Is religion a choice?

Could you choose to have different religious beliefs, or non-beliefs if you wanted to?

Do you think that it is possible for someone to talk you into or out of a religious belief system?

inso much that people who join a "fringe" cult are their willingly. If they are brought up believing it to be true then it is true to them. But they still belive it to be true, that belief is a choice even though it is true.

But is it a choice to really believe the theistic doctrine of that group?

No one can force a belief on you.

Could you choose to be a totally different religion for a week and then switch back? I couldn't. I could go through the motions, but I wouldn't really believe.

He changed people's way of thinking.

which rather explains why there are tens of thousands of different religions in the world

Can you make yourself honestly believe anything you want whenever you want?

Why did you choose to have the religious beliefs that you have?

so yes I changed them

I know that people change religions, but is it a choice to do so. Could you go back to the religion you were today if you choose to?

it was my choice
why do you think you have no power over your own mind?

I changed them

How and why did you change them?

why do you think you have no power over your own mind?

I don't think that I could make myself believe that a flaming bush literally spoke to a guy, yet many do believe this to be true. I don't think that I could make myself believe that homosexuality is an offense to god and that I should be executed if I engage in that sort of behavior. But then again, I haven't really tried.

is a manmade product and has evolved over time according to political and financial expediency
reality makes you reject the worse abuses of religion as nothing but bullshit

I chose my religion quite by accident. I have always believed as I do now, but one day I found out there were others who shared my beliefs and that it had a name.

I chose a faith that fit my beliefs- I did not change my beliefs to fit a religion.

Yes, you can belief anything you want, whenever you want to, however you choose. Today I could choose to devote religious fervor to the colors purple and lavender, distinguishing and parsing everything I do into what those two colors represent.

I hold religious beliefs to be the stuff of ease of operation. Is it easier, when your first learning the multiplication tables to call 1's 8's and 3's 6's? No, you'd be doing balancing your checkbook incorrectly; not wrongly, but incorrectly, because your starting position was false.

We learn, and come to belief in the the power of numbers, because they make living easier. If you were never taught to read or swim or float, you could never explore submerged shipwrecks.

My deep red sweatshirt is officially white until tomorrow. Let's see what happens when I launder with bleach later tonight.

Is learned behavior a choice? I can't choose who I love, and I don't think that I could choose my religious beliefs.

you can choose not to love someone that harms you
you can choose not to love someone that is bad for you

you are not powerless unless you choose to be

How do you do this?

Could a parent of a terminally sick child choose not to love that child to make it easier on themselves? (I know that that is sick but I want to see how far you can it)

Can you choose to love someone you don't?

while we'd like to believe that all parents love their children, its obvious that some parents do not love their children

Religion is a matter of choice clearly, since we have many documented examples of genuine conversion from one belief system to another, but that doesn't mean it's a choice that can be made with the same timeframe and on the same level as where to eat lunch. Basically to my mind at least a choice is anything which can be selected or not selected by an act of will alone - a cerebral activity - and is not controlled by automated systems such as hormones. Thus it is my choice to be, for example, a Democrat. It doesn't mean I could decide to be a Republican next week, but it means I have considered the information at hand and chosen the best course of action based on the limits of my conscious reason. It means it's conceivable I could choose otherwise were the parties to emphasize different positions or the solutions, as I see them, to the problems of the world or nation to change with circumstances. It's not likely, and it's not going to happen instantaneously, but that's a very restricted view of choice IMO. Certainly there is no hormonal or involuntary neurological component to politics or religion - it is all a combination of nurture and rationalization depending on the person making that choice.

If religion were not a choice, people would not be able to convert to other religions unless their basic genetics or biology also changed. This is where it differs from the obvious analogy of sexuality. I'm convinced that most people are neither 100% gay or 100% straight, so it's certainly possible and in fact definitively true that people APPARENTLY choose which gender to pursue (or we would have no sightings of bisexuals on record - which I can assure you is untrue), but really all we are doing is responding to automatic genetic systems that cause us to be, in varying proportions, attracted to either gender. For those who actually ARE 100% gay or straight (and I mean genetically - not as a conditioned sociological response) it would be impossible to feel any sexual attraction to that gender. Any number of studies on supposedly straight people have shown widespread arousal at gay porn aimed at their gender, so I suspect that condition is rare indeed.

I think you are limiting "choice" here a bit

This could be my problem. I will have to think about your post.

FDR did the same thing in politics. This does not mean that elitism is dead in either case.

There is more poor and deprived people so this majority behaves with natural selfishness to improve their lives. Some times the undecided poor acts out so as to improve things directly for the poor and some times a con like, trickle down, sucks them into believing they too are now elite or are about to cross over into the elite group or that the scheme will help the poor indirectly. IMO this same mind changing goes on in religion, politics, buying or selling stocks, buying or selling houses and many other life view points. IMO our decisions are based on choice, but our prejudices are so pre loaded to favor one view over another that affectively the deck is so stacked that in many people there is no real choice.

both actually.

I've loved someone who was not good for me in the least, and eventually I learned how to not love them. I was not rasied religious and after my mom's death went through a "seeker" phase and I made the choice that I did not believe in any of them.

The flipside is that there is no free will?

Most people allow others to make all kinds of choices for them, and it's a shame really. I joke about how it's a good thing everyone just happens to be born into the Right faith, but the point is that you can choose at any time to reject the religion you were raised in, just as you can choose to believe in one or a different one later. You can also choose to not believe in any of it like I did.

