The change can be “Oh, so that’s what I am.”
jsgoddess, the process you give is not one I am comfortable calling “choice”. At any rate, one could just as easily happen to run across something which causes them to switch religious beliefs; it happens to people all the time.
My intended challenge was for you to announce, ahead of time, a particular belief you hold which you intend to change, and then to voluntarily change it.
Erm, you deleted your post so I’ll delete mine in reply.
I’ve put a new one in its place, so you can put a new reply in place too, if you like. 
I have not stated that every belief is subject to voluntary change. I have stated that some beliefs are the result of ignorance and remaining ignorant is a choice. So all I have to do is name something I’m ignorant of but have some beliefs about and I’ll quickly run across something that’s incorrect. Then my belief will change. Like the example I already posted.
The person I was responding to later in the thread DID say that belief systems are a choice. There wasn’t any caveat on that statement as there was on mine, so I think you’re asking the wrong person.
Some beliefs are the result of ignorance and can be changed. Some are not.
Perhaps a simpler thing would be to say that some beliefs are the result of incorrect information and some are the result of faith. The former can be changed through volition (seeking the correct information). The latter can’t. Many atheists think religious belief is the result of ignorance and I disagree with that position.
ETA: I didn’t always disagree with that position. After all, I did want to be glam and thought smart.
I would tend to agree, with a proviso. I’d say that unchosen ideas can reveal wisdom; you don’t select get to select an idea based on how wise it seems to you, but it is based upon how you interpret the world and the particular problem at hand. That you have the options open to not pick from, that you can see them, is indicative of wisdom. For example, another belief you can’t choose is whether you believe in gravity. An unwise person may not be able to make the link between things falling so much and be able to understand that perhaps things falling is a relative constant. Another may not be able to understand that things fall down here but don’t fall up on the other side of the world. Someone who agrees with the generally concepted theory of gravity shows at least the wisdom to be able to understand to an extent how gravity works. In the same way, atheistic or religious ideas could be quite complicated, which might well indicate wisdom to me if I felt the complications were navigated reasonably.
Where i’d agree is in that atheism, alone and with no other details, is more of a sign of wisdom than is religiousness. On that point I agree.
I disagree that faith itself is not a choice, for this reason: I grew up religious, and had a strong sense of faith, all the warm fuzzy feelings that come from “knowing” that there is a God, etc. Then I went to college, got an atheist boyfriend, took a class that involved evolutionary biology, and thought and thought. Eventually, I’m not sure when, I reached the conclusion that this whole religion thing, no wait, this whole God thing, was probably bunk, no wait, certainly bunk. And I didn’t feel the warm fuzzy faith feelings anymore, at least not about “God.” I feel warm and fuzzy about other things.
Although…I’m a softer atheist than some. I lean towards agnostic, just because there is still much we don’t know about the universe, much less consciousness. (I think a lot about questions such as, what if “God” is in the connections between particles or a mathematical formula that explains the universe? Who knows how quantum mechanics and possibly infinite universe(s) would affect whether there is an “afterlife” or “reincarnation” in some sense?) So maybe there is still a crumb of “faith” kicking around in there off and on.
I agree with you. What we call choice is really the mechanical operation of our brain, could only end up one way. This basically goes immediately to the whole free will debate.
In case it’s not clear, there are many things I am comfortable calling choice. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. After jsgoddess reworded her position, I didn’t disagree with it that much. Or, at least, I no longer had the motivation to argue.
(Actually, I’m finding that I’m making a lot of tiny, almost drive-by posts lately and not really having the motivation to carry them through, for some reason. No idea why. I should probably just take a break from posting altogether, until I can start crafting posts with enough substance to be worth reading again.)
So, you equate “belief” with a hypothesis of sorts, something that may have some factual underpinnings or not, but that you can ultimately investigate to a level of self evidence or falsification, one or the other? “I believe it’s raining outside, I can hear the drops hitting the roof. Oh, wait! It’s not, it was hail.” That kind of process?
If that’s your definition of “belief,” it seems inarguable. We all have our own standard of what constitutes irrefutable evidence or support. But maybe I misunderstand? And what are your thoughts on faith, if we define that as belief in something that defies proof? Can you choose to have faith? Thanks.
I think this depends on how you define choice. I don’t think many people choose to be atheist in the same manner that they decide between steak or chicken at a restaurant. It is a more subtle thing where you choose (sometimes without realizing that it was a choice) whether something small makes sense, then something else, etc.
And even with the more obvious choice like my steak or chicken reference. I suppose it could be argued that your choice between those items is really the result of everything you experienced up to that point and to anyone with perfect knowledge of every detail of your life, the “choice” was inevitable, fate, pre-determined or any similar word/phrase. Since no one has that perfect knowledge (most of us can’t remember every detail of our own lives), it feels like choice and the distinction isn’t worth considering until people start telling you that you did or didn’t choose something and try to reward or punish you for it.
You’re right, no benevolent god would have let that movie exist.
Well, yes, but it was the moment when the demons are dragging away the bad guy. For religion to count, that’s gotta be a forever-and-ever kinda thing, right? I mean, if guy’s soul is eternal and he spends a mere ten billion years in Hell, then the punishment doesn’t mean anything. But if it’s a forever-and-ever kinda thing, why, that just violates the laws of thermodynamics!
QED, no God.
Sure, all you have to do is 1) give me a reason to do it, as I’m not going to change my life for your entertainment, and 2) knock down the system I currently have in place.
If it’s under your control, why do I have to knock down what you have in place?
Because I have no reason to. Until you can show me that current beliefs are false, I have no reason to replace them with anything. You can’t change beliefs like you change a shirt, like you appear to be pushing.
What is your evidence that belief systems can be changed through an effort of will?
It isn’t just an effort of will, it requires at the very least, a reason to do so. Trying to change your belief system by thinking really hard is as useful as trying to change your devotion to a band by doing the same. But let’s say you have a bad experience when meeting one of the band members, and then find out they didn’t write lyrics like they said, and then their next album sucked, then your devotion is likely to change. Not guaranteed, as you can simply ignore these things and keep your current beliefs, or you hinge the whole change around one of them if you feel like. It all depends on what you consider convincing evidence, and other mental attributes. It’s not like flipping a switch, but you can change your belief system.
The question of whether belief is voluntary is interesting. We could regard something as voluntary if somebody offering us a lot of money to do it would increase our chances of doing it. In other words, is it influenced by reward and punishment?
In general beliefs aren’t voluntary. If they were, we wouldn’t survive. I would simply believe I had millions of dollars and was surrounded by hot women who satisfied my every desire and that I’m getting lots of nourishing and delicious food. I’d starve to death believing everything was wonderful. In order to survive, our beliefs have to be based largely on what we actually experience. That’s involuntary.
On the other hand, the phenomenon called “wishful thinking” seems to be a real one. In some cases we believe what we wish were true. This doesn’t work on stuff that can easily be checked, but works fairly often on things that are vague or probabilistic.
Most religious beliefs are conveniently in the nearly impossible to check category, so a lot of wishful thinking comes into play. On the other hand if we are motivated (voluntarily) to seek out the truth in matters like this, we may find the evidence (involuntarily) leads us to a particular conclusion (which in my view is that God is a human invention).
I’m always leary of calling myself an Atheist since the definition of Agnostic seems to fit my views much better.
With the simple question “Does god exsist?” Atheists and Theists have already decided what they think.
Theist answer- “Yes.”
Atheist answer- “No.”
Agnostic answer- “Unknown. It is impossible to prove either way.”
So I do see Atheism as a choice. You chose “No”.