Belief a CHOICE?

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rstrats
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Belief a CHOICE?

Post #1

Post by rstrats »

A number of folks on these boards are saying or at least implying that they can consciously CHOOSE to believe things. If you are one of them perhaps one of you can help me. I have never been able to consciously CHOOSE any of the beliefs that I have and I would like to be able to do that. If you think that you can consciously CHOOSE to believe things, I wonder if you might explain how you do it. What do you do at the last moment to instantly change your one state of belief to another? What is it that you do that would allow you to say, “OK, at this moment I have a lack of belief that ‘x’ exists or is true, but I CHOOSE to believe that ‘x’ exists or is true and now instantly at this new moment I do believe that ‘x’ exists or is true?

Maybe you could use something like leprechauns to demonstrate your technique. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, a leprechaun is “a fairy peculiar to Ireland, who appeared in the form of an old man of minute stature, wearing a cocked hat and a leather apron.� So, assuming that you don’t already have a belief in them, how about right now, while you are reading this, CHOOSE to believe - be convinced without a doubt - that they exist. Now that you believe in leprechauns, my question is, how did you do it? How did you make the instantaneous transition from lack of belief to belief?

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Post #41

Post by rstrats »

Since it's been awhile, perhaps someone new looking in who thinks they have the ability to consciously choose to believe things could demonstrate their ability as requested in the OP.

jgh7

Post #42

Post by jgh7 »

My response doesn't pertain to enabling belief from lack of belief. I still think it is somewhat relevant to your topic. It's about changing certain beliefs that you have, from one side of the belief to the other.

Basically, I think some beliefs can be influenced by your thoughts. In other words, it is your thoughts that cause you to believe a certain way. But in many cases you can "tune" your thoughts. And from this, you may find that your beliefs change, and that it is your own concious choice that caused them to change. This may sound cryptic, so I'll give an example to try and flesh it out better.

My example:

In the past and often still in the present, I have the belief that I strongly dislike chores. Whenever I think of future chores, I think of being bored and restless and in general misery while doing them. I have this negative belief towards chores due to my negative thoughts and imagination of them.

Now, this belief can be influenced by controlling and tuning my thoughts. One technique: the belief becomes less negative when I simply don't think about these negative thoughts. I don't imagine being bored and restless and in misery when I think of doing chores. When I actually do the chores, I don't let negative thoughts overtake me. If I can't think anything good towards chores, better not to think at all about them and just do them and go with the experience without resistance. More peace comes over me from this technique, and I find that my thoughts naturally change.

It doesn't always work, but when it does I have found that I don't have such a negative outlook on certain chores anymore.

So ends my humble example of my ongoing epic struggle with chores. As I said in the beginning, my response doesn't have to do with enabling belief from non-belief. It has to do with changing one belief to its opposite belief. Your thoughts don't always reflect reality too well, and you have the choice to believe in those thoughts or to ignore them and see where actual experience leads you. This concious choice allows for greater possibility for your beliefs to change. Also, the type of belief I have described is more along the lines of "perspective". You might be concerned solely with beliefs from a "true" and "false" standpoint, but perhaps this can pertain to that somewhat as well.

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Re: Belief a CHOICE?

Post #43

Post by Mr.Badham »

rstrats wrote: A number of folks on these boards are saying or at least implying that they can consciously CHOOSE to believe things. If you are one of them perhaps one of you can help me. I have never been able to consciously CHOOSE any of the beliefs that I have and I would like to be able to do that. If you think that you can consciously CHOOSE to believe things, I wonder if you might explain how you do it. What do you do at the last moment to instantly change your one state of belief to another? What is it that you do that would allow you to say, “OK, at this moment I have a lack of belief that ‘x’ exists or is true, but I CHOOSE to believe that ‘x’ exists or is true and now instantly at this new moment I do believe that ‘x’ exists or is true?

Maybe you could use something like leprechauns to demonstrate your technique. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, a leprechaun is “a fairy peculiar to Ireland, who appeared in the form of an old man of minute stature, wearing a cocked hat and a leather apron.� So, assuming that you don’t already have a belief in them, how about right now, while you are reading this, CHOOSE to believe - be convinced without a doubt - that they exist. Now that you believe in leprechauns, my question is, how did you do it? How did you make the instantaneous transition from lack of belief to belief?

Does a 6 year old choose anything? If you take your family to church, do you honestly expect your children to judge objectively what is being said? if you take your family to church would you allow your children to judge objectively what is being said? If you've gone to church your whole life, do you honestly believe you can objectively judge what's being said?

