Is It Really Possible To Choose To Believe?

[Pascal]

Some of you may of read my previous thread(linked here), in which i asked whether unbelievers, even if they have lived good lives, would still be sent to hell by the God of Islam.

I think in the end it kind of wound up inconclusive. Many people seemed to hold different views, as in, hell is a possibility OR hell isn't then they went on to rationalise why they believe such a thing. Just from the quranic evidence i have found i have a moderately strong reason to believe that as an "unbeliever" i will be sent to hell for an undefined period of time (somewhere between a little after 0 and eternity).

Even if i was a good person, i would still be sent to hell because i am an "unbeliever". I don't really wish to discuss that topic any further here, if you really feel the need you can take it to the other thread. However, it did get me thinking, if i'm being sent to hell just because i simply don't believe, is it even possible to believe? Granted, i've thought about it before then but that thread gave me the drive to post it here.

So, what i'm really asking is this - Is belief strictly voluntary?

Think about it, the quran says (possibly) eternal hell is a punishment for not believing. So, why doesn't everyone just start believing? A lot of people seem to think they're sadly mistaken or they're doing it out of spite for God or something and even to myself this spite is hinted at in the Quran. However, i contend it is simply impossible to voluntarily change your belief at any instant in time.

Let me offer several thoughts why.

Obviously, going to heaven and not going to hell is what most people would want if God did exist. I'm sure we could all agree going to heaven is a fairly large reward, some would contend an infinite reward, the best reward one can ever receive and i probably agree. Hell conversely, is the very worst outcome you can get, to be subjected to the horrors of hell. It's the worst outcome. Even with infinite reward at stake and infinite motivation to do it, i still can't suddenly start *actually* believing in God. It’s important to note here that its *actual* belief. As true as you believe a circle has no edges or the sky is blue, you just *know* it. I'm not talking about some kind of self-deception or lying or a false display of belief, i mean *actual* belief.

On a similar kind of vein of thought, think about this. I have a (very large) briefcase with 1 trillion dollars ( 12 zeros!) in it. What you actually want to do with the money doesn't matter, you could buy yourself fabulous mansions, build a bunch of mosques or churches, open your own library, donate heavily to charity, look after everyone you know, ect. This amount of money is so huge it's very hard for our minds to conceive but it is a huge, huge amount. It's bigger than the GDP of a lot of countries, Only 15 of the 192 countries counted have a GDP higher than 1 trillion dollars, thats the value of *all* the goods and services produced in the entire country in an entire year, so its an absolutely mind-blowing amount of money.

I will give you this briefcase; you only have to perform one simple task. I want you to actually and truly believe there is a purple elephant in the corner of this room, right now, at this instant. Actually, truly, believe it. Let’s pretend i have super powers and i can look into your mind (this isn't as silly as it sounds, God can see inside your mind so he would also know if you had true belief, so it is highly applicable to my situation/argument/thought experiment) or some kind of magical machine that can read your mind. Even under such an enormous reward, you would find it impossible to choose to believe in the elephant. Its analogous to the situation about God, even though the reward is great and people understand this, just as people understand the possible severe punishment, they are still *incapable* of just suddenly choosing to believe.

Again, another situation. Imagine i have taken you and your family hostage (don't worry, i'm too much of a peaceful person to ever do anything like this :) ) i will hurt or kill your entire family *unless* you can, at that instant or very soon, start to actually believe that a circle is square or that i am a dolphin. You just couldn't do it. Even it being the life or death situation it is, you still couldn't do it and truly believe it (let’s assume I’m using my magical machine again).

Likewise, even if you wanted to, do you think tomorrow you could just suddenly will to exchange your belief for a totally polar one. For you Muslims out there, perhaps just decide to believe that Hinduism or Shinto is true or that there is no God. You cannot simply just start believing it and truly accept it, even if you wanted to. Same to the atheists out there, could you just wake up tomorrow and just decide to believe in a God? It seems impossible.

Therefore, i contend it is impossible to choose your belief.

What does everyone think about this? It seems like a fairly set case to me personally.

(Just as an add-on to my hell thread, if it is as i have shown and it is impossible to choose your belief, which the quran suggests why would an all loving and all just God send people to hell for something they have no control over? If he indeed would send them to hell. If he doesn't that means you don't need to believe in him to get into heaven, so what is the point in believing? I actually summarised this in a nice little table on the very last page of the heaven/hell thread, i suggest you look at it.

What i would like to suggest is this - Long as you didn't do anything grossly bad or evil or that your Good outweighed the bad, everyone will get into heaven. If you truly believed in what you believed and you thought about it, no punishment will be delivered. On the odd chance someone decided to go against God out of spite the reward or punishment might be different. However, it seems grossly unfair to punish people for something they have no control over.

This isn't the purpose of the thread though, i mainly want to talk about belief here.)

Edited December 6, 2011 by kingpomba

[satyaban]

People may choose to say they believe in something but belief does not reside in the mouth but in the heart, I am speaking about spiritual matters. Proslytizing should be looked at with a wary eye because whatever a person can be talked into the can be talked out of not only by others but by selftalk.

[eThErEaL]

1) Rest assure that If you are a good person, you will certainly go to Paradise and will not be sent to Hell! The question we should ask is what makes a person a good person? lets discuss this. Share your opinions.

2) Now remember that your argument is taking for granted that God exists and that revelation is the word of God. Therefore it is important to bear in mind that the following is also presupposed: A ) That revelation tells us nothing but the truth and what actually is. B ) That revelation tells us to believe in what is real or true and to disbelieve in what is false and illusory. C ) That revelation tells us that belief in the illusory and disbelief of what is real is self-destructive (i.e. Hell), and that belief in the real and disbelief in the illusory is self-constructive (i.e. Paradise).

..therefore your analogy of the brief-case with money it falls apart.

3) So to get to your question about how much control does one have over their belief? Has it ever occurred to us that our beliefs and thoughts (which color our perception of reality) are in fact who we are. But our beliefs constantly change, because we constantly change (from moment to moment). The purpose of all the divinely revealed religions along with their scriptures is to guide people's perception of reality (to make the real situation clear for them). So if you see a scripture and you imagine that it is not real then whose authority do you rely on for understanding reality? Do you follow the authority of modern science? Do you follow the authority of your physics professor? Your doctor? Einstein? our insignificant self? our little brain? or do you choose a scripture which at the very least "claims" to be God (the Omniscient)? And not only does it claim to be Omniscient, but it also claims that one can attain certitude and that one should strive hard to attain certitude (through the intelligence) of all of its truth-claims. But some people will still follow the authority of those things or people which don't even claim to be All-knowing or which don't even claim to know things as they truly are. This is what makes the difference between a believer and a disbeliever (at least implicitly).

[Çåá ÇáÈíÊ]

Some of you may of read my previous thread(linked here), in which i asked whether unbelievers, even if they have lived good lives, would still be sent to hell by the God of Islam.

I think in the end it kind of wound up inconclusive. Many people seemed to hold different views, as in, hell is a possibility OR hell isn't then they went on to rationalise why they believe such a thing. Just from the quranic evidence i have found i have a moderately strong reason to believe that as an "unbeliever" i will be sent to hell for an undefined period of time (somewhere between a little after 0 and eternity).

Even if i was a good person, i would still be sent to hell because i am an "unbeliever". I don't really wish to discuss that topic any further here, if you really feel the need you can take it to the other thread. However, it did get me thinking, if i'm being sent to hell just because i simply don't believe, is it even possible to believe? Granted, i've thought about it before then but that thread gave me the drive to post it here.

So, what i'm really asking is this - Is belief strictly voluntary?

Think about it, the quran says (possibly) eternal hell is a punishment for not believing. So, why doesn't everyone just start believing? A lot of people seem to think they're sadly mistaken or they're doing it out of spite for God or something and even to myself this spite is hinted at in the Quran. However, i contend it is simply impossible to voluntarily change your belief at any instant in time.

Let me offer several thoughts why.

Obviously, going to heaven and not going to hell is what most people would want if God did exist. I'm sure we could all agree going to heaven is a fairly large reward, some would contend an infinite reward, the best reward one can ever receive and i probably agree. Hell conversely, is the very worst outcome you can get, to be subjected to the horrors of hell. It's the worst outcome. Even with infinite reward at stake and infinite motivation to do it, i still can't suddenly start *actually* believing in God. It’s important to note here that its *actual* belief. As true as you believe a circle has no edges or the sky is blue, you just *know* it. I'm not talking about some kind of self-deception or lying or a false display of belief, i mean *actual* belief.

On a similar kind of vein of thought, think about this. I have a (very large) briefcase with 1 trillion dollars ( 12 zeros!) in it. What you actually want to do with the money doesn't matter, you could buy yourself fabulous mansions, build a bunch of mosques or churches, open your own library, donate heavily to charity, look after everyone you know, ect. This amount of money is so huge it's very hard for our minds to conceive but it is a huge, huge amount. It's bigger than the GDP of a lot of countries, Only 15 of the 192 countries counted have a GDP higher than 1 trillion dollars, thats the value of *all* the goods and services produced in the entire country in an entire year, so its an absolutely mind-blowing amount of money.

I will give you this briefcase; you only have to perform one simple task. I want you to actually and truly believe there is a purple elephant in the corner of this room, right now, at this instant. Actually, truly, believe it. Let’s pretend i have super powers and i can look into your mind (this isn't as silly as it sounds, God can see inside your mind so he would also know if you had true belief, so it is highly applicable to my situation/argument/thought experiment) or some kind of magical machine that can read your mind. Even under such an enormous reward, you would find it impossible to choose to believe in the elephant. Its analogous to the situation about God, even though the reward is great and people understand this, just as people understand the possible severe punishment, they are still *incapable* of just suddenly choosing to believe.

Again, another situation. Imagine i have taken you and your family hostage (don't worry, i'm too much of a peaceful person to ever do anything like this :) ) i will hurt or kill your entire family *unless* you can, at that instant or very soon, start to actually believe that a circle is square or that i am a dolphin. You just couldn't do it. Even it being the life or death situation it is, you still couldn't do it and truly believe it (let’s assume I’m using my magical machine again).

