# Belief a CHOICE? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 9, 2012, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482 "2012-12-09T03:08:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![rstrats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@rstrats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rstrats)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/21 "2012-12-09T14:22:42Z")
Mangetout, re: “Really? Because I thought it was pretty much universally acknowledged, here at the SDMB, that lack of volition regarding one’s own belief was one of the key failings of Pascal’s Wager.” I was referring to internet forums in generall, not just SDMB. But you’re right about Pascal’s Wager because it fails from the start since it is based on the notion that beliefs can be consciously CHOOSEN. ---
**Author:** ![rstrats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@rstrats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rstrats)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/22 "2012-12-09T14:37:36Z")
Measure for Measure , re: “My degree of belief is grounded on the preponderance of the evidence…” Firstly, I don’t see how there can be degrees of belief - you either believe something or you don’t. Secondly, if beliefs can be obtained by simply CHOOSING to have them, then evidence is not necessary (prudent in cases like your starter example) but not necessary. I think you imply that with your comment: “If I were a moron, evidence would have no relation to my degree of belief.” ---
**Author:** ![solosam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@solosam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solosam)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/23 "2012-12-09T14:52:00Z")
I dip my toe into the Christianity pond every now and then. Every time I do, I am consciously choosing to try, because I have basically zero “innate” belief or faith. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/24 "2012-12-09T14:55:07Z")
Some people go through life thinking every unhappy thing that befalls them was the outcome of another’s ill intent. You probably know people like this, we probably all do. It’s never that the bus driver was checking his lane and just didn’t see them, it’s always that bus drivers are obnoxious and abusive of their powers. If the boss promotes a woman instead of him it’s never because she is more experienced/qualified and always because he’s getting screwed cause he’s a man. I think those people _are_ responsible for those beliefs. They _are_ choices. There is no empirical proof for either scenario, in fact. But the person chooses to believe what makes them comfortable or confirms their biases. Maybe because that’s more comforting than acknowledging there is no way to actually ‘know’. There are times when I actively choose to ‘assume the best’ about someone, even when my spidey sense is starting to tingle, like a friends new love interest. Definitely choice. And if you’re talking, in some veiled way, of Christianity say, if faith or believe is not a choice, why would any church waste one moment trying to convert others? Wouldn’t they just accept that it wasn’t a choice for the non believer? ---
**Author:** ![rstrats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@rstrats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rstrats)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/25 "2012-12-09T15:39:04Z")
elbows, re: “And if you’re talking, in some veiled way, of Christianity…” I’m not. I’m referring to belief in general regardless of the issue. re: “…if faith or believe is not a choice, why would any church waste one moment trying to convert others?” Because they apparently think that it is. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/26 "2012-12-09T16:32:11Z")
> [@rstrats](#): > > re: “Being able to consciously choose your beliefs wouldn’t imply that youccould change them instantaneously.” > > It has to imply that. You can’t believe - be convinced - that sometheing doesn’t exist or isn’ t true AND at the same time believe that it does exist or that it is true. There has to be an instant when your one state of mind changes to the other. No, there doesn’t. First, people are quite capable of holding beliefs that don’t make any logical sense, and second, you’re ignoring the quite common state of uncertainty or “I don’t know whether that’s true or not.” ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/27 "2012-12-09T16:42:40Z")
> [@rstrats](#): > > You can’t believe - be convinced - that sometheing doesn’t exist or isn’ t true AND at the same time believe that it does exist or that it is true. There has to be an instant when your one state of mind changes to the other. > [@rstrats](#): > > For the purpose of this topic, I define “belief” as a conviction - without doubt - that someone or something does or doesn’t exist, or that a certain proposition is or isn’t true. I’m not sure whether I accept either of these—but I know I can’t accept both of them simultaneously. If you’re defining “belief” in a way that excludes any doubt, then there absolutely and obviously is a middle ground between believing that something does exist and believing that it does not. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/28 "2012-12-09T16:45:19Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Really? Because I thought it was pretty much universally acknowledged, here at the SDMB, that lack of volition regarding one’s own belief was one of the key failings of Pascal’s Wager. Pascal’s argument, btw, is that belief in God has to be a choice because the existence or lack of existence of God can’t be rationally established. God is unknowable. But, Pascal offers advice to people wanting to believe. > [@](#): > > “I confess it, I admit it. But, still, is there no means of seeing the faces of the cards?”—Yes, Scripture and the rest, etc. “Yes, but I have my hands tied and my mouth closed; I am forced to wager, and am not free. I am not released, and am so made that I cannot believe. What, then, would you have me do?” > > True. But at least learn your inability to believe, since reason brings you to this, and yet you cannot believe. Endeavour then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions. You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. Even this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness ---