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Re: Belief a CHOICE?

Post #44

Post by benchwarmer »

[Replying to post 1 by rstrats]

My response to the OP:

First, I think there are two ideas here that are getting mixed a little - or maybe I'm just mixed a little :)

The OP seems to be talking about changing a belief from one thing to another in an instant. However, the title of the thread seems to imply to me either first choosing to believe one way or the other or perhaps changing belief after a long considered process of gathering new knowledge/evidence.

I would say that we do choose what to believe when a new idea is presented to us. For example, the first time you heard about Santa. Whoever told you about Santa first had an advantage because you had never heard about him before. Now, depending on your life experience at the time of hearing about Santa and what this person presented, you either chose to believe he was real or not based on what you were told (or perhaps a third option, you didn't decide one way or another until you saw more evidence). At some point you take a stand: I believe it, I don't believe it, I withhold all judgement. The last option is only likely if you are not a young child and have more knowledge and experience. The first two options would happen in an instant after gaining whatever knowledge that satisfied you.

As for changing a held belief, I don't think that is so easy to do. If presented enough evidence, or upon realization there is no evidence, I think you can change your belief. I don't think you can change it back and forth at command because to me a belief is something you hold on to based on whatever evidence (life experience, tales, physical data, education, etc) you have accumulated. You would essentially need to be able to forget everything you know about a particular concept on command. Kind of like pulling the hard drive out of your brain that stores your accumulated knowledge. Then when you want to change your belief back again, plug in the drive. I don't think anyone is capable of that type of thing. I would be happy to be proven wrong.

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Re: Belief a CHOICE?

Post #45

Post by Blastcat »

[Replying to post 1 by rstrats]
rstrats wrote: Now that you believe in leprechauns, my question is, how did you do it? How did you make the instantaneous transition from lack of belief to belief?
I believe that this topic is very important.

I have sat around many a discussion table with believers of ALL KINDS ( from Christians to conspiracy theorists ) who have told me in all seriousness that they "CHOSE TO BELIEVE".

When I tried to point out what I thought was perfectly obvious, that we don't REALLY choose to believe in things, but that belief was just a word for "being really convinced that something is true", they simply ....... Disagreed and smiled at me condescendingly. I was usually outvoted ... so I was thought as FOOLISH...

Majority rules is NOT the way to decide what is true or not.

In my opinion, thinking that one "chooses" to believe is utterly ridiculous. One is convinced or not. One may be convinced by GOOD reasons or POOR reasons.. but the mechanism of being convinced isn't something we CHOOSE unless we actively HAVE a mechanism. And from my experience, when I ask people about their mechanism.. they go UTTERLY BLANK.

Most people DO NOT have a rigorous epistemology, NOR have they ever even HEARD of the word.

How can they properly CHOOSE if they don't have a clue as to HOW?

I think their "choosing" is like a baby at a candy store, and nothing else. The biggest, most colorful well presented candy gets chosen every time.

:)

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Re: Belief a CHOICE?

Post #46

Post by Blastcat »

[Replying to post 44 by benchwarmer]
benchwarmer wrote:
My response to the OP:

First, I think there are two ideas here that are getting mixed a little - or maybe I'm just mixed a little :)
Good point.

Yeah, it's confusing to think about thinking. It's very easy to get "mixed", for sure. In my opinion, people who tell me that they have "chosen" their belief are mistaken as to the MEANING of belief and don't have a clue as to how humans acquire "beliefs". So, by their superficial thinking, they "feel" that they have "chosen" a belief, like we might choose a pair of socks. I chose the pair of Barbie socks over the Ken socks because I LIKE Barbie more than Ken, or whatever.

Making a purchase at a store DOES require us to make a choice, but that CHOICE does NOT have to be reasonable at all OR conscious in any way. In fact, the world economy is BASED on our not making rational purchasing decisions.

So, when someone tells me that they have CHOSEN a belief, I think "They didn't chose CONSCIOUSLY", but had some kind of knee jerk REACTION.. and so... Barbie socks get more purchased than Ken socks, every time.
benchwarmer wrote:The OP seems to be talking about changing a belief from one thing to another in an instant. However, the title of the thread seems to imply to me either first choosing to believe one way or the other or perhaps changing belief after a long considered process of gathering new knowledge/evidence.
Ah.. the person you are imagining seems to have reliable THINKING METHODS and rigorous EPISTEMOLOGICAL STANDARDS.... that person is more concerned about the TRUTH of a proposition to believe in than merely ACQUIRING a nice sounding belief.