Likewise, even if you wanted to, do you think tomorrow you could just suddenly will to exchange your belief for a totally polar one. For you Muslims out there, perhaps just decide to believe that Hinduism or Shinto is true or that there is no God. You cannot simply just start believing it and truly accept it, even if you wanted to. Same to the atheists out there, could you just wake up tomorrow and just decide to believe in a God? It seems impossible.

Therefore, i contend it is impossible to choose your belief.

What does everyone think about this? It seems like a fairly set case to me personally.

You're a pretty intelligent guy and i'm surprised to read such an absurd argument like this. It's an awful set case. Let me explain why:

I started to falter in my belief when I was around 17 and I was extremely close to relinquishing my faith. Why? Because I had alot of questions and I hardly knew anything about my own Shia faith, even though I was brought up in a Shia household. If I were to summarize, it was simply due to lack of knowledge. Now, after a long intense and rigorous period of research, I am personally fully convinced. Do you think I just one day woke up and convinced myself out of..nothingness?

If you apply common sense, your faulty argument goes *poof*.

(Just as an add-on to my hell thread, if it is as i have shown and it is impossible to choose your belief, which the quran suggests why would an all loving and all just God send people to hell for something they have no control over? If he indeed would send them to hell. If he doesn't that means you don't need to believe in him to get into heaven, so what is the point in believing? I actually summarised this in a nice little table on the very last page of the heaven/hell thread, i suggest you look at it.

What i would like to suggest is this - Long as you didn't do anything grossly bad or evil or that your Good outweighed the bad, everyone will get into heaven. If you truly believed in what you believed and you thought about it, no punishment will be delivered. On the odd chance someone decided to go against God out of spite the reward or punishment might be different. However, it seems grossly unfair to punish people for something they have no control over.

This isn't the purpose of the thread though, i mainly want to talk about belief here.)

Here's the problem. You're 'self-interpreting' the Quran. The Ahlul Bayt (a) are the divine custodians of the apparent and esoteric meanings of the Quran. Alot of atheists and quranists have this problem of twisting verses out of context or taking partial verses or having partial understanding or simple lack in reasoning and thorough understanding of the verse.

[Pickthal 6:39] Those who deny Our revelations are deaf and dumb in darkness. Whom Allah will sendeth astray, and whom He will He placeth on a straight path.

[Pooya/Ali Commentary 6:39]

If man sees the signs but shuts his ears to the true message and refuses (like a dumb) to speak out the message which all nature proclaims, then according to the divine plan he must suffer and wander, just as, in the opposite case, he will receive grace and salvation.

Allah bestows His pleasure according to inclination and competence.

There is another similiar verse that says: "God guides whom he will and misguides whom he wills". You will obviously take this literally. The author purports a different interpretation than what you're thinking, it's just that you can't see it.

God guides who *wishes to be guided* and misguides *who wishes to remain stagnant and indulge in ignorance*.

Now, you'll say, 'but this isn't in the verse, you're just adding it in parenthesis'. Not really. As shia, we believe that the Quran has multiple meanings and that it needs extrapolation as there is more to a verse than meets the eye. It's the same way how the Ahlul Bayt are not mentioned in the Quran by name, but we know they are mentioned in the quran through interpretation, logic and reasoning.

[iSilurian]

People...i would say mostly do not choose their beliefs, as opposed to choosing them.

If i could choose to believe that Jesus were God, i would because i know it would make my life more complete. But realistically i cant simply choose that because i already have knowledge of its apparent non truthfulness.

Edited December 6, 2011 by iSilurian

[iSilurian]

You're a pretty intelligent guy and i'm surprised to read such an absurd argument like this. It's an awful set case. Let me explain why:

I started to falter in my belief when I was around 17 and I was extremely close to relinquishing my faith. Why? Because I had alot of questions and I hardly knew anything about my own Shia faith, even though I was brought up in a Shia household. If I were to summarize, it was simply due to lack of knowledge. Now, after a long intense and rigorous period of research, I am personally fully convinced. Do you think I just one day woke up and convinced myself out of..nothingness?

If you apply common sense, your faulty argument goes *poof*.

No offense to you, but that is a horrible response and has very little to do with pombas statement. What you consider knowledge, i wouldnt even consider knowledge. What you consider common sense, i would argue could potentially not even be common at all. You research in one field, but im willing to bet you would lack in another. Others fields of study i would argue, would have you change your mind again, given that you look into them.

You arent really deciding on what you believe, youre simply being manipulated by your environment. I didnt decide to be a non believer. I simply was manipulated by my environment just like you were.

If you disagree, then tell me why.

I mean really, do you honestly think you have found some sort of rare objective proof that the rest of us have somehow magically missed? We arent crazy people you know. Logic and reason are on our side. This isnt a simple question of whether or not youre familiar with hadith and the Quran, because the world and reality offers much more than Islam alone ever could.

Edited December 6, 2011 by iSilurian

[Guest Jebreil]

(bismillah)

(wasalam)

Those who go to Hell are those who saw evidence of truth in an argument, but disliked it because it was inconvenient for them, and so attempted to either fight it from without or reinterpret it from within.

This inconvenience can be anything.

So, while we don't choose what appears true to us, we do choose how we act with the truth - such as ignoring, sacrificing, fighting it for the sake of something else.

(wasalam)

[satyaban]

I want to respond to the latest posts but am not sure where to start اهل البيت and ethereal are so deep I feel a little lost.

So, I will start with the following; although I use the word "salvation" I am not entirely comfortable with it. I believe salvation is attainable to all whether they whether they follow a specific regimen, I mean as proscribed by a specific religion, or not. Behavior and intent are what is important. For instance if a man treats himself, his fellows and creation with respect and does no harm out of the goodness in his heart surely he will find salvation, however if a man does as presented above to show off and for selfish personal gain I have very strong doubts about him. I don't think too much importance can be put on motivation and intent.

It is my belief that God resides in our hearts and he knows what is in there better than we know our selves.

Ethereal said:

"1) Rest assure that If you are a good person, you will certainly go to Paradise and will not be sent to Hell! The question we should ask is what makes a person a good person?"

I would like to emphasize in his discussion request he asks what makes a "good" person not perfect or near perfect but "good" and that is how I considered the person in my previos example. In deed there are many good people who do good things every say with out thinking about it.

Are you one of the people who do the right thing after considering how it would sit with God, out of fear of God or are you so comfortable living in your own skin that doing what is right now comes naturally to you?

[iSilurian]

I want to respond to the latest posts but am not sure where to start اهل البيت and ethereal are so deep I feel a little lost.

So, I will start with the following; although I use the word "salvation" I am not entirely comfortable with it. I believe salvation is attainable to all whether they whether they follow a specific regimen, I mean as proscribed by a specific religion, or not. Behavior and intent are what is important. For instance if a man treats himself, his fellows and creation with respect and does no harm out of the goodness in his heart surely he will find salvation, however if a man does as presented above to show off and for selfish personal gain I have very strong doubts about him. I don't think too much importance can be put on motivation and intent.

It is my belief that God resides in our hearts and he knows what is in there better than we know our selves.

Ethereal said:

"1) Rest assure that If you are a good person, you will certainly go to Paradise and will not be sent to Hell! The question we should ask is what makes a person a good person?"

I would like to emphasize in his discussion request he asks what makes a "good" person not perfect or near perfect but "good" and that is how I considered the person in my previos example. In deed there are many good people who do good things every say with out thinking about it.

Are you one of the people who do the right thing after considering how it would sit with God, out of fear of God or are you so comfortable living in your own skin that doing what is right now comes naturally to you?

Its interesting how you would think that...if a human were to "show off and for selfish personal gain", its interesting how you would view that as an immoral and evil thing.

Are we not humans? Have we not been living for selfish gain since the dawn of time? When exactly did it go from the norm to immoral? When did it become evil to simply be a human?

When i butcher an animal to eat it, i am not helping my fellow planetary inhabitants. When i drill oil out of the ground, i am not helping creation either. Yet this is what we do. Its what we have to do to survive. We have to perform these actions, simply to exist, so when exactly between the billion years ago that we began, and now did our actions somehow become evil?

[Çåá ÇáÈíÊ]

No offense to you, but that is a horrible response and has very little to do with pombas statement. What you consider knowledge, i wouldnt even consider knowledge. What you consider common sense, i would argue could potentially not even be common at all. You research in one field, but im willing to bet you would lack in another. Others fields of study i would argue, would have you change your mind again, given that you look into them.

You arent really deciding on what you believe, youre simply being manipulated by your environment. I didnt decide to be a non believer. I simply was manipulated by my environment just like you were.

If you disagree, then tell me why.

I mean really, do you honestly think you have found some sort of rare objective proof that the rest of us have somehow magically missed? We arent crazy people you know. Logic and reason are on our side. This isnt a simple question of whether or not youre familiar with hadith and the Quran, because the world and reality offers much more than Islam alone ever could.

Pomba isn't even arguing that, though. You're just adding to what he actually didn't say. Take a look at what he stated "Same to the atheists out there, could you just wake up tomorrow and just decide to believe in a God? It seems impossible." That's just stupid. The reason "common sense" negates his argument is that, quite obviously, no one wakes up one day and suddenly decides to subscribe to a certain ideology without understanding and knowledge. It's only after in-depth analysis and research, whilst taking other factors and opinions into account, that you are able to yield a decisive conclusion. It doesn't come from just waking up one morning or randomly imagining that pigs can fly. You make it sound like everything in this world is unintelligible and subjective, which is ridiculous.

"If i could choose to believe that Jesus were God, i would because i know it would make my life more complete. But realistically i cant simply choose that because i already have knowledge of its apparent non truthfulness." I wonder how you came to that conclusion... you see my point?

Yes, i was initially manipulated by the environment..as in blindly accepting every form of knowledge that came to me and then realizing the contradictions and logical fallacies that were present. I then took the path of research, as i said before, and i am no longer manipulated because i am now aware. You, on the other hand, are still being manipulated..by confusion. If you had insight, you'll realize that you unconsciously chose to become a non-believer because you couldn't find any proof or rational answers, therefore you did make a decision but you can't see this, perhaps due to your lack of insight.

"because the world and reality offers much more than Islam alone ever could." This shows me that you have a very vague conception of what Islam really is. It also proves that you're confused. What does 'world' and 'reality' offer that Islam doesn't? What is 'world' and 'reality'? Definitions for western secularism? secular humanism? apparently, i'm meant to believe that they offer something?..Hm.