**Author:** ![ethelbert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ethelbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ethelbert)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/29 "2012-12-09T16:48:03Z")
I think the choice that most people are talking about is the choice to _want_ to believe, and this is the choice that folks who proselytize are trying to get you to make. Once you make that initial choice, the journey from wanting to believe to belief is a voyage that will likely take your entire life (and will likely be made more than once). It is a journey you undertake because your life is improved by it (to clarify, it is the journey and not the belief as you define it above that improves your life). The OP gives the example of leprechauns. I really can’t see any reason to _want_ to believe in leprechauns, so that is not a journey I would undertake. However, if someone came to me with a tale of a loving God to whom I could turn in times of need, I could see wanting to believe that enough to undertake the journey. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/30 "2012-12-09T16:54:15Z")
> [@ethelbert](#): > > I think the choice that most people are talking about is the choice to _want_ to believe, and this is the choice that folks who proselytize are trying to get you to make. And I believe 😉 that _wanting to believe_ is a bigger factor in why most people believe the things they do (about matters cosmic and mundane) than they realize or are willing to admit. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/31 "2012-12-09T17:46:41Z")
> [@rstrats](#): > > re: “…if faith or believe is not a choice, why would any church waste one moment trying to convert others?” > > Because they apparently think that it is. Not really. As with any other belief and “conversion,” the hope of the proselytizer is that they will provide enough facts and logic or sufficiently persuasive stories that resonate with one’s psyche that will rlt in your beliefs changing on their own. Love may be a choice, but belief is not. ---
**Author:** ![rstrats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@rstrats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rstrats)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/32 "2012-12-09T18:21:29Z")
Lamia, re: “No, there doesn’t.” Can you give an example where someone believes - is convinced - that something exists AND at the same time believes - is convinced - that the same something doesn’t exist? re: “…people are quite capable of holding beliefs that don’t make any logical sense…” I agree. I haven’t said otherwise. re: “…you’re ignoring the quite common state of uncertainty or 'I don’t know whether that’s true or not.” And during that time of uncertainty, you don’t believe - are not convinced - with regard to the truth of the issue. ---
**Author:** ![rstrats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@rstrats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rstrats)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/33 "2012-12-09T18:32:32Z")
Thudlow Boink, re: “I’m not sure whether I accept either of these—but I know I can’t accept both of them simultaneously.” I don’t see why not. Maybe you could explain your reasoning. re: “If you’re defining “belief” in a way that excludes any doubt…” Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing. re: “… then there absolutely and obviously is a middle ground between believing that something does exist and believing that it does not.” And that middle ground is where you have a lack of belief either way. ---
**Author:** ![rstrats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@rstrats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rstrats)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/34 "2012-12-09T18:41:35Z")
tomndebb, re: " As with any other belief … the hope of the proselytizer is that they will provide enough facts and logic or sufficiently persuasive stories that resonate with one’s psyche that will rlt in your beliefs changing on their own." Agreed. I should have included that in my post as another possibility. ---
**Author:** ![rstrats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@rstrats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rstrats)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/35 "2012-12-09T18:48:06Z")
ethelbert, re: “The OP gives the example of leprechauns. I really can’t see any reason to want to believe in leprechauns…” One reason could be because you wanted to be of help and be responsive to the OP by demonstrating your ability (if you have it) to consciously CHOOSE to believe things. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/36 "2012-12-09T18:52:39Z")
> [@rstrats](#): > > re: “…you’re ignoring the quite common state of uncertainty or 'I don’t know whether that’s true or not.” > > And during that time of uncertainty, you don’t believe - are not convinced - with regard to the truth of the issue. What you said before was that there must be an instant where someone’s mental state changes from being convinced that something is not true to being convinced that it is true. I would expect that the typical process is actually disbelief -\> uncertainty -\> belief. Uncertainty is not the same thing as being convinced that something isn’t true. As a word of advice, you might want to try a little harder to format your posts in the manner that is conventional around here. Learn to use the quote feature and don’t put in huge empty spaces between paragraphs. ---
**Author:** ![rstrats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@rstrats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rstrats)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/37 "2012-12-09T19:26:49Z")
Lamia, re: " Uncertainty is not the same thing as being convinced that something isn’t true." Indeed it isn’t. I haven’t said otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/38 "2012-12-09T19:56:27Z")
> [@rstrats](#): > > re: " Uncertainty is not the same thing as being convinced that something isn’t true." > > Indeed it isn’t. I haven’t said otherwise. Then what was your point? Do you have one? ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/39 "2012-12-09T20:04:11Z")
Beliefs have a margin of error, or range of probability, and you can choose where within that margin you want to plant your flag. There’s also the matter of choosing to believe very likely but nonetheless highly abstract information that is rational and perhaps obliquely confirmed but has no concrete manifestation in everyday life. ---
**Author:** ![rstrats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@rstrats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rstrats)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482/40 "2012-12-09T21:34:14Z")
Lamia, re: “Then what was your point?” Simply what I wrote; You can’t believe - be convinced - that sometheing doesn’t exist or isn’ t true [or have no belief either way] AND at the same time believe that it does exist or that it is true. There has to be an instant when your one state of mind changes to the other. BTW, you have a question directed to you in post #32. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-a-choice/643482.md?page=3)