Do you know the most common response to my question:"How do you know if what you believe in is true or not?".. It's shockingly : "What is truth"? When someone has to ASK... it's a forehead slapper that one. I don't think they have a RIGOROUS criteria for what is true.

Doesn't bode well for the truth of their beliefs. AND.. It never really seems to MATTER to them.. It's just not a problem.

"Truth? ...What IS truth?"...

Are these people making a RATIONAL CHOICE about the truth of their beliefs? ... I emphatically say: "NO."
benchwarmer wrote:I would say that we do choose what to believe when a new idea is presented to us. For example, the first time you heard about Santa. Whoever told you about Santa first had an advantage because you had never heard about him before. Now, depending on your life experience at the time of hearing about Santa and what this person presented, you either chose to believe he was real or not based on what you were told (or perhaps a third option, you didn't decide one way or another until you saw more evidence).
Or, just never even THOUGHT about it. We are talking about little kids, right? They have to AT LEAST be old enough to have learned SOME skepticism.
benchwarmer wrote:At some point you take a stand: I believe it, I don't believe it, I withhold all judgement.
None of these positions have to be arrived rationally.

The apathetic "not taking a stand", is more likely to KEEP whatever bias existed.. and in the case of Santa, kids are going to just keep believing in Santa.. I call this "intellectual inertia". From my experience, ( small ) kids stop believing in Santa due to PEER pressure, and not much else. They don't want to be made fun of, so they go with the crowd, but that's not what I would call a very RATIONAL METHOD of disbelieving in Santa. Some people just don't believe in Santa but NEVER even think of rational reasons or it.
benchwarmer wrote:As for changing a held belief, I don't think that is so easy to do.
I have to agree. In some cases, it's the hardest thing. I have struggled with that all my LIFE. I am ALWAYS confronted by my very special but FALSE beliefs.

That's almost on a daily basis, too.
And THAT'S one of the measures that know that I am LEARNING.
benchwarmer wrote:If presented enough evidence, or upon realization there is no evidence, I think you can change your belief.
You equate belief with the realization of something. Is a realization something we choose or not?
benchwarmer wrote:I don't think you can change it back and forth at command because to me a belief is something you hold on to based on whatever evidence (life experience, tales, physical data, education, etc) you have accumulated.
You are assuming how we form our beliefs is always RATIONAL. Sorry, but not everyone is so rational as the way you portray. Some people believe in things very strongly for IRRATIONAL reasons.
benchwarmer wrote:You would essentially need to be able to forget everything you know about a particular concept on command. Kind of like pulling the hard drive out of your brain that stores your accumulated knowledge. Then when you want to change your belief back again, plug in the drive. I don't think anyone is capable of that type of thing. I would be happy to be proven wrong.
I change my beliefs all the time, and I don't have to erase my whole brain to do it. I NEED my brain to do it.. That, and a very good METHOD that I can trust. I chose the method called "CRITICAL THINKING".

It seems to have yielded me the BEST decisions so far.
But when it comes to LOVE or what kind of socks to buy.. critical thinking goes OUT the door.

Did anything that I wrote here begin to open the door on your position?

:)

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Re: Belief a CHOICE?

Post #47

Post by benchwarmer »

Lots of great points Blastcat. I'll try to respond to them all.
Blastcat wrote: [Replying to post 44 by benchwarmer]
benchwarmer wrote:
My response to the OP:

First, I think there are two ideas here that are getting mixed a little - or maybe I'm just mixed a little :)
Good point.

Yeah, it's confusing to think about thinking. It's very easy to get "mixed", for sure. In my opinion, people who tell me that they have "chosen" their belief are mistaken as to the MEANING of belief and don't have a clue as to how humans acquire "beliefs". So, by their superficial thinking, they "feel" that they have "chosen" a belief, like we might choose a pair of socks. I chose the pair of Barbie socks over the Ken socks because I LIKE Barbie more than Ken, or whatever.
Thanks for sharing your fashion beliefs :) I personally like to wear my wife's pink socks on occasion. Perhaps if I saw some Barbie socks I would be swayed.
Blastcat wrote: Making a purchase at a store DOES require us to make a choice, but that CHOICE does NOT have to be reasonable at all OR conscious in any way. In fact, the world economy is BASED on our not making rational purchasing decisions.

