interest and attention to my person. But no thanks, I will not be playing with you.

EDIT:

...from the blog of Jason Colavito.

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/p...d-and-satan-battle-for-control-of-ufo-beliefs
We have come a long way from the 1950s, when UFOs were considered proof of angels flying by in divine chariots. Now the Christian UFO view is dominated by the allegation that space aliens are really demons trying to deceive us away from the Christian God by casting doubt on the supernatural and the divine. I can’t decide whether it is more upsetting that evangelical Christians would rather believe that demons drive flying saucers because they can’t fathom either that aliens could be real or, more logically, that UFOs are not in fact flying ships piloted by strange beings, or that evangelical Christian extremists have so penetrated the military that their illogical prejudices determine government policy.

 

[NCR3]

@Imari It would take a hell of a long post to describe my own spirituality! Let's just say a spiritual life works fantastic for me and I'm very content and successful in many ventures. I used to be first an atheist, then an agnostic..then I had and am having a long and sometimes extremely painful waking up time period. Self discipline and spiritual growth ain't for the weak of heart! The science part is fascinating: I do a fair amount of reading on this topic, I'm just someone who enjoys knowledge. So far I haven't read any 100% scientific consensus on the non existence of some sort of spiritual dimensions or higher intelligence responsible for our existence. By the way I love to read atheists arguments. Been there done that myself.

I used to be on gtplanet for many years but changed my username. I enjoy your posts a lot as well. Peace!

 

[TexRex]

baby cheeses

Mmm. But seriously...

I don't understand the compulsion (it seems like one to me) one has to give credit to a deity for their own accomplishments. That's right in line with--though not nearly as bad as, as that individual has actually accomplished something--expecting a deity to serve them instead of showing some initiative.

Then again, I don't believe in any particular deity (preemptive strike: this isn't the same as not being open to the possibility, as I can't accept pure coincidence as an explanation for events that led to our existence either) and look at religious texts in a manner similar to The Pelican Brief or Harry Potter--as fiction.

 

[polysmut]

I used to be on gtplanet for many years but changed my username. I enjoy your posts a lot as well. Peace!

Did you used to post in this thread?

 

[NCR3]

Did you used to post in this thread?

Can't remember, it was over 3 years ago. My old email was cancelled so I got a new account, plus I didn't game during that time either.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Can't remember, it was over 3 years ago. My old email was cancelled so I got a new account, plus I didn't game during that time either.

What was your username? @Famine should be able to sort out what's what for you.

 

[Danoff]

Another great one from TheraminTrees

 

[NCR3]

What was your username? @Famine should be able to sort out what's what for you.

Eh, I don't really care that much about it. A fresh start is kinda nice!

 

[Vince_Fiero]

@Imari... So far I haven't read any 100% scientific consensus on the non existence of some sort of spiritual dimensions or higher intelligence responsible for our existence. By the way I love to read atheists arguments. Been there done that myself....

I have some twitter interactions with atheists that are pretty animated.

I have nothing against atheists, it is a belief like another => generally a good start to pick a fight.
Atheists seems to put the burdon of proof at the believers side. Where I agree that a believer does not have proof, otherwise there is no point in believing; with proof it is knowledge, which probably is falsifiable (reading the book Nonsence on stillts). Belief does exist and might be proven or disproven by science later.
I generally go towards the origin of the big bang, what anyone believes about it seems to be the best guess we have.

In short: Believers accept the existance of a superior being without having any proof. Atheists accept the none existance of a superior being without having any proof.

Where I stand with atheists is generally that what is science is outside of the realm of belief, there is no point in reading old books on topics that have been proven in repeatable, falsifiable ways.

Then the topic of science and its interaction with philosophy is important. Does string theory proof the multiverse => I do not belief so. Even if I believe in the multiverse.

