Whats the reason for this belief?

[Scrotum]

We all know that the majority of the worlds population is ´stupid´, to simplify. But how come so many educated people, with capacity to think, still believe in gods?

Instead of talking about gods specifically , i would like to use the Tooth Fairy as a substitute, as there is no difference, and shows the ridicule of the whole thing.

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Both John/Harvey & Otsent believe in the Tooth Fairy. Otsent believes in a specific Tooth Fairy, together with John, whom is more of a fundamentalist, Whiles Harvey is more close to a Different Tooth Fairy.

None of these people have any proof or logical based evidence for the existence of their Tooth Fairy. None at all. They simply state he or she exist, and thats the end of story.
-

Why?
Personally, i always presumed the contemporary belief of a Tooth Fairy to be because of fear. Death is a scary thought for most people (remember, the general population is ignorant, and ignorance brings fear), and also the fact that you would be forced to take responsobility for your life,which the existence of the Tooth Fairy removes.


Whats your view?
Why do you think people believe in such things? Is there other reasons then fear and plain ignorance?

[McCulloch]

You are missing the point. I was convinced by my understanding of the evidence at the time. So I believed in God. No choice. Then I decided (choice) to become a Christian based on that belief.

So, you decided to be a Christian but you didn't also decide to be a theist? Did you decide to be an atheist like you decided to be a Christian?

Being an atheist or a theist is a matter of what you believe. Belief is not a decision. Being a Christian is a decision. It is often described as a commitment. Don't you know that the demons believe and shudder. There is more to being a Christian than simply believing that this or that is true. There is nothing more to being an atheist than believing that there is no God.

No, not at all. We choose what we do. We do not choose what we believe.

If our beliefs all lack free will, then how do our actions introduce free will? It would seem to me to be the opposite. We decide what we believe and our actions are based on what we choose to believe. For example, if I choose to read a novel because I believe that this activity will be fun, then I have freely chosen a particular belief (i.e., an intension of what I wish to do) which I then do because I now have this belief that this would be the best use of my time and something that I wish to do. If I didn't choose this belief, then I wouldn't follow through on this action since I lack this belief.

In your example, you choose to read a novel because you first came to a belief that the novel would bring you joy. Did you choose to believe that? Did you randomly pick a novel and then say, "this one is a good one"? No. You evaluated what you know about the novel, its author, its publisher, the excerpt on the flyleaf, review, recommends from friends. You then came to a belief (more likely an hypothesis) that this might be a good read. By choosing to read the book, you tested the hypothesis and found that either it was correct or not. I do not see in your example where you chose to believe anything.

We choose to have a worldview, and with that worldview comes the methods by which we use to judge and evaluate evidence. If the worldview is no longer pleasing to us--pragmatically speaking, then we often choose another because it's not working for us.

That is nice for you that you can categorize your knowledge into those beliefs which are part of your worldview and those bits which are not. I do not think that we choose that way. We build our worldview based on the accumulation of beliefs about the world.

Sure, our worldview is context-dependent on what we already believe, but our beliefs are always based (ultimately) on pragmatism. For example, if in the 15th and 16th century it was found that experimentation produced useless predictive results as to how nature reacts in certain situations, then surely modern science would never have been pursued. Now, as we build more and more successful beliefs, we begin to look at the beliefs themselves as "true," but that's only because we've had so much success with those beliefs that we're sure that they are objectively right. So, we feel comfortable building on those beliefs. However, if things aren't going well overall, then this creates dissatisfaction with a paradigm (a whole collection of related beliefs), and we begin to become open to new paradigms.

So we go looking for a new paradigm if we have some reason to believe that the old paradigm is no longer valid. We do not simply choose freely without cause to switch paradigms, do we?

However, objective or not, we base our beliefs on our assessment of whatever evidence we have. We may not objectively analyse that evidence, but we still believe based only on evidence.