So, when someone tells me that they have CHOSEN a belief, I think "They didn't chose CONSCIOUSLY", but had some kind of knee jerk REACTION.. and so... Barbie socks get more purchased than Ken socks, every time.
I think I see what you are trying to say and I think I was sort of trying to say the same thing. My opinion is our beliefs are based on whatever 'input' we have received so far. Any particular belief will seem true to us based on what we know so far. I was trying to equate choosing a belief for the first time to the moment when a belief becomes active. i.e. before you heard about Santa, you didn't have any belief or non belief about a concept of Santa. Only after you heard something could you form any sort of belief about him. Do we actively think "I choose to believe in Santa now"? I don't think so and maybe that is what you are saying as well. The belief 'happens' based on whatever data we have (whether it's good, bad, or otherwise).
Blastcat wrote:
benchwarmer wrote:The OP seems to be talking about changing a belief from one thing to another in an instant. However, the title of the thread seems to imply to me either first choosing to believe one way or the other or perhaps changing belief after a long considered process of gathering new knowledge/evidence.
Ah.. the person you are imagining seems to have reliable THINKING METHODS and rigorous EPISTEMOLOGICAL STANDARDS.... that person is more concerned about the TRUTH of a proposition to believe in than merely ACQUIRING a nice sounding belief.
I think I answered this above. Let me know if you need me to explain something more.
Blastcat wrote: Do you know the most common response to my question:"How do you know if what you believe in is true or not?".. It's shockingly : "What is truth"? When someone has to ASK... it's a forehead slapper that one. I don't think they have a RIGOROUS criteria for what is true.

Doesn't bode well for the truth of their beliefs. AND.. It never really seems to MATTER to them.. It's just not a problem.

"Truth? ...What IS truth?"...

Are these people making a RATIONAL CHOICE about the truth of their beliefs? ... I emphatically say: "NO."
And I agree with you. I guess I wasn't very clear in original response. I wasn't trying to imply we only base beliefs on rational evidence. I was simply trying to say we base our beliefs on whatever 'input' we have.
Blastcat wrote:
benchwarmer wrote:I would say that we do choose what to believe when a new idea is presented to us. For example, the first time you heard about Santa. Whoever told you about Santa first had an advantage because you had never heard about him before. Now, depending on your life experience at the time of hearing about Santa and what this person presented, you either chose to believe he was real or not based on what you were told (or perhaps a third option, you didn't decide one way or another until you saw more evidence).
Or, just never even THOUGHT about it. We are talking about little kids, right? They have to AT LEAST be old enough to have learned SOME skepticism.
Yes, I think I see what you are saying. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you are saying we may have a belief, but never really thought about having it. i.e. if you asked me what my belief about X is, I may have a belief, but never consciously thought about it until you mentioned it. Or maybe you are talking about questioning things that we learn in order to arrive at a chosen belief?
Blastcat wrote:
benchwarmer wrote:At some point you take a stand: I believe it, I don't believe it, I withhold all judgement.
None of these positions have to be arrived rationally.
Agreed. I wasn't trying to imply that, but I wasn't very clear I guess.
Blastcat wrote: The apathetic "not taking a stand", is more likely to KEEP whatever bias existed.. and in the case of Santa, kids are going to just keep believing in Santa.. I call this "intellectual inertia". From my experience, ( small ) kids stop believing in Santa due to PEER pressure, and not much else. They don't want to be made fun of, so they go with the crowd, but that's not what I would call a very RATIONAL METHOD of disbelieving in Santa. Some people just don't believe in Santa but NEVER even think of rational reasons or it.
I'm not sure if you are talking about what we actually believe or what we proclaim to believe. In the case of kids, yes, peer pressure would steer them to proclaim whatever the 'cool' belief is regardless of what they actually believe.
Blastcat wrote:
benchwarmer wrote:As for changing a held belief, I don't think that is so easy to do.
I have to agree. In some cases, it's the hardest thing. I have struggled with that all my LIFE. I am ALWAYS confronted by my very special but FALSE beliefs.