[iSilurian]

Pomba isn't even arguing that, though. You're just adding to what he actually didn't say. Take a look at what he stated "Same to the atheists out there, could you just wake up tomorrow and just decide to believe in a God? It seems impossible." That's just stupid. The reason "common sense" negates his argument is that, quite obviously, no one wakes up one day and suddenly decides to subscribe to a certain ideology without understanding and knowledge. It's only after in-depth analysis and research, whilst taking other factors and opinions into account, that you are able to yield a decisive conclusion. It doesn't come from just waking up one morning or randomly imagining that pigs can fly. You make it sound like everything in this world is unintelligible and subjective, which is ridiculous.

"If i could choose to believe that Jesus were God, i would because i know it would make my life more complete. But realistically i cant simply choose that because i already have knowledge of its apparent non truthfulness." I wonder how you came to that conclusion... you see my point?

Yes, i was initially manipulated by the environment..as in blindly accepting every form of knowledge that came to me and then realizing the contradictions and logical fallacies that were present. I then took the path of research, as i said before, and i am no longer manipulated because i am now aware. You, on the other hand, are still being manipulated..by confusion. If you had insight, you'll realize that you unconsciously chose to become a non-believer because you couldn't find any proof or rational answers, therefore you did make a decision but you can't see this, perhaps due to your lack of insight.

"because the world and reality offers much more than Islam alone ever could." This shows me that you have a very vague conception of what Islam really is. It also proves that you're confused. What does 'world' and 'reality' offer that Islam doesn't? What is 'world' and 'reality'? Definitions for western secularism? secular humanism? apparently, i'm meant to believe that they offer something?..Hm.

I made a decision to become a non believer because i didnt find adequate evidence for your religion? Are you kidding me? As if i actually had a choice to decide on whether or not to believe something that appears to be false.

And see, as for your second statement. Thats exactly what i was saying.

"I mean really, do you honestly think you have found some sort of rare objective proof that the rest of us have somehow magically missed? We arent crazy people you know. Logic and reason are on our side. This isnt a simple question of whether or not youre familiar with hadith and the Quran, because the world and reality offers much more than Islam alone ever could."

We are essentially arguing the same thing against each other. You are saying that i am lost and confused, and i am saying that you are lost and confused.

Neither of us have truly made the decision to pick the sides that we are on. Well, i for one did not. I simply accept it because i appears to be true.

We dont decide to believe or not to believe in what we know. Either we know it, or we dont. We dont choose to decide what we believe either, we either believe it, or we dont based on other material.

There is no point where you have actually ever had the option of choosing belief or disbelief. It comes automatically with what has manipulated you.

Its like..if i told you that an apple were in the tree. If you saw the apple, you wouldnt be deciding on whether or not to believe it exists. You would automatically believe it. Neither of us..."choose" our side. And likewise, if you did not see the apple, you would not choose to not believe. Its based on your experience. And in this case, this is a discussion on who has more experience with what, or to what diversity.

in which case i had said...

"What you consider knowledge, i wouldnt even consider knowledge. What you consider common sense, i would argue could potentially not even be common at all. You research in one field, but im willing to bet you would lack in another. Others fields of study i would argue, would have you change your mind again, given that you look into them."

Because i understand that our backgrounds are different, and neither of us, have chosen what we have found. We simply have accepted what we have found.

Pombas point, and im fairly certain i can speak on his behalf in this topic...pomba, if you disagree just say so. Pomba is asking, after the gathering of knowledge, can you simply make that decision to believe or not to believe? And the answer is, no you cannot. Its pre defined. We dont have the ability to decide such things like...is the sky blue? We dont decide if we believe the sky is blue...it just is. We dont decide to disbelieve that the sky is green. It simply isnt.

You cannot wake up in the morning and simply decide, and even after gathering knowledge on the material, you still cannot simply decide.

you will never make a decision on whether or not the sky is blue, because you simply know. And if you dont know, then you dont make a decision.

And back on my point...me being a non believer does not mean that i am confused. I am obviously just as convinced that i am correct as anyone else here. What it does mean though, like you said, i am unsatisfied with what i have found in Islam, and therefore i take the default position of non acceptance. I didnt choose to leave Islam, i simply left because i didnt have what i felt was credibility.

So, while we don't choose what appears true to us, we do choose how we act with the truth

This is all there is to it really, ty Jebreil.

The simple conclusion to this whole discussion. Do you choose to believe that the sky is blue? The answer...no, you dont. It either is, or it isnt. Or, perhaps you dont know, and if you dont know, then you dont choose. if you dont know, and you still choose anyway, thats called blind faith, and its a mistake.

Edited December 6, 2011 by iSilurian

[eThErEaL]

Are you one of the people who do the right thing after considering how it would sit with God, out of fear of God or are you so comfortable living in your own skin that doing what is right now comes naturally to you?

Exactly. This is the difference between a truly good person and and one who is merely good in a conventional sort of way. If we did all good actions naturally, then we are truly virtuous beings--we become true khalifas of God on this earth (i.e. we manifest nothing but Atman).

[guest 34193]

You're skipping over a step. That is, before belief there is acceptance. There are many things I accept without necessarily "believing" in them. That does not mean I disbelieve in them (as that wouldn't make any sense), it means that the evidence is preponderant enough to me that I would make the choice to accept it's reality. To believe in them though, my conviction of them would have to go deeper, and require knowledge of their actually being so (as opposed to simply there being preponderant evidence weighing in their favor). To have knowledge of something, means the tranquility of the self in the face of opposing doubts. If you _know_ something, no doubt thrown at you could make you question it's reality. Now in relation to the belief in religion, obviously most people aren't going to get to that higher stage in this life, and no it's not something you could just choose to switch on or off like a light switch (and it's reality can get into the idea of faith being a divine grace bestowed on the individual). So to as to your question, no you might not "choose" to believe, but you do choose to accept (or not accept).

[iSilurian]

You're skipping over a step. That is, before belief there is acceptance. There are many things I accept without necessarily "believing" in them. That does not mean I disbelieve in them (as that wouldn't make any sense), it means that the evidence is preponderant enough to me that I would make the choice to accept it's reality. To believe in them though, my conviction of them would have to go deeper, and require knowledge of their actually being so (as opposed to simply there being preponderant evidence weighing in their favor). To have knowledge of something, means the tranquility of the self in the face of opposing doubts. If you _know_ something, no doubt thrown at you could make you question it's reality. Now in relation to the belief in religion, obviously most people aren't going to get to that higher stage in this life, and no it's not something you could just choose to switch on or off like a light switch (and it's reality can get into the idea of faith being a divine grace bestowed on the individual). So to as to your question, no you might not "choose" to believe, but you do choose to accept (or not accept).

ok so you said, " There are many things I accept without necessarily "believing" in them" and by believing you mean. "To believe in them though, my conviction of them would have to go deeper, and require knowledge of their actually being so" .

So it sounds like youre saying that you believe in that which you have knowledge. Whereas i would differentiate. I would say belief is something people do when they dont have knowledge, whereas acceptance is what you do when you do have knowledge.

So, it seems like we have opposing views to the definitions of the word. Black and yellow black and yellow black and yellow black and yellow.

[eThErEaL]

ok so you said, " There are many things I accept without necessarily "believing" in them" and by believing you mean. "To believe in them though, my conviction of them would have to go deeper, and require knowledge of their actually being so" .

So it sounds like youre saying that you believe in that which you have knowledge. Whereas i would differentiate. I would say belief is something people do when they dont have knowledge, whereas acceptance is what you do when you do have knowledge.

So, it seems like we have opposing views to the definitions of the word. Black and yellow black and yellow black and yellow black and yellow.

I think Macisac is informing us from within the Islamic tradition of the different levels that exist of knowing and understanding. These are basic Islamic terminologies. There is

1 ) Islam (plain submission), or mere acceptance of what is true (which you have a choice over). then there is

2 ) Iman (a divinely endowed understanding in one's heartof what is true) This understanding is powerful enough not to be susceptible to doubts or to contrary opinions, thoughts or ideas. It is also manifested in one's actions and speech. There is a level above iman and that is

3 ) Yaqeen (certainty). And this has three basic levels.

A ) Ilmul yaqeen (a deep theoretical understanding of the truth).

B ) 'Ayn al yaqeen (an understanding of the truth in a way that you can sense it with the heart).

C ) Haqq al yaqeen (an understanding where the knower becomes identical with the known).

As you can see in Islam the perfection of knowing or understanding is certainty. This is the final goal of mere acceptance (islam). Also notice that iman which is commonly translated as "belief" and "faith" is not really blind!

[Pascal]

I started to falter in my belief when I was around 17 and I was extremely close to relinquishing my faith. Why? Because I had alot of questions and I hardly knew anything about my own Shia faith, even though I was brought up in a Shia household. If I were to summarize, it was simply due to lack of knowledge. Now, after a long intense and rigorous period of research, I am personally fully convinced. Do you think I just one day woke up and convinced myself out of..nothingness?

Well for starters, you already *previously* had belief, i believe that is an important consideration. You already had previously believed such claims once and it was in a recent time scale as well.

I think you are failing to consider there are plenty of shia who go through what you did, do a long and intense rigiorous period of research and leave islam. There are anecdotal cases even of people doing a long and intense period of research to *first* start believing in Islam and having that backing, only to leave Islam later.

I dont think you chose to believe in that case. People often forget there are a lot of psychological biases at play as well here.

I would say in your situation and other similar situations you still didn't choose. You read, you absorbed evidence and the things you read changed and guided how you thought. For example, if you only read things extremely critical of Islam i doubt no matter what is true or not true you would still be an Muslim today, UNLESS you had one of those biases i mentioned above and were looking to return to islam dispite what you read. If you read things that showed islam in a positive light, you tend to build up unconscious assumptions, then you started going to more sites and reading more books that portrayed Islam in an even more positive light and then even more positive. You still had no choice in the matter.

Even if you still did not only read literature positive to your position, which i think most people do towards the end of their belief forming, your mind was already almost made up by this point anyway.