I disagree with that. Of course we base our views on evidence, but since evidence is based on our worldview, we tend to underestimate evidence that is contrary to that worldview and we can also overestimate evidence that is in conformance to that worldview. It's only when our worldviews contradict each other than we see the necessity to change our perspective since a more dear worldview (e.g., rationality) might be jeopardized as a result. Hence, we don't believe based only on evidence, but on a conglomeration of factors which are based significantly on our worldview. It's the reason why atheists don't instantly convert to agnosticism or theism when they hear about huge coincidences in the natural constants that seem to require life. This evidence contradicts their worldview, and that worldview is more dear to them than the evidence, so this requires that they interpret this evidence in a manner that is more conducive to their way of seeing the world (hence, the big push by these folks toward secular anthropic principle reasoning).

The effect that our worldview has on subsequent beliefs is simply the effect that an accumulated set of beliefs that we have found to be consistent and useful has on our willingness to accept other beliefs. We choose a worldview, not freely, but because we have become convinced that the worldview is an accurate model of reality.

You believe what you believe because you are convinced that those beliefs are most probably correct.

Of course I think they are correct, but that's because my worldview has an interpretation where these beliefs could only appear to be correct. That doesn't stop me from choosing my worldview based on pragmatic standards.

Yes, we all choose our worldview. Not freely, but as you have pointed out based on pragmatic standards.

[harvey1]

In your example, you choose to read a novel because you first came to a belief that the novel would bring you joy. Did you choose to believe that?

Well, let's assume that at some point after reading so many novels that I noticed that reading novels was a joyful experience, it was a choice to attribute that joy to reading novels. Anyone could easily deny that this is the case and instead attribute it to being away from other people, or just reading (not necessarily novels), etc., etc.. At some point there is a real choice in having a belief. Our deeply ingrained genetic and/or childhood disposition might make it seem that we had to believe something as the case, but overall it is still a choice. There might be some exceptions because our genetic circuitry just can't be fooled (e.g., we might not be able to disagree with some of our most basic perceptions--although if someone can stop their heart by concentrating hard enough it seems that even these basic perceptions can be controlled by the mind), but I'm talking about the general case and not every conceivable case.

Did you randomly pick a novel and then say, "this one is a good one"? No. You evaluated what you know about the novel, its author, its publisher, the excerpt on the flyleaf, review, recommends from friends. You then came to a belief (more likely an hypothesis) that this might be a good read. By choosing to read the book, you tested the hypothesis and found that either it was correct or not. I do not see in your example where you chose to believe anything.

I choose to believe that reading the novel wouldn't be a waste of time. I could have chosen to not believe this, and therefore if I read the book I would believe that I'm wasting my time. I'm not sure why you would disagree with such a basic experience that humans have with self-discipline. It is very common for people to choose to use behavioristic approaches to reward themselves to like certain things and dislike other things when they are trying to overcome bad habits. For example, procrastinators are told to reward themselves only if they perform a productive activity. This is how a procrastinator can form an internal belief to accomplish an action immediately versus waiting on performing the task. The beliefs are chosen first (e.g., a desire to avoid procrastination) and then the actions (avoiding procrastination) can be achieved.

So we go looking for a new paradigm if we have some reason to believe that the old paradigm is no longer valid. We do not simply choose freely without cause to switch paradigms, do we?

Sure, but the causes are not cogent causes. That is, if we trace these things down to the ultimate underpinning, it's not that the paradigm faced cogent arguments which forced someone to give up a belief. In fact, it's always feasible to add an auxiliary hypothesis to a theory to make the theory fit the facts. In all honesty, what forces many theoreticians to give up their ill-conceived notions is that they don't get published anymore, or they aren't tenured, and many other facets that science and other academic branches use to judge the merits of their colleagues. That's not to say that it is purely pragmatic issues, and that there is no cogent reasons involved whatsoever, rather pragmatic considerations is what forces large numbers of people into silence thereby allowing the cogent reasons that are available to have more influence. The discovery of the big bang is a perfect example of this. Prior to the discovery in 1963 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, the big bang already had enough cogent reasons for its acceptance (e.g., Hubble's data, Friedman's equations, Einstein forcing a constant in the GR equations, etc.), and therefore what prevented the big bang from being accepted were mainly pragmatic reasons (namely, atheism was considered unquestionable and the big bang contradicted atheism). Once the instrumental reasons became too much to ignore in 1963, the scientific community moved quickly to the new paradigm and the critics were soon silenced by the shear power of the experimental data. Nobody listened to them anymore. The atheists bided their time for a generation so as to wait for the theory to catch up with experiments (you know those guys, the ones whose minds are at enmity with God ).

