Proposition: Choosing to believe (or not to believe) any given piece of data, purely as an act of one's "will", is not a capacity the human brain possesses. If you would defend the notion that "people can believe whatever they want", I would appreciate a step-by-step explanation of how one can accomplish this feat. If you agree that people cannot believe whatever they want, I would hope that you would point that out whenever appropriate and possible.
I'm sure there are many atheists who think belief is a choice too, though it is most common to hear that from believers. As he says, part of it may be a mental "justification" for a given believers' sense of superiority for having "made the right choice". But this whole notion of "Free Will" that is typically preached from Christian pulpits (and some other places) can be proven wrong by very simple thought experiments, and will hopefully soon be so proven empirically with neurological scans. This notion is also at the root of a great deal of general trouble in our society. Its nefarious effects go well beyond whether one believes any religious claims, but to any and all other claims as well. Such as one's sexual orientation, for starters.
The way that anyone at all can prove to themselves, right now, right where they are (sounds a little like a televangelist don't it), is simply to bring to mind something - anything at all - that you believe strongly. Then, as an act of your will or choice, choose, just for a couple of minutes, to believe the exact opposite of that. Surely you will see that this is impossible. If you are an intellectually honest person, will you seriously tell all and sundry here that whatever your beliefs might be about a given thing, they are so because you choose them to be the way they are?
I was a devout Christian for more than thirty years. One day I was an atheist. This scared the shit out of me. That alone is irrational partly because, upon serious thought, it makes no sense whatever to have any fear of God punishing you to an eternity in Hell, if you have just come to believe there is no such thing as a God. But all that kind of thought came more gradually and later. I had barely heard of atheists before that and certainly nothing good. I had to set about looking around to find out what an atheists does and doesn't do, what kind of people they were; for all I knew I might have to go underground or something. I was lucky enough to very shortly thereafter find Pat Cleveland at Lake Hypatia, long before there was such a thing as Lake Hypatia, when they were having meetings in the library at Birmingham.
Some things, such as sexuality, are a continuum and all people are not firmly locked into one thing or another. But in general, the ends of the spectrum seem to be purely heterosexual at one end and purely homosexual at the other. Other people recognize the fallacy of "choice" most starkly in relation to sexuality. Many people have said, "Just when did YOU decide to be gay - or straight?" Surely thinking people can apply the same reasoning to other things. Just when did YOU decide to be... a liberal, a Libertarian ... a serial killer, a pedophile?
If I am a devout Christian, which I was, I am quite content, happy, satisfied with my life and my beliefs. Everyone knows there is a God, even if many people don't behave well. Everyone knows you will spend eternity somewhere...heaven, hell....purgatory...the Outer Limits? If I feel so happy and content with my life, what possible motivation could I have to DECIDE, just like that, that I'm not going to have the beliefs that I have? And if I did decide that, how would I do it?
There are many factors that go into a person believing the things that they believe at any given point. I doubt there is anyone here over 20 or so who believe and feel and think exactly as they did when they were ten. Brains continually evolve, different hormones and other chemicals come into play, sometimes emotions produce them, sometimes the genetic programming of certain changes happening at roughly certain times in growth; sometimes external events can change how one thinks about "X", sometime can even actually change a person's genes. Neurons die away, new ones form, different sets of connections between neurons and neuronal groups happen; various things may strengthen or weaken these connections. But no mater what you think or feel about "X" at any given moment, it is so because your brain is as it is at that moment. With many things it will change. Sometimes the very major things. You are never told about any of these plans to change. You are not sent a memo or a questionnaire asking how "you" feel about the proposed changes. Stuff happens inside your brain, things change; then and ONLY then are "you" made aware that things are different now and, it appears, the easiest thing to do is say, "I changed my mind", because it helps your brain maintain the illusion that "you" are in control.
To Bill, from previous blog: I thank you good sir, for your apology about being so harsh. It is genuinely admired and appreciated. I will also apologize about my saying "working" for pay is immoral. I can see how one might be rather insulted by that. I can only say that I had no intention to refer to you specifically, or any specific person, as being immoral...I meant only that it is my position that the current system in which we are all embedded, like it or not, is immoral. I also realized my temper was beginning to have more influence than I wanted, which is why I took a little break.
At the risk of producing yet another "tl;dr" tome, I also want to mention this... my previous short blog was about a man who decided to rob a bank for one dollar in order to get the medical treatment he knew he could get in jail, because he had no money or insurance. We start to hear, more and more often, in the media that "health care is a basic human right, not a privilege". Wonder why that is ... that this thought seems to be becoming more common? Where was that thought in our society twenty years ago? Ten? If most caring people would agree that food is a fundamental human right (some wouldn't...some say, 'if he don't work he don't eat')... and now some are thinking medical care is too...what other things might be fundamental human rights? How long might it take for such ideas to gain any traction in society?
One more thing... in honor of Columbo... check out wikipedia's charts just on the different flavors of Christianity. How does it make any more sense to wonder which of these is "right" than it does to wonder which of the various outrageous claims of schizophrenic folks is "right"?
TRB
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