There is no chance involved here, its not like you flipped a coin to decide to become a Shi'a. If it is true you read a book which made you look more positively on Shi'aism on March 9th 2007, it is true that on March 8th you would read a book tomorrow that would lead you to be a Shi'a, you can keep extending this back. Aristotle formulated a famous example, that of the sea battle. If there is a sea battle today, it is true that yesterday there would be a sea-battle tomorrow.

Thats going off on a slightly different tangent though.

I still don't think we choose to believe. Our perception is coloured by a huge amount of unconscious bias's. Our enviroment, our culture, the time and place we live, our personality, our family, ect all put constraints on our cognitivte processes and what we believe to be right. For example, one of my close friends was previously an agnostic, her mother and father converted to Islam. A few months later, she also converted to Islam. I'm sure everyone will agree the two aren't unrelated. I implored her to look at the religions of the world and i asked her if she had considered hinduism or daoism or something to that effect, i found out later that even though she read about hinduism she could never accept it, it seemed too focused (to her mind at least) on places in india and indian culture. The same could be said about a lot of the older religions that are focused around particular peoples or geographical locations like the Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime theology or shinto to a degree.

Due to these perceptions it is unlikely she ever would of chosen hinduism, even if it was true.

I would say the same about you. I think you had questions and you saw problems but i think you probably never deep down actually wanted to stop believing. You just saw problems and you found solutions to sure up the faith you already had anyway. So, you didn't have much choice in the matter anyway.

So, you didn't even really choose to believe Islam. You read so much and did so much research you just saw in your opinion overwhelming evidnece in favour of it and accepted it but at no point did you really consciouscly choose to believe it. You already knew it to be true based on what you read. You chose nothing. You already knew this before you even supposed you got to "choose".

I'm sure you rememeber reaching a point where you "just knew" this was true or "just knew" this was right, based on what you read. You couldn't choose anymore at that point. You "knew" what was true. You couldn't suddenly choose to believe something else, so, you had no choice.

Here's the problem. You're 'self-interpreting' the Quran. The Ahlul Bayt (a) are the divine custodians of the apparent and esoteric meanings of the Quran.

Thats great and all but as an agnostic do you really think i accept this fact? I dont believe they were anything special, so why would i believe this?

There is another similiar verse that says: "God guides whom he will and misguides whom he wills". You will obviously take this literally. The author purports a different interpretation than what you're thinking, it's just that you can't see it.

I am not going to accept the authority or correctness of one interpretation over another, so i think we should both stop trying to argue this point. The only one entity who truely knows the correct meaning of everything in the Quran would be God and God alone and unless you're able to ask him, i think we should leave it as a neutral point.

I started to falter in my belief when I was around 17 and I was extremely close to relinquishing my faith. Why? Because I had alot of questions and I hardly knew anything about my own Shia faith, even though I was brought up in a Shia household. If I were to summarize, it was simply due to lack of knowledge. Now, after a long intense and rigorous period of research, I am personally fully convinced. Do you think I just one day woke up and convinced myself out of..nothingness?

Well for starters, you already *previously* had belief, i believe that is an important consideration. You already had previously believed such claims once and it was in a recent time scale as well.

I think you are failing to consider there are plenty of shia who go through what you did, do a long and intense rigorous period of research and leave Islam. There are anecdotal cases even of people doing a long and intense period of research to *first* start believing in Islam and having that backing, only to leave Islam later.

I don’t think you chose to believe in that case. People often forget there are a lot of psychological biases at play as well here.

I would say in your situation and other similar situations you still didn't choose. You read, you absorbed evidence and the things you read changed and guided how you thought. For example, if you only read things extremely critical of Islam i doubt no matter what is true or not true you would still be a Muslim today, UNLESS you had one of those biases i mentioned above and were looking to return to Islam despite what you read. If you read things that showed Islam in a positive light, you tend to build up unconscious assumptions, then you started going to more sites and reading more books that portrayed Islam in an even more positive light and then even more positive. You still had no choice in the matter.

Even if you still did not only read literature positive to your position, which i think most people do towards the end of their belief forming, your mind was already almost made up by this point anyway.

There is no chance involved here, its not like you flipped a coin to decide to become a Shi'a. If it is true you read a book which made you look more positively on Shi'aism on March 9th 2007, it is true that on March 8th you would read a book tomorrow that would lead you to be a Shi'a, you can keep extending this back. Aristotle formulated a famous example, that of the sea battle. If there is a sea battle today, it is true that yesterday there would be a sea-battle tomorrow.

That’s going off on a slightly different tangent though.

I still don't think we choose to believe. Our perception is coloured by a huge amount of unconscious bias's. Our environment, our culture, the time and place we live, our personality, our family, ect all put constraints on our cognitive processes and what we believe to be right. For example, one of my close friends was previously an agnostic, her mother and father converted to Islam. A few months later, she also converted to Islam. I'm sure everyone will agree the two aren't unrelated. I implored her to look at the religions of the world and i asked her if she had considered Hinduism or Daoism or something to that effect, i found out later that even though she read about Hinduism she could never accept it, it seemed too focused (to her mind at least) on places in India and Indian culture. The same could be said about a lot of the older religions that are focused around particular peoples or geographical locations like the Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime theology or Shinto to a degree.

Due to these perceptions it is unlikely she ever would of chosen Hinduism, even if it was true.

I would say the same about you. I think you had questions and you saw problems but i think you probably never deep down actually wanted to stop believing. You just saw problems and you found solutions to sure up the faith you already had anyway. So, you didn't have much choice in the matter anyway.

So, you didn't even really choose to believe Islam. You read so much and did so much research you just saw in your opinion overwhelming evidence in favour of it and accepted it but at no point did you really, consciously choose to believe it. You already knew it to be true based on what you read. You chose nothing. You already knew this before you even supposed you got to "choose".

I'm sure you remember reaching a point where you "just knew" this was true or "just knew" this was right, based on what you read. You could not choose anymore at that point. You "knew" what was true. You could not suddenly choose to believe something else, so, you had no choice.

Here's the problem. You're 'self-interpreting' the Quran. The Ahlul Bayt (a) are the divine custodians of the apparent and esoteric meanings of the Quran.

That’s great and all but as an agnostic do you really think i accept this fact? I don’t believe they were anything special, so why would i believe this?

There is another similiar verse that says: "God guides whom he will and misguides whom he wills". You will obviously take this literally. The author purports a different interpretation than what you're thinking, it's just that you can't see it.

I am not going to accept the authority or correctness of one interpretation over another, so i think we should both stop trying to argue this point. The only one entity who truly knows the correct meaning of everything in the Quran would be God and God alone and unless you're able to ask him, i think we should leave it as a neutral point.

Now, you'll say, 'but this isn't in the verse, you're just adding it in parenthesis'. Not really. As shia, we believe that the Quran has multiple meanings and that it needs extrapolation as there is more to a verse than meets the eye. It's the same way how the Ahlul Bayt are not mentioned in the Quran by name, but we know they are mentioned in the quran through interpretation, logic and reasoning.

That is the outcome of a * particular persons * logic, reasoning and interpretation. We can never know in an epistemological sense whether it is true or not. A different person draws a different conclusion.

Now, you'll say, 'but this isn't in the verse, you're just adding it in parenthesis'. Not really. As shia, we believe that the Quran has multiple meanings and that it needs extrapolation as there is more to a verse than meets the eye. It's the same way how the Ahlul Bayt are not mentioned in the Quran by name, but we know they are mentioned in the quran through interpretation, logic and reasoning.

But that is the outcome of a * particular persons * logic, reasoning and interpretation. We can never know in an epistemiological sense whether it is true or not. A different person draws a different conclusion.

Therefore, in closing, i think our environment hugely affects us as i described above. I am still currently deciding whether we even have or do not have free will or whether everything is determined or indetermined but that is for another time and another thread. Personally though, i think belief is just one of those things you can’t choose. Even if you do have some "freedom" in making a "choice" your choice is heavily coloured by your environment. I mean think about it like this, a couple hundred years ago, there were hardly any atheists, now there are many. People’s actual minds are more or less the same as back then but being an atheist means a very different thing now. We use to need God to explain why we were here, why the world works, how the universe started, hell, back then even *I* probably would of been a theist/believer in God. It was just hard to justify it based on your environment (in this case knowledge of the time) that it was a choice of few and a faulty one using the knowledge of the time at that. Therefore, the environment around you plays a huge part, same with the example of my friend. Also, consider the media, now that some of the west has a hugely negative view of Islam, do you really think they are going to start reading about it or read positive things? Doubtful. They are probably less liable to convert as well until they remove those environmental constraints that have been placed upon them.

Another example, the ancient Greek religion. They believed the Gods literally lived on mount Olympus. Of course it would been hard to climb up there and survive without the medical knowledge we have now..technological knowledge..oxygen tanks..thermal clothes ect. Even if they wanted to they would of been quite afraid. Of course, at the time, it seemed reasonable and this formed part of their environment. However, now, we know there are literally no Gods on mount Olympus. I think one would find it very hard based on the current environment to believe in this part of the ancient Greek religion; In fact, i would consider it impossible to believe something you know is false (barring insanity/brainwashing/something like that). I guess they could still hang onto the religion if they reformulated it a bit but that is a quite different matter.

Edited December 7, 2011 by kingpomba

[Pascal]

You're skipping over a step. That is, before belief there is acceptance. There are many things I accept without necessarily "believing" in them.

I accept this and I’ve seen this used before but i think in regards to religion, belief and acceptance are one in the same.

In general i think in a lot of cases belief and acceptance are one in the same but this is diverging too much away from the original point.

For example, as i said in the post above, you read all about a religion, find out what the thoughts are and you just come to know it to be true, you come to accept it. If you know it to be true or reasonably true or that it will "work for you”, you are kind of compelled to belief in it. If you accept the Quran is true and Islam is true, you are compelled to believe in it. You can’t simultaneously think two differing things are true. If you were to choose a belief (even though i think you can't) it would be impossible to choose any belief other than Islam, because you accept it and know it is true, so you have to believe it. You cannot with good conscience or good logic suddenly start to truly believe something else when you know Islam is true. I think Belief always follows acceptance, to do otherwise, to me, would fly in the face of logic, as i have just said.

I cannot accept God is true and God really exists without actually believing in God, if i don't believe he exists, i can't accept he exists. Conversely, even if it is true that you can accept without believing, If i accept the monotheistic Jewish tradition is true, i suddenly can't "choose" to "believe" that a polytheistic animistic tradition is what i am going to believe whilst still accepting that Judaism is true. In religion, what you believe in regards to the divine, is what you believe in regards to the divine.