The effect that our worldview has on subsequent beliefs is simply the effect that an accumulated set of beliefs that we have found to be consistent and useful has on our willingness to accept other beliefs. We choose a worldview, not freely, but because we have become convinced that the worldview is an accurate model of reality.

As John Dewey pointed out, instrumentalism is another facet of pragmatism, and closely related. In science it is instrumentalism that carries most of the weight as far as what to believe. Here's another example. Prior to the 1998 discovery of supernove 1A data showing the universe is accelerating, all of the cogent arguments for the universe were thought to lead to a big crunch (namely, inflation, Hartle-Hawking no boundary, and perhaps a few other models). Once the instrumentalist data came along, there was a strong push to revise these models to account for not just an open universe, but an accelerating one to boot. I think what this simple example illustrates is that pragmatism is more basic than traditional epistemological approaches in basing our knowledge of the world. Pragmatism is in large measure responsible for the success of science.

Yes, we all choose our worldview. Not freely, but as you have pointed out based on pragmatic standards.

This is what it means to choose beliefs freely. When we see that our views are no longer pragmatically "working," this forces us into a search for beliefs that do work. This is why belief is a choice since we can resist this change by simply continuing on in the pain that comes with a worldview, or we can choose to give up the ghost and admit to ourselves that we are in pain and need to give up the ghost. In the case of instrumentalism, the issue is a little more complex since experimental results are part of science's cogent reasons for accepting a particular paradigm, but as I mentioned, science can always explain data by adding or modifying auxiliary hypotheses. The real impact comes when others do not share that paradigm and begin to discriminate against those who hold to an outmoded paradigm, and that's when career and other factors must be considered by those old goats who simply won't get with the times. Those are purely pragmatic factors (not just instrumentalist factors) and that's when it becomes very evident that beliefs are choices. Those choices might seem like obvious choices since if we don't select those beliefs we'll lose everything (life, career, fame, etc.), but not everyone is willing to accept the consequences. Boltzmann, for example, wouldn't accept the pragmatic consequences and committed suicide (as many in academia have done in the past) even though his cogent reasons later proved to be more than correct.

[QED]

Being an atheist or a theist is a matter of what you believe. Belief is not a decision. Being a Christian is a decision. It is often described as a commitment. Don't you know that the demons believe and shudder. There is more to being a Christian than simply believing that this or that is true. There is nothing more to being an atheist than believing that there is no God.

In the topic titled Is Young Earth Creationism a Science?

You also seem bothered that religion is a take-it-or-leave-it kind of thing. Let me compare this with getting married. Suppose you said to your fiance, "I want to marry you except that I don't like your ears and your silly sense of humor so I won't marry those parts." That would end your engagement on the spot, right? That's because marriage is a take-it-or-leave-it kind of thing. You can't pick and choose the parts of your spouse you will accept.

What does this mean? It means marriage takes faith. There's nothing strange about that. It just means that you loved someone enough to take a risk by making a commitment to them. Religion is like that. You get to a point that you're willing to take a risk and commit yourself to something or someone. In Christianity it's a commitment to Christ.

Maybe this its fundamental problem with the belief system being addressed in this topic. Rigadoon makes it clear that there's a concept of a "package deal" when subscribing to something like Christianity. This makes for a subtractive process where the individual believer must somehow come to terms with the elements of faith that do not fit with his instinctive worldview. How much more rational is it then to build our worldview through an additive process? Who knows; given enough steps the atheist might even reach God eventually.

[Curious]

The reason so many people believe in God is because God is, in fact, real.

What evidence is there that makes this a fact? Good to see you joining the debate BTW

As you are no doubt aware, no amount of evidence makes a fact. A fact is data. God is a fact in the same way as you are fact. I have never met you personally but have on several occassions been made aware of your presence. You might be quite different from the image I have of you but I am still pretty certain you exist in one form or another. BTW, thanks for the welcome back.