That's almost on a daily basis, too.
And THAT'S one of the measures that know that I am LEARNING.
Amen to that. Things I've held onto a long time still sit there lingering making me wonder 'what if' when in fact I have pretty solid evidence my belief is wrong. Sometimes I get into a whole "I don't know what to believe anymore" about some things.
Blastcat wrote:
benchwarmer wrote:If presented enough evidence, or upon realization there is no evidence, I think you can change your belief.
You equate belief with the realization of something. Is a realization something we choose or not?
Perhaps not and I see your point. As I mentioned earlier on, we likely don't think to ourselves "I choose to believe X now". We more likely come to realize that we believe X after thinking about it or being asked about it. However, whatever we believe can only be based on whatever 'input' we have. To base it on anything else would definitely seem to be an active choice. i.e. I know nothing about Y, yet I choose to believe Y.
Blastcat wrote:
benchwarmer wrote:I don't think you can change it back and forth at command because to me a belief is something you hold on to based on whatever evidence (life experience, tales, physical data, education, etc) you have accumulated.
You are assuming how we form our beliefs is always RATIONAL. Sorry, but not everyone is so rational as the way you portray. Some people believe in things very strongly for IRRATIONAL reasons.
My portrayal does not accurately reflect what I actually believe :) Chock it up to bad articulation on my part. I completely agree with your above statement.
Blastcat wrote:
benchwarmer wrote:You would essentially need to be able to forget everything you know about a particular concept on command. Kind of like pulling the hard drive out of your brain that stores your accumulated knowledge. Then when you want to change your belief back again, plug in the drive. I don't think anyone is capable of that type of thing. I would be happy to be proven wrong.
I change my beliefs all the time, and I don't have to erase my whole brain to do it. I NEED my brain to do it.. That, and a very good METHOD that I can trust. I chose the method called "CRITICAL THINKING".
Yes, but do you change your belief on command? For example if I tell you to start believing Ken socks are actually better can you do it? Deep down you will still want the Barbie socks. Which by the way are not as cool as my wife's pink socks you sock heretic :yikes:
Blastcat wrote: It seems to have yielded me the BEST decisions so far.
But when it comes to LOVE or what kind of socks to buy.. critical thinking goes OUT the door.

Did anything that I wrote here begin to open the door on your position?

:)
I think we share a very similar position, but my door is always open to new ideas. Especially if those ideas come with pasta and meatballs. Long live the FSM! (and pink socks)

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Re: Belief a CHOICE?

Post #48

Post by Blastcat »

[Replying to post 47 by benchwarmer]


Not enough Christians to debate, so lets debate about what we agree about....

benchwarmer wrote:I think I see what you are trying to say and I think I was sort of trying to say the same thing. My opinion is our beliefs are based on whatever 'input' we have received so far. Any particular belief will seem true to us based on what we know so far. I was trying to equate choosing a belief for the first time to the moment when a belief becomes active. i.e. before you heard about Santa, you didn't have any belief or non belief about a concept of Santa.
Ok, that makes sense.
We can't believe in something that we never heard of or thought up.
benchwarmer wrote:Only after you heard something could you form any sort of belief about him. Do we actively think "I choose to believe in Santa now"? I don't think so and maybe that is what you are saying as well. The belief 'happens' based on whatever data we have (whether it's good, bad, or otherwise).
Yeah, a belief is a position on the truth of a proposition. And so, we have to know about a proposition before having a position as to it's truth or not. Of course. I didn't know I was objecting to that, because I shouldn't. Maybe I misinterpreted what you were saying to mean that we always think about the truth value of something before we believe that it is true. I think that we sometimes, just ACCEPT something as true... and then, thereby, believe it.

By believing, I mean "accepting that something is true".
benchwarmer wrote:And I agree with you. I guess I wasn't very clear in original response. I wasn't trying to imply we only base beliefs on rational evidence. I was simply trying to say we base our beliefs on whatever 'input' we have.
Ok, got it.
benchwarmer wrote:Yes, I think I see what you are saying. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you are saying we may have a belief, but never really thought about having it. i.e. if you asked me what my belief about X is, I may have a belief, but never consciously thought about it until you mentioned it. Or maybe you are talking about questioning things that we learn in order to arrive at a chosen belief?
I'm trying to say that sometimes, and in all too many cases, we believe something based on poor reasoning... and those beliefs might not be about TRUE things at all... and that, in those cases, we can be just plain WRONG in our beliefs without knowing it.

I think we've cleared this up pretty well now.
benchwarmer wrote:I'm not sure if you are talking about what we actually believe or what we proclaim to believe. In the case of kids, yes, peer pressure would steer them to proclaim whatever the 'cool' belief is regardless of what they actually believe.
I am talking about what we really believe. But of course, it's also true that many people might PROFESS to believe something that they really don't for some ulterior motive, like for example, not getting MURDERED by extremists.
benchwarmer wrote:Amen to that. Things I've held onto a long time still sit there lingering making me wonder 'what if' when in fact I have pretty solid evidence my belief is wrong. Sometimes I get into a whole "I don't know what to believe anymore" about some things.
Even the DONALD is persuasive to some folks. So, yeah, it's very good to have a sound epistemology. ( critical thinking helps here )
benchwarmer wrote:If presented enough evidence, or upon realization there is no evidence, I think you can change your belief.
Blastcat wrote:You equate belief with the realization of something. Is a realization something we choose or not?
benchwarmer wrote:Perhaps not and I see your point. As I mentioned earlier on, we likely don't think to ourselves "I choose to believe X now".
And I don't CHOOSE to realize something. That light bulb moment seems to happen all by itself. Based, of course, on all kinds of factors, some of which are what we already know. Of course, a realization can come from pondering something that I didn't know before.. as in new data.