 

[Imari]

@Imari It would take a hell of a long post to describe my own spirituality! Let's just say a spiritual life works fantastic for me and I'm very content and successful in many ventures. I used to be first an atheist, then an agnostic..then I had and am having a long and sometimes extremely painful waking up time period. Self discipline and spiritual growth ain't for the weak of heart! The science part is fascinating: I do a fair amount of reading on this topic, I'm just someone who enjoys knowledge. So far I haven't read any 100% scientific consensus on the non existence of some sort of spiritual dimensions or higher intelligence responsible for our existence. By the way I love to read atheists arguments. Been there done that myself.

I'm simply asking what the difference between spirituality and science is. I worded it such that you can define spirituality in your own terms, as a lot of people have their own idea what that means, but it sounds like you need both spirituality and science together.

I have no idea how that would even begin to work, so I'm asking for at least an ELI5 version, if you can. If you want one single simple question, it's "what does spirituality do for you that science doesn't?"

I'd suggest that if it can't be summarised into a single paragraph, then it might not be as critical to your life as you think. For example, I can explain why the scientific method is important to me by saying that I find it to be an excellent tool for understanding myself and the world around me, and it allows me to be mentally disciplined and consistent in how I judge and rationalise things.

Atheists seems to put the burdon of proof at the believers side.

Everyone puts the burden of proof on the person making the claim. Because if you don't do so then logic falls apart completely and there's no sense even trying to reason about anything at all.

If I believe that I have a unicorn called Evan who lives in my backyard eating leprechauns, but he's invisible, intangible and completely undetectable by any method at all, of what value is that?

If something does not interact with a human or some sort of observer at all, then it's exactly the same as the thing not existing to the human. On the other hand, if the human were to have some reason to think that there was a unicorn called Evan, then there must have been some sort of interaction that could be described, shared and possibly replicated.

That's the burden of proof. Unless someone has an actual event to discuss, they're just talking about their imaginary friend. There's no sensible discussion that can be had about imaginary friends. Until there's something objective, any discussion of the imaginary friend is a pointless waste of time.

Atheists accept the none existance of a superior being without having any proof.

Nope. Atheists accept that there is no convincing evidence yet.

What proof would there be of the non-existence of a superior being? How can you prove non-existence? You sound like you've looked into some philosophy. There are well-established answers to the previous two questions, but I won't bore you if you already know.

Does string theory proof the multiverse => I do not belief so.

Theories don't prove anything. They are systems that explain as best as possible the relevant collections of observations and facts. They are often useful in everyday life, and can sometimes be combined to make sense of more inexplicable things.

The only proof of the multiverse (whatever you mean by that) is observing the multiverse.

*While we're at it, string theory isn't really a theory in the same way that the theory of gravity is a theory. Gravity is the best explanation for a very large set of observations, and it's staggeringly accurate. The bits that we don't understand are many, but also highly technical and not particularly relevant to most people. In the vast majority of current use cases, it just works.

String theory is a group of similar "theories" that attempt to provide a unified explanation of the major observed forces in the universe. All of them currently have major flaws, and bar inspiring a lot of interesting math and intellectual discussion none of them are particularly close to even developing into a decently testable experiment let alone simply being able to cope with our current observations. It's not even clear that string theory in the broader sense is a valid descriptive tool, it just happens to suck less than everything else right now.

 

[Dotini]

Then the topic of science and its interaction with philosophy is important. Does string theory proof the multiverse => I do not belief so. Even if I believe in the multiverse.

Proposition : It probably should be a philosophical requirement that we all must believe in the multiverse. For if we don't, then it becomes too difficult to explain non-randomness in the present universe that we do inhabit. To actually observe a multiverse is too high a bar for such an important philosophy to be adopted as a cultural standard.

 

[Famine]

I have nothing against atheists, it is a belief like another

In short: Believers accept the existance of a superior being without having any proof. Atheists accept the none existance of a superior being without having any proof.

You're confusing atheists with non-theists.

Non-theists believe there are no gods. Atheists don't believe that there are gods.

Theism is a belief. Non-theism is a belief. Atheism isn't a belief, it's a lack of belief.