[McCulloch]

Well, let's assume that at some point after reading so many novels that I noticed that reading novels was a joyful experience, it was a choice to attribute that joy to reading novels. Anyone could easily deny that this is the case and instead attribute it to being away from other people, or just reading (not necessarily novels), etc., etc.. At some point there is a real choice in having a belief.

After reading many novels and finding that it was a joyful experience, you would probably come to the belief that novel reading produced joy. It is not a choice but a deduction. If someone suggested that it was not the novels that produced the joy but the isolation, then you would evaluate that hypothesis and accept or reject it based.

Did you randomly pick a novel and then say, "this one is a good one"? No. You evaluated what you know about the novel, its author, its publisher, the excerpt on the flyleaf, review, recommends from friends. You then came to a belief (more likely an hypothesis) that this might be a good read. By choosing to read the book, you tested the hypothesis and found that either it was correct or not. I do not see in your example where you chose to believe anything.

I choose to believe that reading the novel wouldn't be a waste of time.

No, you came to the belief that reading the novel wouldn't be a waste of time based on your own evaluation of the evidence.

I could have chosen to not believe this, and therefore if I read the book I would believe that I'm wasting my time.

No, you may have come to the conclusion that the book would not be enjoyable for certain reasons and therefore decline to read it.

I'm not sure why you would disagree with such a basic experience that humans have with self-discipline. It is very common for people to choose to use behavioristic approaches to reward themselves to like certain things and dislike other things when they are trying to overcome bad habits. For example, procrastinators are told to reward themselves only if they perform a productive activity. This is how a procrastinator can form an internal belief to accomplish an action immediately versus waiting on performing the task. The beliefs are chosen first (e.g., a desire to avoid procrastination) and then the actions (avoiding procrastination) can be achieved.

I do not disagree with such behaviouristic approaches. If you come to the belief, based on evidence, feelings, social pressure etc. that a deeply ingrained behaviour that you have it not beneficial to you, then you can change that behaviour with behaviouristic approaches.
The beliefs are not chosen first. First is the realization that it would be beneficial to change the target behaviour.

So we go looking for a new paradigm if we have some reason to believe that the old paradigm is no longer valid. We do not simply choose freely without cause to switch paradigms, do we?

Sure, but the causes are not cogent causes. That is, if we trace these things down to the ultimate underpinning, it's not that the paradigm faced cogent arguments which forced someone to give up a belief. In fact, it's always feasible to add an auxiliary hypothesis to a theory to make the theory fit the facts. In all honesty, what forces many theoreticians to give up their ill-conceived notions is that they don't get published anymore, or they aren't tenured, and many other facets that science and other academic branches use to judge the merits of their colleagues. That's not to say that it is purely pragmatic issues, and that there is no cogent reasons involved whatsoever, rather pragmatic considerations is what forces large numbers of people into silence thereby allowing the cogent reasons that are available to have more influence. The discovery of the big bang is a perfect example of this. Prior to the discovery in 1963 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, the big bang already had enough cogent reasons for its acceptance (e.g., Hubble's data, Friedman's equations, Einstein forcing a constant in the GR equations, etc.), and therefore what prevented the big bang from being accepted were mainly pragmatic reasons (namely, atheism was considered unquestionable and the big bang contradicted atheism). Once the instrumental reasons became too much to ignore in 1963, the scientific community moved quickly to the new paradigm and the critics were soon silenced by the shear power of the experimental data. Nobody listened to them anymore. The atheists bided their time for a generation so as to wait for the theory to catch up with experiments (you know those guys, the ones whose minds are at enmity with God ).

Scientists are human and skeptical. They do not acknowledge nor change their point of view easily or lightly. Being human, they also do not behave entirely rationally. You and I are inagreement. However, I still do not see how this makes belief a choice.

Yes, we all choose our worldview. Not freely, but as you have pointed out based on pragmatic standards.