So to as to your question, no you might not "choose" to believe, but you do choose to accept (or not accept).

Thanks for this, seems like the much more plausible response rather than the people who are just shouting it is possible to believe or voting in the poll without even writing. I still don't know if we even really choose to accept what we accept, its more coloured by our environment. Like my above example about atheists. Also, i think even in these forums, when i post arguments about God not existing, i don't think all the religious believers out there are choosing to accept or not accept them, by virtue of their belief, they have to reject them, make some rational defence in their mind against them or your logic/beliefs would just fall apart or you would just lose your sanity. Therefore, they can't really choose to accept that even if they wanted to because they know it to be false. Therefore, i think there are limits too on what we can choose to accept. Bring it back to my purple elephant; you know it to be false, you simply can't choose to start accepting/believing there is a purple elephant in the room because you know it to be false.

I'm actually slowly making my way through the philosophical journals on this one but the dominant position according to one paper is that most philosophers think we cant choose to believe.

[satyaban]

Exactly. This is the difference between a truly good person and and one who is merely good in a conventional sort of way. If we did all good actions naturally, then we are truly virtuous beings--we become true khalifas of God on this earth (i.e. we manifest nothing but Atman).

Perfectly said and I am going to use it, thank you.

[satyaban]

iSulerian said:

"Its interesting how you would think that...if a human were to "show off and for selfish personal gain", its interesting how you would view that as an immoral and evil thing.

Are we not humans? Have we not been living for selfish gain since the dawn of time? When exactly did it go from the norm to immoral? When did it become evil to simply be a human?"

I don't recall saying if something is not moral it is immoral as if there is no inbetween, furthermore I don't label anything as evil. For my response I am going to borrow from ethereal the following:

"This is the difference between a truly good person and and one who is merely good in a conventional sort of way. If we did all good actions naturally, then we are truly virtuous beings--we become true khalifas of God on this earth (i.e. we manifest nothing but Atman)."

Peace

[iSilurian]

I don't recall saying if something is not moral it is immoral as if there is no inbetween, furthermore I don't label anything as evil. For my response I am going to borrow from ethereal the following:

Peace

If an action is not moral or immoral, then what is it?

[.InshAllah.]

Ive only read the first post so this may have been said. Whilst you may not have control over your beliefs you do have control over your actions and attributes. If disbelief stems from vice and sin, and one has control over vice and sins, then one has indirect control over faith. So one is culpable for disbelief without directly being able to change beliefs.

[.InshAllah.]

(Just as an add-on to my hell thread, if it is as i have shown and it is impossible to choose your belief, which the quran suggests why would an all loving and all just God send people to hell for something they have no control over? If he indeed would send them to hell. If he doesn't that means you don't need to believe in him to get into heaven, so what is the point in believing? I actually summarised this in a nice little table on the very last page of the heaven/hell thread, i suggest you look at it.

What i would like to suggest is this - Long as you didn't do anything grossly bad or evil or that your Good outweighed the bad, everyone will get into heaven. If you truly believed in what you believed and you thought about it, no punishment will be delivered. On the odd chance someone decided to go against God out of spite the reward or punishment might be different. However, it seems grossly unfair to punish people for something they have no control over.

This isn't the purpose of the thread though, i mainly want to talk about belief here.)

If noone is culpable for their beliefs then the person who believes that its okay to fly planes into the wolrd trade centre, to gas jew, to drop atomic bombs on innocent people, to rape, torture and murder little children is not morally blameworthy

[satyaban]

If an action is not moral or immoral, then what is it?

You are trying to be obstinate and I will not indulge you.

[iSilurian]

You are trying to be obstinate and I will not indulge you.

You dont appear to be a muslim, and so the question i dont think can be applied to you, to begin with. so that is ok.

[Pascal]

If disbelief stems from vice and sin,

I'm not sure what you mean here, could you please explain it a little more?

and one has control over vice and sins

Well that also depends on whether you're a determinist or not as well but i don't think we should really get into that whole point here.. I like to keep things on topic and acessible for as many people as i can. I'm sure we're not the only people who will ever read this either, when i've tried to find some answers google led me right back to threads here, go figure hey?

If i may, let me just break down your answer a bit:

1) We have no control over our beliefs.

2) We do, however, have control over our actions and attributes

3) Disbelief (can) stems from vice and sin

3a) One has control over vice and sin

3b) If one has control over vice and sin, one has *indirect* control over faith

4) We are cupable for disbelief without being able to directly change our belief

Now, i'd just like to say off the bat i'm not trying to misrepresent your argument or practice any sophistry. I'm not trying to make a strawman or anything, so if i left something critical out please tell me. I left out the word "Direct" in 4) just back then, so i make mistakes too.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now here is what i think:

1) Well this is the whole purpose of me making this, so of course i agree here. We're good so far.

2) Contentious depending if you believe in determinism of any kind. I haven't really fully formed my position yet, so, i'll just grant this.

3) Now, i'm not even quite sure what you mean here, its not really readily apparant.

Well that also depends on whether you're a determinist or not as well but i don't think we should really get into that whole point here.. I like to keep things on topic and accessible for as many people as i can. I'm sure we're not the only people who will ever read this either, when i've tried to find some answers Google led me right back to threads here, go figure hey?

If i may, let me just break down your answer a bit:

1) We have no control over our beliefs.

2) We do, however, have control over our actions and attributes

3) Disbelief (can) stems from vice and sin

3a) One has control over vice and sin

3b) If one has control over vice and sin, one has *indirect* control over faith

4) We are culpable for disbelief without being able to directly change our belief

Now, i'd just like to say off the bat i'm not trying to misrepresent your argument or practice any sophistry. I'm not trying to make a straw man or anything, so if i left something critical out please tell me. I left out the word "Direct" in 4) just back then, so i make mistakes too.

Now here is what i think:

1) Well this is the whole purpose of me making this, so of course i agree here. We are good so far.

2) Contentious depending if you believe in determinism of any kind. I haven't really fully formed my position yet, so, i'll just grant this.

3) Now, i'm not even quite sure what you mean here, its not really readily apparent. I think you're saying that due to someone practicing vice and sin, this is the cause of their disbelief, this is still even a little hard for me to picture mentally so i made a little chart if you dont mind:

I think you're saying that due to someone practicing vice and sin, this is the cause of their disbelief, this is still even a little hard for me to picture mentally so i made a little chart if you dont mind:

To me though, it seems its the other away around - Lack of faith would lead you to sin and disbelief, because if you had faith and belief, true faith and true belief, you would not willingly sin and practice vice on a constant basis.

If you "sin" or practice "vice" in the first place, it seems to me you already lacked faith to begin with, which you can't control. So, i don't know if you can link the two in that way. I'm not sure if you can really link them at all, maybe they are more mutually exclusive than we think.

3a) Again, this matters on the whole determinism debate, which i don't think is a good idea to do in this particular thread but we can do it somewhere else i guess.

3b) As i said above i don’t know if we can conclusively link the two and if we can, it seems to be reverse to the order you suggested. I also don't know how controlling vice and sin can cause you to have even *indirect* control over your faith. For example, as far as im aware, in the christian tradition, its not a sin if you don't pray on a regular basis. I don't see how deciding to do something less sinful** such as being monogamous, not having sex outside of marriage, not lying, ect would even indirectly cause someone to pray more or believe in God anymore or any less.

**Again, the concept of sin is a religious one, not directly a moral one. The concept of what is bad and good is moral but sin is something different. If you do not believe in a particular religion in the first place, some of the things they consider *sins* you might not consider *bad*. Not praying without an excuse is probably considered a sin in Islam as far as im aware but i doubt many Christians out there pray 5 times a day or consider it bad if they do not pray 5 times a day. So, what you consider a sin or a vice in the first place depends partially on your faith, which you can't change anyway. I think you can see what i'm getting at, if anything the chart i made up there should be flipped (or not exist at all).

4) I don't think we should be held culpable for something we aren't directly able to affect. Someone can indirectly avoid getting cancer but you can't exactly go down and tell your cells to not do that, do they deserve cancer, even if they did smoke or didn't exercise? I don't think so. If you see someone drowning but there’s nothing you can do to change it, i don't think you should be held culpable for the outcome (Sure you might feel really bad but that’s a different issue). It's a bit hard to see how you could indirectly stop someone from drowning when i'd consider all actions in this case direct though..

Anyway, poor analogies aside, i dont know if its right to hold someone culpable for something they can only indirectly affect.

If noone is culpable for their beliefs then the person who believes that its okay to fly planes into the wolrd trade centre, to gas jew, to drop atomic bombs on innocent people, to rape, torture and murder little children is not morally blameworthy

This is obviously a sore point and a highly emotive issue, so i'll try be delicate.

I think you may of misunderstood what i wanted to talk about though, just a little.

I was talking about religious beliefs only, more specifically, the fact God exists or doesn't exist or believing in one large categorical description of a religion over another (eg believing in "Islam" over "Christianity" and not being able to choose either or to switch, even if you tried to will it).

I think the things you said above are a slightly different issue, more in the domain of ethics and morality, rather than what exactly i'm talking about whether we can choose to believe or not.

I'm specifically talking about the belief of God or as i said one religion over another.

I believe the people you talked about should be punished for these things but i'm specifically talking about just the belief in God(s) without any complicating factors like the person being grossly evil or immoral by most peoples standards.

To all the other people i'll try get back to you in due time, that is if you didn't add anything i haven't covered.

I'm noticing though almost everyone replying is saying that it is not possible to choose but most people who voting are saying it is, i wish they'd justify their position a little rather than just stuff the poll with the answer that makes them feel more comfortable.

Edited December 8, 2011 by kingpomba

[.InshAllah.]

Kingpomba, I appreciate you thinking over my post in detail, but I dont have time to reply to essays. It would help a lot if you were more concise.

You said that a person isnt culpable for disbelief. Why? Because disbelief isnt a choice. Why? Because we cant choose our beliefs. So: our lack of control over our beliefs is a sufficient condition for lack of culpability.