 

[NCR3]

I'd suggest that if it can't be summarised into a single paragraph, then it might not be as critical to your life as you think. For example, I can explain why the scientific method is important to me by saying that I find it to be an excellent tool for understanding myself and the world around me, and it allows me to be mentally disciplined and consistent in how I judge and rationalise things.

This is a good summarization for myself as well. My own personal experiences have changed my mind on how I perceive a higher intelligence. At this point, I don't have a deep need to see what science discovers as I'm more than satisfied with what I believe now. I'm very open minded and it's served me well. I feel the same way about spirituality that you do about science, but I respect scientific findings on how spirituality can change someone for the better. It did for me. For instance, meditation has been linked to a calmer better functioning brain, yes yes. Being rigorously honest with myself is freaking difficult, sometimes I have purely selfish motives and can't see them right away. Ego.

Short version of my life: Born with a disability. Hated God, the word Jesus and blamed my parents. Atheist at age 6. Had a mentally abusive childhood. Anger and fear ruled my childhood and early teens. Drugs and especially alcohol became my crutch. Physical and mental addiction sucks as does suicidal depression. I would argue until I was blue in the face against religious or spiritually minded people. I viewed them as the lowest form of intelligence. Losers.

Age 34 was looking at serious jail time for attacking a police officer with a knife when drunk in a black out. Here I was the know-it-all in handcuffs telling them they were idiots. Woke up. Pain opened my heart. I had thrown away a marriage to a lovely girl who I loved dearly. I asked for help. I got it in recovery. Now choosing between trying to live a spiritual life away from booze and drugs or continuing on until an early death, further incarceration and mental hospitals is not an easy choice when that **** "worked" for so long. I choose to try and believe in a higher intelligence and took my first steps in a rewarding and painful journey. I've lost another marriage, watched 2 close family members die in my arms, lost a high paying job as well as having a hell of a lot of joy. Never drank or used to this day. Over 23 years continuous sobriety. Damned right my faith has been tested. 3 years ago I blamed God for all my troubles and stopped believing. Things changed and I'm back to attempting to live day to day believing that a higher intelligence is on my side. I have devoted my life to helping other people. My life is ****ing great right now. Never been happier.

I respect an atheist or agnostics opinions. I don't know their life situation. It's very difficult to see someone else's life through their eyes. No way anyone could feel the pain I have nor would I want them to. Sim racing is a fantastic escape for me. I love it. Living well has enabled me to buy many great cars. Right now I have a modded Evo X and a WRX wagon project car. Life is good.

 

[zzz_pt]

Another great one from TheraminTrees

One of my favourite youtube creators. A gem.

 

[KungFury]

It would take a hell of a long post to describe my own spirituality! Let's just say a spiritual life works fantastic for me and I'm very content and successful in many ventures.

It's always refreshing to see someone define and live their life as they choose without any desire to conform or apologize to their critics. 👍

 

[NCR3]

deleted

 

[Vince_Fiero]

You're confusing atheists with non-theists.

Non-theists believe there are no gods. Atheists don't believe that there are gods.

Theism is a belief. Non-theism is a belief. Atheism isn't a belief, it's a lack of belief.

So I go back to my other argument: What caused the Big Bang?
=> I do agree with people that they would say: It is irrelevant since I can not back it up. However that is the basis of belief.
=> I do not agree with people who would say: I have no belief. Since putting forward a hypothesis and searching to prove it right is this borderline of philosophy and science which is essential for progress.

The belief that the Big Bang was caused without Gods would be an Atheist belief.

P.S. Years ago we had the same discussion on inaction, or a lack of action. The not acting is an act, I do understand that only deliberate action engages your responsibility and not deliberate inaction does not.
However: The standard (value) you walk past (inaction), is the standard (value) you accept.
That goes for all of us, but espacially those, who by their rank, have a leadership role - Lt. Gen. David Lindsay Morrison

 

[Imari]

So I go back to my other argument: What caused the Big Bang?

We don't know. We don't know if the idea of causality even holds up in those conditions. There's nothing wrong with admitting that you simply don't have enough information to have a sensible opinion about something.