This is what it means to choose beliefs freely. When we see that our views are no longer pragmatically "working," this forces us into a search for beliefs that do work. This is why belief is a choice since we can resist this change by simply continuing on in the pain that comes with a worldview, or we can choose to give up the ghost and admit to ourselves that we are in pain and need to give up the ghost. In the case of instrumentalism, the issue is a little more complex since experimental results are part of science's cogent reasons for accepting a particular paradigm, but as I mentioned, science can always explain data by adding or modifying auxiliary hypotheses. The real impact comes when others do not share that paradigm and begin to discriminate against those who hold to an outmoded paradigm, and that's when career and other factors must be considered by those old goats who simply won't get with the times. Those are purely pragmatic factors (not just instrumentalist factors) and that's when it becomes very evident that beliefs are choices. Those choices might seem like obvious choices since if we don't select those beliefs we'll lose everything (life, career, fame, etc.), but not everyone is willing to accept the consequences. Boltzmann, for example, wouldn't accept the pragmatic consequences and committed suicide (as many in academia have done in the past) even though his cogent reasons later proved to be more than correct.

If you believe that your paradigm is still sound then you will add and modify auxiliary hypotheses in order to keep it alive in the face of what may appear to be contrary evidence. However, once the contrary evidence convinces you that the paradigm is dead, then you seen a new one. I don't see how your belief in the paradigm is a free-will choice here.
Let us not confuse a person's belief with the pragmatic choices he may have to make. Many scientists have had to keep their oposition to religious faith in order to be more acceptable to their societies. Galileo anyone? But I don't think that that should be confused with the fellow's belief.

[harvey1]

After reading many novels and finding that it was a joyful experience, you would probably come to the belief that novel reading produced joy. It is not a choice but a deduction. If someone suggested that it was not the novels that produced the joy but the isolation, then you would evaluate that hypothesis and accept or reject it based.

I could form that conclusion and probably would form that conclusion because it's a positive situation to find something that you enjoy, and therefore there's little reason to resist the experience of novel reading. But, we could turn that around into a negative situation and see how the choice enters in. For example, suppose that we found ourselves enjoying sleezy novels but our experience was that we were wasting our time in engaging in reading sleezy material. One might then choose to believe that they really don't enjoy the novels at all because they don't enjoy the overall experience that comes from reading sleezy novels (e.g., the feeling that comes from wasting one's time). (I suppose that one could also come to the same conclusion with just reading any novels as a waste of time, but reading sleezy novels might better underlie why it is that beliefs of this kind are choices based on what their experiences dictate that they believe.)

No, you came to the belief that reading the novel wouldn't be a waste of time based on your own evaluation of the evidence... No, you may have come to the conclusion that the book would not be enjoyable for certain reasons and therefore decline to read it.

Let me clarify that pragmatic reasons are reasons. I'm not saying that someone who has free will does things for no reasons whatsoever. I'm saying that free will in deciding what you believe means that there's a choice in what criteria you choose to utilize in deciding if you believe something is the case or not. Ultimately, most of our reasons for believing just about anything was originally based on pragmatic reasons.

We have a choice in what criteria we use to believe something. This choice is based on a pragmatical outlook. We are not chained to a particular belief. We are not robots programmed from birth to death to make only the decisions that math axioms say that we can only make. We are free to choose.

The beliefs are not chosen first. First is the realization that it would be beneficial to change the target behaviour.

And, first what is the case with respect to beliefs is the realization that a particular belief is weighing you down in some intellectual, emotional, professional, etc., manner (or could weigh you down if you believed that belief). We have to choose whether we want that belief to do us harm, or would make life less than meaningful. Since atheism makes life less meaningful (almost by definition), and it is certainly not required to keep us rational beings, pragmatism alone suggests that we should abandon the belief. However, we don't have to abandon the belief if we don't want to, it's a choice. A free choice. We only have to live with the consequences of those free choices.

]If you believe that your paradigm is still sound then you will add and modify auxiliary hypotheses in order to keep it alive in the face of what may appear to be contrary evidence. However, once the contrary evidence convinces you that the paradigm is dead, then you seen a new one. I don't see how your belief in the paradigm is a free-will choice here.

