No. Belief is something you accept is true. Whether it's make believe or not is irrelevant.
Do you believe that unicorns and leprechauns are real?
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No. Belief is something you accept is true. Whether it's make believe or not is irrelevant.
In the common vernacular, the word "believe" is used in too many contexts, such that there's no black and white answer. But in its natural sense, to believe is to see and register something as true, so you can no more choose a belief than you can choose the truth that you see. If you want to know if you believe something, a proposition (belief that or belief what), just ask yourself, "Is that so?" That sense of belief is malleable, changing with each moment, with each new set of information. Each new decision. As it should be. To fix "beliefs" in stone, or paper, is to "kill" them, render them useless. Mental bias relies on the information set as if it were fixed, casting truth in memory, in mind, in stone--let it be malleable and present, and the truth is "out there."Can you choose what you believe?
To be clear, I'm not asking if you can choose your religion or if you can choose what to label yourself or your views.
Can you choose what to believe or disbelieve? Or are such core convictions or biases inherent in the individual based on experiences? Or are they based on something else? If so, what?
Can you choose what you believe?
To be clear, I'm not asking if you can choose your religion or if you can choose what to label yourself or your views.
Can you choose what to believe or disbelieve? Or are such core convictions or biases inherent in the individual based on experiences? Or are they based on something else? If so, what?
Yes you can. It's you're choice to determine if it's worthy of you're trust.
If you're convinced that it is true, than you can choose to believe it.
We can choose to accept X is true regardless of whether it's reasonable or not.
Do you believe that unicorns and leprechauns are real?
Yes (for example). Doesn't make it true. If I find reason to accept it's true (believe), I can. If I dont, I can "choose" to move on.
Actually, you can. All you have to do is let go of the idea that your convictions are undoubtably right, so that you can become open-minded, again. If you can't do that, then you've trapped yourself in your own bias (because, of course, we can always be wrong).You can't put your trust in something unless you have a reason to believe it's trustworthy. You can't choose to believe something is trustworthy if you're convinced it isn't.
That's not what I'm asking a hypothetical. I'm asking if you actually believe they're real.
No. I can choose to believe they are (accept it's true). Doesn't mean isnt. That's just what I believe.
Can't really use unicorns unless I say I don't believe but now I do because I found good reason to accept it.
Can you choose what you believe?
To be clear, I'm not asking if you can choose your religion or if you can choose what to label yourself or your views.
Can you choose what to believe or disbelieve? Or are such core convictions or biases inherent in the individual based on experiences? Or are they based on something else? If so, what?
So one can't just choose your beliefs without an experience to affect that choice. One needs a reason to believe. You can't just choose to believe in unicorns, correct?
Why then is it that another seeing the same convincing things you are seeing, is not convinced? Is it that you are more intelligent than them? I am convinced for instance, that being convinced has more to do with one's willingness to be convinced by the evidence than the evidence itself. This is true for all of us, for everything we elect to be convinced by. But you aren't convinced of that.No, I'm not.
"Be convinced" is passive. I can't choose to be convinced. Something has to convince me. I can't choose to cause that to happen.
Can you choose what you believe?
To be clear, I'm not asking if you can choose your religion or if you can choose what to label yourself or your views.
Can you choose what to believe or disbelieve? Or are such core convictions or biases inherent in the individual based on experiences? Or are they based on something else? If so, what?
Actually, you can. All you have to do is let go of the idea that your convictions are undoubtably right, so that you can become open-minded, again. If you can't do that, then you've trapped yourself in your own bias (because, of course, we can always be wrong).
Can you choose what you believe?
To be clear, I'm not asking if you can choose your religion or if you can choose what to label yourself or your views.
Can you choose what to believe or disbelieve? Or are such core convictions or biases inherent in the individual based on experiences? Or are they based on something else? If so, what?
Can you choose what you believe?
To be clear, I'm not asking if you can choose your religion or if you can choose what to label yourself or your views.
Can you choose what to believe or disbelieve? Or are such core convictions or biases inherent in the individual based on experiences? Or are they based on something else? If so, what?
Can you choose what you believe?
Why then is it that another seeing the same convincing things you are seeing, is not convinced?
Is it that you are more intelligent than them?
I am convinced for instance, that being convinced has more to do with one's willingness to be convinced by the evidence than the evidence itself. This is true for all of us, for everything we elect to be convinced by. But you aren't convinced of that.
One could argue that you lack seeing the evidence that I am seeing, which may be the case. It may also be that it is foreign to your ways of thinking about these things, and therefore it takes a considerable willingness to entertain a different perspective (true for all of us).
Being open to evidence in this instance, is clearly a choice, as all the evidence of all Creationists flying against science proves. They are choosing to deny it, without valid supporting evidences.
It's a little complex, but not really once we see that we are a lot more than just rational reasoning binary decision machines. Our will is central to the whole shebang. The will is the Master at the helm of all of it, and everything the will directs, is a choice of the will. Choice is a matter of the will. We choose what we believe, even while that happens subconsciously. Choice is the spigot on the faucet that lets evidence do it's thing, or blocks it.
That would be true. And you don't have the same criteria as them. It is a selective lens that sees what it will see. It is conditioned, and ultimately is a choice. One can either follow the conditioning, by implicitly or subconsciously choosing to continue to follow it, or to make a conscious choice to examine it and challenge its presumptions, or basic lens it sees the world through.Many reasons. Bottom line, they don't have the same criteria for what is convincing that I do.
Yes, but at the gate is a choice to be made. "Could it be that my perception is not allowing me to see something because of my conditioning? Can I set that aside and truly try to see through a different perspective?"Correct. And I can't just up and choose to believe your perspective is correct for no reason. I need to be convinced by some type of evidence.
But actually, yes. You can choose to be more willing. Absolutely yes. That's where one's emotional sense of security comes squarely into play. Fear, is a major motivator to make one retract into "safe spaces". In the case of having one's sense of reality utterly thrown upside down, then they will instinctively, through evolution, protect that at all costs. Violently if necessary in extreme cases, such as terrorists.Also correct. And I can't just choose to be more willing. I either see evidence that convinces me to change my mind, or I don't. If I don't, I'm not going to change my mind. It's not something I choose. If you genuinely convince me you're correct, I can't just not believe it. I believe automatically.
You're close. Yes, they cannot just turn that off, because it is the program that informs their worldviews, which creates the filter through which all other information must pass, and then be sorted into the structures of that worldview's framework. Therefore, that which threatens it, or they can't "bend" enough to allow a different perspective through, will disallow everything that you see and celebrate as true.Again, not true. Creationists can't just simply choose not to be creationists. They are genuinely convinced creationism is true based on the evidence they've seen. That doesn't mean they're being rational, or that they have seen accurate or sufficient information to inform their belief. It simply means that, for whatever reason, they are genuinely convinced. And they can't just turn that off. They have to be presented with new information that contradicts their paradigm before that paradigm shifts.
Oh absolutely, I agree with this. Perhaps, maybe the will is more subject to our desire for a sense of security? A desire to know love? At a really deep level, that is probably true.Our wills are constrained in 1,000 different ways, from the moment we have anything we could call a will: by our genetics, our upbringing, our culture, our religion, the information we are and aren't exposed to and so on.