In the case of the Big Bang, we can reasonably extrapolate back quite a long way using reasonable assumptions based on well established physical principles. But we can't get to the moment of the Big Bang, and we certainly can't get "before" it, if there even is a before when time quite possibly didn't exist.

This is the difference. There are people (who we normally term atheists) who when faced with a lack of proof simply say "well, I guess I don't know then". That's not a belief. That's intellectual honesty. An atheist does not have enough information to say whether the Big Bang was cause by God/gods, without God/gods, or was in fact caused at all.

I think a lot of people who base their opinions on "unknown" things around belief find it very hard to comprehend this idea of simply accepting the unknown and not extrapolating your own vision onto that.

 

[Vince_Fiero]

We don't know. We don't know if the idea of causality even holds up in those conditions. There's nothing wrong with admitting that you simply don't have enough information to have a sensible opinion about something.

You might not have the impression, but I agree with the above, belief is stating that there is insufficient information to have a sensible opinion, otherwise it is science.
Where we disagree is that we can live without belief.

In the case of the Big Bang, we can reasonably extrapolate back quite a long way using reasonable assumptions based on well established physical principles. But we can't get to the moment of the Big Bang, and we certainly can't get "before" it, if there even is a before when time quite possibly didn't exist.

This is the difference. There are people (who we normally term atheists) who when faced with a lack of proof simply say "well, I guess I don't know then". That's not a belief. That's intellectual honesty. An atheist does not have enough information to say whether the Big Bang was cause by God/gods, without God/gods, or was in fact caused at all.

I think a lot of people who base their opinions on "unknown" things around belief find it very hard to comprehend this idea of simply accepting the unknown and not extrapolating your own vision onto that.

If you do not extrapolate, you are accepting what you do not know as "unknowable", you believe it is unknowable. If you form a hypothesis (a belief) and test it you are searching for the truth.

 

[Scaff]

You might not have the impression, but I agree with the above, belief is stating that there is insufficient information to have a sensible opinion, otherwise it is science.

Nope.

Belief is "An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof."
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/belief

Its an assumption that something is true, which is quite different to saying 'we don't' know.

Where we disagree is that we can live without belief.

Why can't we? I do.

If you do not extrapolate, you are accepting what you do not know as "unknowable", you believe it is unknowable. If you form a hypothesis (a belief) and test it you are searching for the truth.

Hypothesis is not belief at all, which seems to be why you are getting this mixed up.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/hypothesis

Hypothesis: A supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.
Belief: An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof

I have no belief in gods, that doesn't mean that my position would not change if the evidence changes. That's quite different to having a belief in Gods or having no belief in gods. As such living without belief is actually quite simple and rather rational.

Its perfectly possible to say that currently something is unknowable and then amend that position at a later date should the evidence change, that's not a belief.

 

[KungFury]

Belief is a funny thing, it doesn't have to be about god although that's the most often subject it revolves around so I'll stick with that. An atheist will most likely, from my experience, say a belief stems from both nature and nurture(the grumpy one's might state nurture only ) while a theist is most likely to state it's a gift from god.

One thing for sure, belief or non belief in something is not a choice. I cannot choose to believe the moon is made of cheese anymore than I can choose to believe it is made of stone. Personally the life I live does not revolve around science. I can learn and accept things shown to me using the scientific method and not have to rely on a belief in them being true but so what? My days are influenced by my beliefs in many different things and I'm just fine with that.

If I could choose not to believe somehow I wouldn't make that choice, I like myself and my life way too much for that.

 

[Famine]

So I go back to my other argument: What caused the Big Bang?

That's a very odd question as it assumes causality existed before the Big Bang. Or, for that matter, that "before" existed before the Big Bang. Available evidence says that the physics of the universe do not exist until the universe existed. We do actually have reasonable evidence for this, because the same sort of state exists within our universe too, but rather than creating the physics of the universe this state destroys them: the conditions within the event horizon of a black hole.

Anyway.