I once debated a pretty bright fella who graduated with his Ph.D. in physics who fell out of favor with his thesis advisor because he had formed disagreements with Einsteinian relativity. The perspective of this individual was that you are not allowed to disagree with Einsteinian relativity and remain non-discriminated against. Now, whether that is true or not, I don't think is relevant. What is relevant is that anyone who pursues a career where the opinion of their colleagues matter must be willing to buy into the company line or face gruesome consequences. Evolution has made us so good at it that we don't even realize that we do it so readily. It's only when there are no severe consequences for our beliefs that we tend to have beliefs that differ from our colleagues. I think that what you stated about Galileo is only half-true with respect to keeping our mouth shut (although, Galileo wasn't anti-religious, btw). We might choose an option where we believe something that would be pragmatically harmful if we stated those beliefs in the open, but this is part of the continuum of choices that we should expect from having free choices with regard to beliefs. We can go from being totally sold on a belief because it's right up our alley and totally in contradiction to what others think, to agreeing with everything Hitler says and thinking that we think it because it's "right." I think that if you surveyed many people in cults they would say that they believe what they believe because it is "true." However, I think it's quite obvious that cults make pragmatic consequences very severe to those who disagree with the leaders. I think it's important that human beings know that beliefs are choices, and that we aren't ever forced to believe something based on some "objectivity" that simply does not exist. We ought to be asking the pragmatic consequences for our beliefs, and in this manner we can avoid the delusion that comes from thinking that we have somehow found the one true objective scheme of reality.

[McCulloch]

If I am correctly interpreting your argument, you are saying that our ability for self-deception proves that belief is a choice. I must concede that this is a strong argument. In fact, I am thinking that if we can truly deceive our selves then belief must be a choice. I am going to think on that for a while and get back to you.

[McCulloch]

Harvey1, you have made your point. Self-deception is possible. It is considered a psychosis, but it is possible.
I have thus revised my point of view. I believe that no sane person freely chooses his beliefs.

The example of enjoying a sleazy novel is not a good one. If you feel guilty about reading that kind of novel, that in itself may affect the enjoyment. This kind of belief is more akin to "I believe that I will have another scotch."

Peer pressure is a form of evidence. A sane person may believe something simply because other people who's judgement he trusts believes it.

Let's look at a different example. I believe that the square root of a prime number is irrational. I believe it for a number of reasons. I have seen the proof and I trust my own ability to understand it. The proof relies on certain principles of number theory, which I have not seen formal proofs (or if I have I have mercifully forgotten them) but I have on good authority that such proofs exist. No one has demonstrated the existence of a rational square root of a prime number. No competent mathematician argues for the possibility of rational square roots of prime numbers. All of these things are evidence but only one is proof (and that incomplete). I simply cannot choose to believe that there is a rational square root of a prime number. If evidence is provided that there is more than one way to express a positive integer as the product of positive prime numbers, then I would be forced to adjust downward the level of certainty that I have for this belief.
Now, someone with a less mathematical background might believe that all real numbers can be expressed rationally. They might have that belief based on evidence. They have never used nor needed a number that cannot be expressed rationally. They do not comprehend irrational numbers. Such a person would not choose such a belief, but would adopt it based on his own ability to interpret the evidence available to him. If he was a sane person and chose to explore further evidence and was capable of understanding it, then he would be compelled to change his belief.

[harvey1]

Now, someone with a less mathematical background might believe that all real numbers can be expressed rationally. They might have that belief based on evidence. They have never used nor needed a number that cannot be expressed rationally. They do not comprehend irrational numbers. Such a person would not choose such a belief, but would adopt it based on his own ability to interpret the evidence available to him. If he was a sane person and chose to explore further evidence and was capable of understanding it, then he would be compelled to change his belief.

What about the AC (Axiom of Choice), is that something that someone with a great deal of mathematical background must accept in order to be rational?

[captaincaustic]

I am sorry to have to write this, but the sheer ignorance that "scrotum" displays in his accusations is terrible. To call someone stupid and ignorant for one of their most precious gifts, faith, is itself the dumbest and most ignorant thing ever. The real stupidity and ignorance comes from not looking at opposing viewpoints and completely dismissing them. You must consider both sides of the spectrum to come to an intelligent and mature opinion.