I pointed out that if you have control over your choices, and these choices lead to false beliefs, then you are blameworthy for these beliefs. So the contention that lack of control over beliefs is a sufficient condition for lack of culpability is false. In the essay above I dont see an answer to this. I then pointed out that this would entail that people who believe awful things detailed above are necessarily not blameworthy. Again no answer, apart from a claim that its different but no explanation why we should differentiate between religious and moral beliefs when your contention is that beliefs per se are not voluntary. Basically you wrote a lot but said little.

[iSilurian]

Kingpomba, I appreciate you thinking over my post in detail, but I dont have time to reply to essays. It would help a lot if you were more concise.

You said that a person isnt culpable for disbelief. Why? Because disbelief isnt a choice. Why? Because we cant choose our beliefs. So: our lack of control over our beliefs is a sufficient condition for lack of culpability.

I pointed out that if you have control over your choices, and these choices lead to false beliefs, then you are blameworthy for these beliefs. So the contention that lack of control over beliefs is a sufficient condition for lack of culpability is false. In the essay above I dont see an answer to this. I then pointed out that this would entail that people who believe awful things detailed above are necessarily not blameworthy. Again no answer, apart from a claim that its different but no explanation why we should differentiate between religious and moral beliefs when your contention is that beliefs per se are not voluntary. Basically you wrote a lot but said little.

varying choices do not led to belief or disbelief, no more than belief or disbelief lead to varying choices. If i chose to pray for example, praying isnt going to magically make me believe in God, but i will pray if i already believe in God. I dont understand why you would believe that beliefs are created by our actions as opposed to vise versa.

[Guest Jebreil]

(bismillah)

(salam)

Just to add, make-believe is a real phenomenon, which emerges from trying to belief, ignoring doubts and choosing situations and committing actions which favour the belief and shun the disbelief - it is possible that at some point, the mind succumbs, and the belief just becomes a reality.

Of course, this make-believe has to have some source of pressure, internal or external.

So, these kind of actions can lead to a person believing. A person who has no interest in belief, on the other hand, would never believe.

The truth hits us - or doubt hits us - and we have a choice to act. Do we wish to let this inconvenient truth take over us? Or shall we resist and justify resistance? Do we wish to let doubt eat our security up? Or shall we ignore it and stick further to our beliefs?

We can have different mental states: doubt-prone, pessimistic, cynical, cautious, rational, curious, trusting, optimistic, dogmatic.

Our actions differ in each mental state. And we can even act our way into different mental states - again because of pressure, often internal. Someone who sees doubt in the rational state but hates it, could try to destroy it by unconsciously struggling to form a dogmatic state of mind, in which the doubt will not survive. Someone who sees Truth in the rational state but dislikes it, could try and break the Truth by unconsciously steering into cynicism or a doubt-prone mental state.

However, even in a dogmatic or doubt-prone state of mind, we don't choose what to believe. A rigidly dogmatic mind cannot choose to be open. It has anchored itself too deep into the mud. A doubt-prone mind cannot choose to be certain. It has severed its anchor and will always sail.

How can we conclude? I suppose we can say that neither we choose our beliefs nor that our choices have no bearing on our beliefs - but it's a state between the two.

(wasalam)

[iSilurian]

(bismillah)

(salam)

Just to add, make-believe is a real phenomenon, which emerges from trying to belief, ignoring doubts and choosing situations and committing actions which favour the belief and shun the disbelief - it is possible that at some point, the mind succumbs, and the belief just becomes a reality.

Of course, this make-believe has to have some source of pressure, internal or external.

So, these kind of actions can lead to a person believing. A person who has no interest in belief, on the other hand, would never believe.

The truth hits us - or doubt hits us - and we have a choice to act. Do we wish to let this inconvenient truth take over us? Or shall we resist and justify resistance? Do we wish to let doubt eat our security up? Or shall we ignore it and stick further to our beliefs?

We can have different mental states: doubt-prone, pessimistic, cynical, cautious, rational, curious, trusting, optimistic, dogmatic.

Our actions differ in each mental state. And we can even act our way into different mental states - again because of pressure, often internal. Someone who sees doubt in the rational state but hates it, could try to destroy it by unconsciously struggling to form a dogmatic state of mind, in which the doubt will not survive. Someone who sees Truth in the rational state but dislikes it, could try and break the Truth by unconsciously steering into cynicism or a doubt-prone mental state.

However, even in a dogmatic or doubt-prone state of mind, we don't choose what to believe. A rigidly dogmatic mind cannot choose to be open. It has anchored itself too deep into the mud. A doubt-prone mind cannot choose to be certain. It has severed its anchor and will always sail.

How can we conclude? I suppose we can say that neither we choose our beliefs nor that our choices have no bearing on our beliefs - but it's a state between the two.

(wasalam)

Ill concur, for the sake of moving on.

[kim.tinkerbell]

You can choose to believe to some extent. What I mean by this is that there are things that come in your way that make you believe without questioning e.g. when you were a child you would be told stories that you would believe , you wouldn’t exactly be able to choose to believe , you just believe it. Some of these story stay in our minds and that’s were the archetypes come in. Like we fear from our fathers because we have an archetype that there strong, need to be respected and etc.

Choosing to believe in a god is where free will comes in, you can choose to believe but it’s not just about believe it also about what you do. Non believer may have better morals in life and they may be a better then a believer. God has stated in the Qur’an many times that he is forgiving. The fact that there are levels of heaven and hell should explain how god will judge people on their actions in the dunya (this world). non believer still have a chance to enter heaven.

We can all use Pascal Wager theory betting on god, so either way we will go to heaven. However if you choose to believe for the sake of believing and not knowing why you are believing then , god will know what your intentions are.

Some people may not have the knowledge or the chance to choose to believe because they were brought up in a way that they had to believe otherwise they would get punished.

Once I was told a story at school there was a teacher that teached children about deen and Quran , he told the children that if you read this aya ( verse form the Quran) then you can (cant remember what he said but this little boy believed in the aya and so one day because there was a long river that they had to pass (by boats ) he read the aya and walked on water. Anyway I can’t remember it probably but the moral of the story is that if you truely believe then you get rewarded.

I couldn’t read anyone else comment because your post was long ……..

[Çåá ÇáÈíÊ]

You’ve put out so many repetitive points that I literally feel that I would have to write a book to make you understand where you go wrong and how you approach your analysis with a plethora of subjectivity and partial judgment.

Well for starters, you already *previously* had belief, i believe that is an important consideration. You already had previously believed such claims once and it was in a recent time scale as well.

Understand that, before I fell into doubt, I had an extremely shallow concept of Islam and it was only after my acquisition of knowledge that I realized the stuff that I used to naively believe before was, in fact, not Islam. I was unknowingly following a distortion after inadvertently being succumbed by false propaganda from quranists, wahabbis, sunni etc. I hardly knew anything about the AhlulBayt, neither did I understand the Quran very well. So when you say that I *previously* believed such claims once, you’re wrong. You make it sound very simplistic. The claims I believed back then, I don’t believe now. It’s an intellectual process you go through before you accept anything, a kind of edit and delete process where you refine what you already know. You refine, add or delete your previous belief based on the various evidences and resources you yield and make a rational judgment based on that.

I think you are failing to consider there are plenty of shia who go through what you did, do a long and intense rigiorous period of research and leave islam. There are anecdotal cases even of people doing a long and intense period of research to *first* start believing in Islam and having that backing, only to leave Islam later.

Thank you so much for providing the link to those anecdotes, they’re really interesting to read from a psychological perspective and just generally. Yet, they have absolutely no effect on my belief like they would have before. Remember, the reason I fell into severe doubt was because I found questions that I couldn’t possibly answer. I didn’t have the knowledge to counter the exuberant amount of argumentations, rants and questioning against this faith which I came across and it left me extremely confounded. It was then that I incepted a plan to be objective before I accepted anything. After deep contemplation and research, I found that Shia Islam made the most sense as a precept and that it had the answers to these questions. Furthermore, I also found that there existed a lot of philosophical dimensions to Shia Islam, especially with works such as nahjul balagha and the treatise of rights by our 4^th Imam.

The fallacy you’re making here is ‘generalization’. Not ‘one’ ex-muslim, from the various anecdotes I read in the link, had done ANY type of intense or rigorous research. You know why? There are a number of reasons. A lot of them come from intolerant deobandi, pseudo wahabbi type backgrounds that preached hatred, anyway, and their family barred them from asking questions or their family had a much distorted version of the faith. Even those who come from sunni backgrounds were saying that they blindly followed without understanding or they simply had questions that they still couldn’t find answers to and so left the faith. To cut to the chase, when they got the chance to question, they ended up retrieving understanding from a very narrow source or from a random jon doe and immediately made up their minds. This is ridiculous, but some of them just had questions that they couldn’t find answers to and so they gave up on the faith altogether which is totally irrational and ignorant. There was one Iranian shia account I read, and he was correlating the riots in the uprising of the Shah, in Iran, with Islam. He spoke about his experiences of when he went to these ‘ceremonies’ where people strike themselves with chains and cry for the beheading of Hussein, which quite obviously reveals that he really knows nothing about the event of Kerbala. Ultimately, he said that he left islam because his family, who followed cultural conjectural nonsense, told him once that if he didn’t wake up for morning prayers then his back would break. He says that he tested this claim and nothing happened and so he left islam on this bases. Isn’t it absurd?

I dont think you chose to believe in that case. People often forget there are a lot of psychological biases at play as well here.

I’m about as open minded as a can of fizzy Pepsi, I still question various issues within my faith but that doesn’t mean that there is an inherent deficiency with the faith itself. There are just so many unanimously accepted events in the history of the Ahlul Bayt where certain extraordinary things have happened and I can’t choose to reject them all for no reason. I can’t ignore the likes of the event of Ashura or the profoundly amazing debates between the Imams and other ideologies when it is unanimously accepted by both muslim and non-muslim historians alike. If you choose to reject all unanimously accepted events such as the likes of these and still remain indifferent then, likewise, I am justified to say that there are also forms of psychological biases being played on your part too.

I would say in your situation and other similar situations you still didn't choose. You read, you absorbed evidence and the things you read changed and guided how you thought. For example, if you only read things extremely critical of Islam i doubt no matter what is true or not true you would still be an Muslim today, UNLESS you had one of those biases i mentioned above and were looking to return to islam dispite what you read. If you read things that showed islam in a positive light, you tend to build up unconscious assumptions, then you started going to more sites and reading more books that portrayed Islam in an even more positive light and then even more positive. You still had no choice in the matter.