=> I do agree with people that they would say: It is irrelevant since I can not back it up. However that is the basis of belief.
=> I do not agree with people who would say: I have no belief. Since putting forward a hypothesis and searching to prove it right is this borderline of philosophy and science which is essential for progress.

The belief that the Big Bang was caused without Gods would be an Atheist belief.

Putting aside notions of causality for a moment, no it isn't. The belief in no deities is a non-theist belief. An atheist point of view would be "I don't know what 'caused' it, but it's not necessary to invoke deities to explain it".

Your bolded sentence is bizarre also. Hypothesis is not belief (it can be, of course, but isn't belief by necessity). Searching to prove it right isn't science. Searching to prove it wrong is science. You come up with an explanation, decide that it's wrong and try to prove it wrong. If you can, it was wrong. If you can't you find a new way to try to prove it wrong. When you run out of ways to prove it wrong, chances are it was right - but there's always a new way to try to prove it wrong around the corner, and other people can try to prove it wrong too.

People who believe something and try to prove it right are creationists (particularly intelligent design advocates), flat earthers and conspiracy theorists of all stripes.

P.S. Years ago we had the same discussion on inaction, or a lack of action. The not acting is an act, I do understand that only deliberate action engages your responsibility and not deliberate inaction does not.
However: The standard (value) you walk past (inaction), is the standard (value) you accept.
That goes for all of us, but espacially those, who by their rank, have a leadership role - Lt. Gen. David Lindsay Morrison

I don't really follow what you're saying here, and I have no idea who the military person you refer to is or why they are relevant, but you can only be held responsible for acts that you performed, not acts you didn't perform.

I appreciate that zero is a difficult concept. The Romans didn't even have a number for zero, and the Greeks didn't believe in zero, which is why they referred to it as an absence of things rather than something that was nothing. In fact that's where the word "atheism" comes from: "theos" meaning the belief in deities, and the prefix "a-" meaning the absence of something. Not doing something, or not believing something, is zero action, or zero belief.

Inaction is not an action, it's a lack of action. Just as atheism is not a belief, but a lack of belief.

 

[Imari]

...belief is stating that there is insufficient information to have a sensible opinion...

Er, no. That's not a belief. That's an admission.

Where we disagree is that we can live without belief.

Explain to me like I'm five why we cannot live without belief.

If you do not extrapolate, you are accepting what you do not know as "unknowable", you believe it is unknowable. If you form a hypothesis (a belief) and test it you are searching for the truth.

I suspect that you've chosen a poor example in the Big Bang, as you don't seem to entirely understand why the limits of our knowledge about the Big Bang are where they are.

I'll start with a couple of videos that do a pretty good job of explaining in a clear and entertaining way an overview of the current state of the Big Bang theory.





Not extrapolating is not accepting something as unknowable in this case. It's recognising that the knowledge of physics that we have at this time is insufficient to attempt to "reverse engineer" certain physical states. We don't choose not to extrapolate back to the origin of the Big Bang (if such a thing exists), we straight up can't. Our assumptions that we use do not hold in those conditions.

You might as well ask what's inside a black hole. We don't know, and while our current physics allows us to predict what will happen as matter gets closer to a black hole, and have a pretty good guess at what happens as it gets closer still, there is a point at which our models simply do not work. We call that the event horizon, and beyond that what happens is anyone's guess.

Now, you might choose to come up with your own idea of what happens beyond the event horizon. That would be a belief. Others might simply choose to say "I couldn't comment on what might happen in there". That is not a belief. That is intellectual honesty that the person currently has insufficient information to form an opinion. It says nothing about whether information might be available in the future or whether the answer is ultimately unknowable.

As Famine has pointed out, your understanding of science is also questionable. One never proves theories of the universe right. The best you can do is run out of ways to prove them wrong, but that still doesn't mean that they're correct. Newtonian gravity was a highly successful theory that by almost any test at the time gave correct results. But ultimately it was shown to be an incomplete approximation. A true scientist is aware that this is true of any theory. So far no absolute truths have been found (outside of where we arbitrarily define them). All theories are explanations that best fit current observations and knowledge, and pretty much every theory I can think of has known flaws that are hoped to be resolved with future research/observations/technology/intelligent people.