But I don't CHOOSE to realize something. That just seems to "happen". Click goes the light.
benchwarmer wrote:Yes, but do you change your belief on command?
No, I don't really think that's possible. What I HAVE done and done often is to "suspend" my disbelief for some thought experiment, or when I'm settling down to watch a movie. I pretend for a couple of hours that what is on that big flat screen is really happening.. And it works. I feel emotions as if they WERE real events. Even movies with magical components can seem "real" that way. I think that's what the believers in gods do... They pretend it's real, and then don't STOP pretending it's real.

The difference between most believers and I is that when I get out of the movie theater licking my buttery fingers, I STOP pretending..
benchwarmer wrote:For example if I tell you to start believing Ken socks are actually better can you do it? Deep down you will still want the Barbie socks. Which by the way are not as cool as my wife's pink socks you sock heretic :yikes:
Sock religion leads to sock wars. But ask yourself: "What would Jesus do?"... Jesus didn't WEAR socks... So, the two of us are going to burn in sock hell.
benchwarmer wrote:I think we share a very similar position, but my door is always open to new ideas. Especially if those ideas come with pasta and meatballs. Long live the FSM! (and pink socks)
Yeah, we mostly agree... boring debate...

HOWEVER, you heathen:

A true Spaghettini Barbie Sockist would never believe the false doctrine of meatballs.

:)

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Re: Belief a CHOICE?

Post #49

Post by ttruscott »

rstrats wrote: A number of folks on these boards are saying or at least implying that they can consciously CHOOSE to believe things. If you are one of them perhaps one of you can help me. I have never been able to consciously CHOOSE any of the beliefs that I have and I would like to be able to do that. If you think that you can consciously CHOOSE to believe things, I wonder if you might explain how you do it.
1.
You choose your belief when you have no proof of reality when presented with more than one option as to the truth about a belief. Like before any science proved or taught us how to prove if the earth was flat or round, we had a choice to believe which was true. Arguments supported both but proved neither. But inside we could believe it to be one way even though we were not adamant that was our convicted belief while others chose strongly to accept one definition or the other because they thought the evidence weighed in that direction or even just...because.

2. New Evidence...
Does new evidence really change your mind or do you rather change your mind when presented with new evidence after considering the implications etc, the connotations? Does not changing your mind mean you choose to accept the new data rather than stay with the old definitions?

Your choice to now decide to choose to believe that leprechauns exist without any new data is absurd because rather than your senseless definition of what it means to choose to believe, the Christian use is quite ordinary and not different from making up your mind about anything not fully proven and choosing to believe different when proof is offered.

Your strawman argument fails...
Last edited by ttruscott on Sat Aug 13, 2016 5:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
PCE Theology as I see it...

We had an existence with a free will in Sheol before the creation of the physical universe. Here we chose to be able to become holy or to be eternally evil in YHWH's sight. Then the physical universe was created and all sinners were sent to earth.

This theology debunks the need to base Christianity upon the blasphemy of creating us in Adam's sin.

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Post #50

Post by ttruscott »

Baz wrote:
Can you enlighten me in simple terms if possible how this takes place?
Sure, but I'd be more comfortable answering a precise question instead of dealing with the vagueness of the world this...
Do you believe that our soles make the choice before we are borne?
I consider the word soul to refer to a spirit that is ensconced in a body. Since my pre-earth definitions are also pre - the whole of physical reality, I contend that we were spirits before we were conceived and yes, that is when we made our decisions setting our eternal relationship with our GOD as members of HIS Family (the elect) or as HIS eternal enemies (those condemned already)...it is called pre-conception existence Christianity.
PCE Theology as I see it...

We had an existence with a free will in Sheol before the creation of the physical universe. Here we chose to be able to become holy or to be eternally evil in YHWH's sight. Then the physical universe was created and all sinners were sent to earth.

This theology debunks the need to base Christianity upon the blasphemy of creating us in Adam's sin.

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