Even if you still did not only read literature positive to your position, which i think most people do towards the end of their belief forming, your mind was already almost made up by this point anyway.

The very fact that I’m able to read every kind of critique aimed at Islam and no be influenced by it, proves that my outlook was completely unbiased. If I looked at Islam through rosy-eyed spectacles and built up unconscious assumptions then I wouldn’t be able to offer answers to every one of those ‘ex-muslims’ in those anecdotes and show them where they fall into the pit hole of illogical fallacy.

If I was sincerely in doubt and willing to leave my religion, why would my mind have been made up at this point? How does this make sense? There was a point in my life where I used to attend Mass in my catholic high school and I was nearly influenced to become Christian, so yes your environment can definitely facilitate the decisions you make in life, this is inevitable, but in the end it’s up to you. I didn’t turn to Christianity because I found inconsistencies and incoherencies within the precepts and basis of the belief which a religion like Islam logically and rationally exposed for me. I made a decision and ‘chose’ based on my intellect and unbiased approach.

There is no chance involved here, its not like you flipped a coin to decide to become a Shi'a. If it is true you read a book which made you look more positively on Shi'aism on March 9th 2007, it is true that on March 8th you would read a book tomorrow that would lead you to be a Shi'a, you can keep extending this back. Aristotle formulated a famous example, that of the sea battle. If there is a sea battle today, it is true that yesterday there would be a sea-battle tomorrow.

Thats going off on a slightly different tangent though.

That’s going off on a huge tangent and is more appropriate in a separate topic, to be honest. Basically, tell me if I’m wrong, Aristotle postulated a theory that the inevitable is inevitable. Not true. It doesn’t always apply to everything, especially when it comes to the liberty of choosing alongside the workings of the intellect.

I still don't think we choose to believe. Our perception is coloured by a huge amount of unconscious bias's. Our enviroment, our culture, the time and place we live, our personality, our family, ect all put constraints on our cognitivte processes and what we believe to be right. For example, one of my close friends was previously an agnostic, her mother and father converted to Islam. A few months later, she also converted to Islam. I'm sure everyone will agree the two aren't unrelated. I implored her to look at the religions of the world and i asked her if she had considered hinduism or daoism or something to that effect, i found out later that even though she read about hinduism she could never accept it, it seemed too focused (to her mind at least) on places in india and indian culture. The same could be said about a lot of the older religions that are focused around particular peoples or geographical locations like the Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime theology or shinto to a degree.

Due to these perceptions it is unlikely she ever would of chosen hinduism, even if it was true.

No, these factors can facilitate the decisions we make in life but not necessarily in what we believe deep down. Haven’t you ever seen people disagreeing and differing with their parents’ belief? The son of the Hamas leader became a Christian and disassociated himself from the belief of his father. In fact, he openly bashes Islam as an evil religion. Do you really suppose that the dynamics of his environment, culture, family or personality automatically shaped what he believed in or somehow put constraints on his cognitive processes?

In regards to the story of your friend, it is true that we do take our parents as role models when we are younger and initially accept their beliefs without thinking, that’s inevitable. Anyhow, the very fact that she was an agnostic shows that she was following her parents footsteps because she was enclosed in a box, wasn’t able to see out of it and I’m speculating that religion was probably the last thing on her mind. Therefore, she is naïve about the concept of religion and was probably more inclined to believing in Islam because her parents accepted it, true, but there had to be a degree of willingness. The problem is, we’re suggesting and presuming probabilities. If the parents had converted to Hinduism, how do I know if she would have accepted that? How do I know whether, in the future, she may leave Islam because of being unable of finding certain answers to questions she has, due to the very narrow approach to her research? How do I know whether she is accepting Islam because of its correlation with the Arabic culture?

You know what, in fact, if she implored you to consider believing in God you wouldn’t do so. Is it because the naturalistic factors that you proposed acts as an obstruction to you believing? No, it’s because you have ‘9 reasons why I don’t believe’, see, it’s not ‘9 reasons I can’t choose to believe, no matter what’. Just because you can’t find an answer to something, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist at all.

I would say the same about you. I think you had questions and you saw problems but i think you probably never deep down actually wanted to stop believing. You just saw problems and you found solutions to sure up the faith you already had anyway. So, you didn't have much choice in the matter anyway.

I’ve explained this already. This could be true for other people, though, but I’ll just quote what ‘Inshallah’ rightly stated:

I pointed out that if you have control over your choices, and these choices lead to false beliefs, then you are blameworthy for these beliefs. So the contention that lack of control over beliefs is a sufficient condition for lack of culpability is false. In the essay above I dont see an answer to this. I then pointed out that this would entail that people who believe awful things detailed above are necessarily not blameworthy. Again no answer, apart from a claim that its different but no explanation why we should differentiate between religious and moral beliefs when your contention is that beliefs per se are not voluntary.

Just to add, I’d also say that everyone’s approach to logic and reasoning fluctuates to one another, they could come up with divergent and disparate conclusions but you have to distinguish between religious and moral beliefs because this will put it all into perspective.

So, you didn't even really choose to believe Islam. You read so much and did so much research you just saw in your opinion overwhelming evidence in favour of it and accepted it but at no point did you really consciouscly choose to believe it. You already knew it to be true based on what you read. You chose nothing. You already knew this before you even supposed you got to "choose".

I looked at both sides of the fence and I scrutinized which overwhelming evidence, on both sides, was evident in their veracity. There is a big difference between choosing by intuition and choosing through intellect.

I'm sure you rememeber reaching a point where you "just knew" this was true or "just knew" this was right, based on what you read. You couldn't choose anymore at that point. You "knew" what was true. You couldn't suddenly choose to believe something else, so, you had no choice.

Yes, but how did I know? Was it a hunch? Is it because I desired that supposition? I’ve pretty much elaborated on all this above, so take a holistic approach to understanding my words.

Thats great and all but as an agnostic do you really think i accept this fact? I dont believe they were anything special, so why would i believe this?

I am not going to accept the authority or correctness of one interpretation over another, so i think we should both stop trying to argue this point. The only one entity who truely knows the correct meaning of everything in the Quran would be God and God alone and unless you're able to ask him, i think we should leave it as a neutral point.

I wasn’t expecting you’d accept it, I was merely informing you. Parenthetically speaking, you don’t really know much about the Quran or AhlulBayt do you? At least you believe that they existed, but you haven’t even read anything about these personalities and yet you come on a Shia forum and presuppose they weren’t anything special. There are Christian priests who hold Imam Hussein as something special, a great personality, yet they don’t necessarily accept him as an Imam or change their current beliefs. As an agnostic, I’d expect you to be more open minded and not just shun things without reason.

So, essentially, you’re indirectly stating that you don’t believe any interpretation to be true, which pretty much goes against logic. Your whole conception of God is false to begin with as you expect God to speak to you directly as if he is some physical entity. You show exactly the same logic the Quran speaks about:

36:47] And when it is said unto them: Spend of that wherewith God hath provided you, those who disbelieve say unto those who believe: Shall we feed those whom Allah, if He willed, would feed? Ye are in naught else than error manifest.

I hope you realize that you’ve come to a Shia forum without even reading the Quran, for a start. If you did, you would realize that the Quran itself tells you to go to those who have the authority to interpret the Quran. Any tom, Richard or harry can make what they want from the Quran. I also hope you realize that you have a very fantastical image of God and that you haven’t understood God from the Shia perspective.

Therefore, I can say that superficial or false knowledge and suppositions led you to choosing disbelief.

“Now, you'll say, 'but this isn't in the verse, you're just adding it in parenthesis'. Not really. As shia, we believe that the Quran has multiple meanings and that it needs extrapolation as there is more to a verse than meets the eye. It's the same way how the Ahlul Bayt are not mentioned in the Quran by name, but we know they are mentioned in the quran through interpretation, logic and reasoning.”

But that is the outcome of a * particular persons * logic, reasoning and interpretation. We can never know in an epistemiological sense whether it is true or not. A different person draws a different conclusion.

Well exactly, but this in no way negates the fact that you can choose your belief. The fact that people can draw different conclusions confirms the ability to choose, at the end of the day.

Belief. Truth. Justification. Why don’t you counter the interpretation to show me whether it’s epistemologically true of false. Or are you saying that we can’t be sure of anything in the epistemological sense?.. Because that would just be anomalistic logic.

Therefore, in closing, i think our environment hugely affects us as i described above. I am still currently deciding whether we even have or do not have free will or whether everything is determined or indetermined but that is for another time and another thread. Personally though, i think belief is just one of those things you can’t choose. Even if you do have some "freedom" in making a "choice" your choice is heavily coloured by your environment. I mean think about it like this, a couple hundred years ago, there were hardly any atheists, now there are many. People’s actual minds are more or less the same as back then but being an atheist means a very different thing now. We use to need God to explain why we were here, why the world works, how the universe started, hell, back then even *I* probably would of been a theist/believer in God. It was just hard to justify it based on your environment (in this case knowledge of the time) that it was a choice of few and a faulty one using the knowledge of the time at that. Therefore, the environment around you plays a huge part, same with the example of my friend. Also, consider the media, now that some of the west has a hugely negative view of Islam, do you really think they are going to start reading about it or read positive things? Doubtful. They are probably less liable to convert as well until they remove those environmental constraints that have been placed upon them.

I have a rather firm understanding of freewill and pre-determinism, so if you open up a thread perhaps I could enlighten you.

As you said before, different people yield different results and have varied thought processes. You must recognize the significant increase in knowledge now compared to back then. There were people back then who worshipped lifeless idols and they were inevitably entrapped in this ignorance due to the imitation of their forefathers. But, once again, you make the mistake in generalizing. There was a man called salman al-farsi who was brought up in an environment where his family were fire-worshippers, yet salman differed in this belief of theirs and ran away, ultimately finding the Holy Prophet. As for the rest, the various nations, they were enlightened by the messengers and prophets sent by God to provide guidance (although you don’t believe this, it doesn’t prove that everyone is doomed to have a dogmatic state of mind). No one is blameworthy if they haven’t received the right guidance, if they are ignorant. They are judged on other matters. The fact is that there are so many factors and a nexus of ideas to take into account; you can’t possibly provide a simplistic answer.

