I think we have the choice of whether to engage our doubts, but I don’t think we have a choice of whether to believe or not believe. I was a “believer” until I engaged my doubts, the doubts that had been sitting there poking at me for years, the doubts that made all religious discussion akin to TMI for me.
But I didn’t choose to have the doubts in the first place, and I didn’t choose for the whole house o’ cards to come down.
Pretty much my feelings about Christianity.
I’d add all religions to that list.
Well, if you think belief in God is a choice, then I challenge you to choose to believe. Just do it.
I’d like to restate the OP. “How can anyone actually believe such obviously man made nonsense as what is called religion today.” Forget all the extra nonsense, apologia, double talk and interpretations. How about we only consider religion as stated in its own “sacred texts”.
Limiting it to the three main monotheistic religions god, as described is petty, vindictive, hateful, murderous and occasionally kind. If you look at the histroy of religion, it seems more than obvious that these beliefs evolved over time just like everything else.
If there is a supernatural entity that caused things to happen, surely it would be so far above us that anything we can conceive would be light years off. And would such an entity really care who we slept with, whether or not we eat pork or shellfish or if we mutilate our children’s sex organs or if we spill our seed because we saw a neat picture on the internet?
I’m sorry, but while I can respect someone, my view of them is definitely damaged if they believe such nonsense as Christianity, Islam, Judiasm and the rest.
You choose by deciding what you want to know. You can accept on blind faith that miracles happen, or you can choose to investigate said miracles. You can sit through a church service and shout “Amen!” every once in a while, or you can openly question the parts of the sermon you’re not too sure about. You can follow the “God of the Gaps” whenever yet another biblical verse is found to be not so accurate, or you can realize that the Bible is too inaccurate to be used as a source of information. You can choose the religion that tells you what you want to hear, or you can choose the religion that is most supported by the available evidence…and realize that they are all equally supported by nothing but blind faith.
Just do it or shut the fuck up. Believe. Now.
I choose not to. It’s the harder choice, but it pays off in the long run.
This is going to end in tears and/or offerings of cash money.
I’ll take a whimper and a sixpack of Dead Guy Ale. 
Ok, then. To repeat, “Strife”, IMO, is a fundamentalist problem.
Setting aside the existence problem, the moral authority of religion rests on 3 justifications: a) tradition, b) subjective introspection and c) the lack of a viable institutional alternative.
Tradition can be defended on Burkean grounds. But while I have not actually read Burke, I haven’t come across a defense of tradition that I find persuasive: at best it’s a weak justification.
Subjective introspection is fine, though we have a problem when different meditators reach differing conclusions.
As for c), I guess there’s always the Ethical Culture Society or the Church of Atheism. But in practice, we’ll generally have to settle for the rule of law.
Why are we starting this from square 1 again? Can’t you just read the thread first?
Jumping off a cliff is a choice, but that doesn’t mean someone’s stupid enough to go through with it.
But then again, some are.
Can you think of any other section of human life where blind faith is not only looked upon favorably, but is actually required?
The whole and entirety of existence. There’s not a shred of evidence that everything I can sense or remember isn’t an illusion. I prefer to believe otherwise but every morning is an act of blind faith.
And we’re starting over again. I give up.
Be a coprophiliac. Just do it. NOW.
Not faith-blind faith. Every morning you wake up with expectations based on previous experiences.
Experiences which only blind faith leads me to believe are anything but an illusion.
Great, another “We could be living in a test tube being fed memories from a supercomputer!” argument. In that case, we don’t you just assume that this whole conversation is a frakkin’ illusion and just ignore it.
Please.