Beware your absolutist world view. You'll find that actual scientists are far less rigid in their thinking than you're making out. We know that scientific ideas are regularly found to be wrong. It's one of the main joys of being a scientist, figuring out a way to explain why a widely accepted theory is in fact incorrect. Everyone would love to be the next Einstein.

Learn to let go and simply accept what you can observe, and maintain a keen awareness of the assumptions that you make from those observations when forming your opinions. You'll find that you don't need to believe in anything. You can either explain your current thoughts using reasoning and observations, or you can say you don't know. Both of which are fine, and neither of which require forming "beliefs"; accepting that something is true uncritically.

 

[Danoff]

One thing for sure, belief or non belief in something is not a choice. I cannot choose to believe the moon is made of cheese anymore than I can choose to believe it is made of stone.

Oh it is though. The contents of your brain are your choice. It's just that to change your beliefs, you don't simply say "I choose not to believe" or "I choose to believe". You have to listen to reasons, and come to the conclusion that those reasons are persuasive.

We are not born believing in anything. We may be taught beliefs, but it's our own decision whether to question those beliefs. We choose every day whether to expose ourselves to information that conflicts with our beliefs or not to. It's the choice, the choice about which information we listen to, and how we treat it, that shapes our beliefs. That last part, how we treat it, refers to being selectively skeptical. We can choose what information to be skeptical about, and what information to accept without question. We choose this every day. We choose (generally) to accept information which is consistent with what we think is true (confirmation bias), and to be skeptical about information which is not consistent with what we think is true. And a little of that is even healthy.

But make no mistake, the contents of your brain are not out of your own control, and are not beyond your responsibility.

 

[KungFury]

Oh it is though. The contents of your brain are your choice. It's just that to change your beliefs, you don't simply say "I choose not to believe" or "I choose to believe". You have to listen to reasons, and come to the conclusion that those reasons are persuasive.

We are not born believing in anything. We may be taught beliefs, but it's our own decision whether to question those beliefs. We choose every day whether to expose ourselves to information that conflicts with our beliefs or not to. It's the choice, the choice about which information we listen to, and how we treat it, that shapes our beliefs. That last part, how we treat it, refers to being selectively skeptical. We can choose what information to be skeptical about, and what information to accept without question. We choose this every day. We choose (generally) to accept information which is consistent with what we think is true (confirmation bias), and to be skeptical about information which is not consistent with what we think is true. And a little of that is even healthy.

But make no mistake, the contents of your brain are not out of your own control, and are not beyond your responsibility.

the grumpy one's might state nurture only

Even if that were true, we don't choose what we are exposed to as a child. I'll continue to believe that belief is not a choice, suggesting we can influence ourselves by choosing our surroundings I'll agree with. There has to be a nature part to it as well though, a natural tendency to believe.

 

[Danoff]

I'll continue to believe that belief is not a choice

Hey, that's your choice. 👍

 

[Dotini]

We are not born believing in anything.

Are we born with instincts and intuition? Perhaps some worship fast cars, big tits and God for reasons having little to do with choice?

 

[KungFury]

heh,

Here's some stuff from some medical person contemplating Bruce Lipton, not a bad article to read.

Human belief system is formed by all the experiences learned and experimented filtered through personality.[7] The senses to capture inner and outer perceptions have higher brain potentials. Some questions that arise in this context are, does the integration and acceptance of these perceptions result in the establishment of beliefs? Does the establishment of these beliefs depend on proof demonstrations? The proofs might be the perceptions, which we can directly see or having scientific proof or custom or faith.[8,9] Beliefs are developed as stimuli received as trusted information and stored in the memory. These perceptions are generalized and established into belief. These beliefs are involved in the moral judgment of the person. Beliefs help in decision-making...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802367/

 

[Danoff]

Are we born with instincts and intuition? Perhaps some worship fast cars, big tits and God for reasons having little to do with choice?

Instincts and intuition, yes. Beliefs, no.