You can be indoctrinated and brainwashed, absolutely, but that doesn’t mean that there exists an *impossibility* for *everyone* to retract their previous stance. It’s empirically proven that people, who have been brainwashed by the media or person, change their belief after being open minded and investigating further about a particular issue. Heck, that’s even happened to me.

Another example, the ancient Greek religion. They believed the Gods literally lived on mount Olympus. Of course it would been hard to climb up there and survive without the medical knowledge we have now..technological knowledge..oxygen tanks..thermal clothes ect. Even if they wanted to they would of been quite afraid. Of course, at the time, it seemed reasonable and this formed part of their environment. However, now, we know there are literally no Gods on mount Olympus. I think one would find it very hard based on the current environment to believe in this part of the ancient Greek religion; In fact, i would consider it impossible to believe something you know is false (barring insanity/brainwashing/something like that). I guess they could still hang onto the religion if they reformulated it a bit but that is a quite different matter.

I’ve touched on these points. You have to amalgamate all my answers to get a better standpoint, because there subsists a number of clauses and exceptions in the way people believe something.

Ultimately, from what I understand, the underlying denominators of this topic are the issues of knowledge, ignorance and something between that whilst, at the same time, taking the religious and moral beliefs into consideration.

[xstatik2]

Choosing = Conscious Act

Believing = Conscious / Subconscious Act

Therefore Choose to Believe can be a contradictory emotion ! (whereas logically if understood according to the English diction only surmounts to a conscious act i.e. Choose to Believe "I choose to believe" !!!

So your question could have 2 answers - 1. In accordance with Emotion 2. In accordance with an Act

What is the context of your question ? What is it that you were meaning to ask with the question "Is it possible to choose to believe" ....can you elaborate please ?

[Çåá ÇáÈíÊ]

Where's KingPomba?

[Pascal]

Where's KingPomba?

This probably sums up where i'm at:

I'm sure like almost everyone else here i don't spend all day on Shi'a chat, i have a life to live after all. So, i only come on every couple days usually.

I have been reading the responses and ruminating and thinking over them, so don't worry, they're not going unread.

When i do write i like to go really indepth which isn't usually possible unless i feel some kind of passion or will to do it, hasn't struck me yet. I also realise people (mostly) put a lot of thought, effort and personal belief into what they write which is why i want to think it over properly and give them the decent response they deserve.

Don't worry though, all i have been considering answering will be answered eventually.

In the mean time those reading might like to consider some other things i have come across during the course of this:

http://forums.randi....ad.php?t=151058

http://atheism.about...eliefChoice.htm

http://www.iep.utm.edu/doxa-vol/ (Doesn't seem to have a lot of balance in regards to mentioning the counter position to what the article is about...I assume the opposite position to this one is floating around in there too..somewhere..)

http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/theistic-proofs/pascals-wager/we-cannot-choose-our-beliefs/

Edited December 11, 2011 by kingpomba

[Pascal]

Well i don't feel at all inspired still but its been such a long time so i figured i should get around to some answers.

Just to add, make-believe is a real phenomenon, which emerges from trying to belief, ignoring doubts and choosing situations and committing actions which favour the belief and shun the disbelief - it is possible that at some point, the mind succumbs, and the belief just becomes a reality.

It seems like an incredibly hard process though, if not impossible in many cases. It seems way more like the exception rather than the norm in things like this.

To me though, trying to believe implies you actually want to believe and it implies you have a certain disposition towards the topic in the first place. Little more on this a little later.

If you believe something, you often look upon the opposite view in a less favourable light than your belief. Like belief in God for example, most religious people think of not believing in God as misguided or silly, they do not simply think of it neutrally as just another position. Same with abortion, if you are for one side of the debate you do not look neutrally on the other side.

This is why i think changing your beliefs by "make-belief" would be incredibly difficult. You only don't subscribe to the opposite position but you are quite actively opposed to it in one way or another in your thoughts.

It would be incredibly hard trying to believe something you know not to be true or ignoring your doubts.

Even then, the intention you're going in with is one of self-deception or going against something you know to be true, the impetus for this in the first place can't be all that great.

That said at one point or another when we consider things or form or change views there is a small element of make belief at a certain stage in belief forming but not nearly as huge as you're suggesting. As i mentioned my friend earlier for example, she was first agnostic, then thought there must be something out-there in some way or another (a very undefined way) then finally reached Islam.

Especially between the last two stages, i think there would have to be an element of make belief at some point or another. Like going from a very generic conception of some universal force or forces to one God and accepting all the prophets and stories of Islam even though you previously didn't believe such a thing would involve a degree of "make-belief" in the belief forming process in regards to changing positions. I doubt many would disagree with me. By that stage though she already knew what she was looking for somewhat and really narrowed down her search that and her family already converted so i think she had significant driving force to form a belief.

I don't think it’s possible for the average person just to decide to "make-believe" completely of their own free will and totally succeed. The things i mentioned above would make it all too hard. I think make-belief can happen but i often think in cases like this there is some driving force that makes you really need or want to "make-belief" or that you are already fairly sympathetic to the position anyway and just need to take that next step.

This reminds me of Pascal’s wager actually. Modern historians and philosophers who study Pascal seem to think that his argument was more for shoring up and re-enforcing the belief of those who already believe rather than causing people to start believing in Christianity, exactly because of my examples. Even though heaven is the ultimate reward, it still doesn't make you automatically believe. Pascal actually suggested that you go to church...hang out with religious people...do everything religious ect to weaken your resolve but this just seems...i dont even have a word for it but there’s a huge element of self-deception and going against what you know to be true, notwithstanding the success of such a venture.

Of course, this make-believe has to have some source of pressure, internal or external.

And i only saw this now after i typed all of the above... Damn.

So, these kind of actions can lead to a person believing. A person who has no interest in belief, on the other hand, would never believe.

The lack of interest or what i'd more accurately call "will/want to believe" for other beliefs is obvious as i outlined a result of holding contrary beliefs. So, just by the nature of believing in something, you already don't want to believe in the opposite (need we look at politics for any richer examples than this...especially the sharp divides in American politics). So, my interest to believe isn't really under my control either since it results from my other beliefs.

I think if you hold a belief and have for a sufficient time and strength you will really not have much will to believe the opposite contention.

I think, like my friend, is only when you are not sure about the issue entirely or have very significant pressure, usually both.

The truth hits us - or doubt hits us - and we have a choice to act. Do we wish to let this inconvenient truth take over us? Or shall we resist and justify resistance? Do we wish to let doubt eat our security up? Or shall we ignore it and stick further to our beliefs?

For me more and more i notice a huge interconnectedness between fields. I can't disregard geology when i'm looking at biology or chemistry when I’m looking at biology. Same with philosophy, we'd be extremely silly to discount psychology or sociology here.

I think we are slaves to our psychology to a certain degree when it regards issues like this. Obviously, it is not the whole picture but we shouldn't look at this as a strictly philosophical problem. The interconnectedness is there.

We have this for example - https://en.wikipedia...nfirmation_bias and a whole list of things just as long as my arm out there (https://en.wikipedia...ognitive_biases https://en.wikipedia...exposure_theory https://en.wikipedia...f_memory_biases )

We can't forget dissonance as well - https://en.wikipedia...ive_dissonance.

I think most of the time we try to justify, i can see why this is a good thing psychologically and evolutionarily. You really don't want to flip flop on your idea that a tiger will eat you every time you eat a tiger or every time you deal with a scammer for example. Our beliefs would constantly fall apart as well, which would i imagine be quite unpleasant.

How can we conclude? I suppose we can say that neither we choose our beliefs nor that our choices have no bearing on our beliefs - but it's a state between the two.

I'd argue a significant portion of our choices are either completely or partially affected by our beliefs. It becomes a kind of circle then and it falls apart because of the circular nature of the whole thing. I don't really think we can make many choices, if any, that would have a bearing on our belief, largely because of our psychology but also because of what i just mentioned.

I think anything you do in the process of a "choice" would largely be accidental event or due to lack of previous knowledge or conviction.

For example if i "chose" to start believing in Islam and made a choice to read a couple books on it, this could go either way. If the books were really bad i doubt I’d get far. If they were really good though, they might make somewhat of an impact. The quality of the book and its impact on you is somewhat accidental, it’s not like you knew what impact the book would have on you before you finished it, it just came about during the process of reading the book and because the book happened to be of such a quality, it wasn't really related to your choice to read books, it just happened the book you got was good.

The kind of things you come across in your initial stages and search, especially if your beliefs aren't fully formed or hardened would have an enormous impact, which way that impact goes though isn't necessarily attached to your choice. I hope i'm making sense and you can kind of distil my idea out of there, i know it seems like a mess but it is very very late in the morning here.

Thank you for the very well written and considerate post though.

As for kim.tinkerbell, thanks for the post. I don't really have much to say in response, you didn't say much that was really contriversial and you didn't really elaborate on the part where you said "this is where free will comes in" or something to that nature, if you did i would probably have more to say but thank you none the less.

Choosing = Conscious Act

Choosing is conscious but that isn't really the crux of the issue, the more appropriate thing would be decide whether choice is free.

I know i'm consiouscly choosing things most of the time but can i really change that choice all that much? You usually go for what you like or what you think is best based on evidence, so its already at least partially determined and partially unfree.

My choice to paint my room is influenced by my favourite colour which isn't entirely a choice. I don't like yellow, so i won't choose yellow. I didn't really choose to not like yellow, i just don't. Given these things, its doubtful i would of ever chosen yellow, ever.

Same with my choice of university, i chose the best one i could get into based on what prior knowledge and conceptions i had. It's doubtful i would of picked any other one given these dispositions.

So, i think even choice is partially determined by prior states, past knowledge, evidence, ect.

We can't really choose what we think is true either, we just know it to be true.

Believing = Conscious / Subconscious Act

Again, i'm not really sure what you mean by conscious or subconscious, i take it to mean that we either consciously think and know we're doing it or that we don't.

What is the context of your question ? What is it that you were meaning to ask with the question "Is it possible to choose to believe" ....can you elaborate please ?

I thought i elaborated quite a bit, what is it that you would like to know exactly? I'm specifically talking about things like religious belief.