REALIZE that you HAVE a choice.

Since you aren't brought up to have one....

If federal anti-discrimination laws could be applied to something that was a matter of choice, there would be no reason not to extend federal anti-discrimination laws to protect gay men and women, because we all know that homosexuality is a choice.

Since religion is covered by federal anti-discrimination laws, it follows that religion is an immutable characteristic such as race and gender.

QED.

:sarcasm:

...either I buy it or I don't...or I'm not sure...

The whole concept of "going to hell" because I don't "believe" is so laughable...I never chose not to believe, I just don't. (The whole concept of "hell" is laughable in and of itself, obviously.)

This is exactly how I feel about many religious beliefs. I think that when we hear about a religious belief, it either touches us or it doesn't.

And we need thousands of ex-evangelical programming camps established, with faith-based funding, ASAP.

but I believe to believe nothing is best. but to continually entertain possibilities is playful and healthy.

You believe what you believe.

Which is not to say that you can't change your beliefs, but it takes more thant just WANTING to change your beliefs. You can't do it directly.

Through education, and critical evaluation, you can expose yourself to different viewpoints, one of which may come to make more sense. But you have to be willing to be honest with yourself, and have the intellectual integrity to read through your own bullshit. It's difficult though.

People can believe without joining a religion.

The religion itself is a choice.

But it's a choice in the way that not raping and murdering is a choice. If you believe your religion is the only way to be good, than it's a choice, but a really easy, obvious one. Like not being a murderer is to you.

My nephew (a toddler) was terminally ill and in extreme pain. I would have figuratively "sold my soul to the devil" to save him. After a few months I realized that I was being incredibly silly and just responding out of desperation. I never really changed my beliefs, but I tried to, in the hopes that somehow he would get better.

After returning to my true beliefs I realized those beliefs were stronger then ever and that's when I chose to go the route of what some would call "becoming clergy". We have our own terms but they wouldn't mean much to others.

I do think some beliefs are deeply seated. I can't remember a time, regardless of the state of my religious observance at the time, that I didn't believe in God. Particular theology has certainly evolved, as I've aged, and (hopefully) come to a better understanding. But that core belief has not changed.

Religion? That's like clothing. You put it on; you can take it off. Some only like to wear a particular brand of jeans, and will never wear anything else. Some try on every outfit in the closet until they find the thing that fits.

I think religion (or, more aptly, whether or not one believes in a particular flavor of religion) is a choice of sorts, but not a choice in the sense that I decided to have an english muffin for breakfast today. I think religious belief is more or less the sum of choices that we make on the subject over a period of time, and involves ingrained and complex psychological processes like cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias.

Way back when we first started going to church, it was most likely because our parents brought us. Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance holds that our actions shape our beliefs and that absent some obvious external motivation for our actions, we rationalize them. When one first starts to attend religious services, there is no readily apparent external motivation for attending them, and so many people rationalize it to mean that the whole of the doctrine is true and they are doing this in order to please God (thus, the action of going to church shapes the belief). In church, of course, there's a whole mess of other psychological processes operating along the lines of social pressure - but that's another story.

Being that no one wants to be wrong, especially not on something that they have invested so much time into, they begin to operate on the confirmation bias. They "count the hits and ignore the misses". Things that make sense and confirm their beliefs they will notice and remember whereas things that are contradictory they will tend to ignore (which explains the rather asenine belief that many people hold that this world is a place where people are taken care of - thus reinforcing the notion of a loving God).

Then you fast forward a few years, and you're in over your head. At that point, people's entire worldview has been informed by this process and so it's not as though one can simply choose to not believe.

So, in sum, it is not a choice but it is the sum total of the effects that previous choices have had (such as the choice to attend religious services) on the individual.

I hope that makes some sense.

But what you are describing is more of a result then a choice.

You believe that it is a synergistic result of how we choose to live our lives?

Do you think that our simple everyday choices continuously shape our belief systems? And then our belief systems shape our choices, and so on?

I think it's more the other way around, at least according to CD - but yes, basically.

Such as abortion, giving to charity, to shave your head, or whether it is ok to let your kids celebrate Halloween.

just under CD the idea is that actions shape beliefs - that's all.

On an obvious level, your set of beliefs could determine what people you choose to hang out with, for example, and what books you choose to read, what films you choose to see, what music you choose to listen to etc. Some people attempt to isolate themselves as much as possible from people and media which challenge their beliefs, and this is a choice. Your cumulative choices shape your beliefs, which in turn affect your choices, and those can modify or reinforce your beliefs...

I didn't mean to give the impression that beliefs cannot shape choices - I most certainly think that they can. Sorry if I didn't make that clear or gave the impression that it is only a one-way street. I just mean to say that actions we undertake absent some sort of obvious external motivation shape our beliefs according to the theory of CD.

Think of it this way: if someone paid you a million dollars a month to go to church (and you weren't opposed to going in the first place), then you'd go ahead and do it. The thing is, though, it wouldn't really be effecting your beliefs very much because you would be attributing your actions to the external motivation of money as opposed to other, less tangible factors.

Mind you, I think the whole notion of choice is something near reification. Or at least over-generalising.

How so? How do you view choice?

And that you only really interact with the bit that is speaking to you.

Therefore, if some other part of the brain was responsible for you holding a particular set of beliefs, I could not label your beliefs a result of a choice made by you (which in this case is the bit of the brain I am talking to).

If my language is too convoluted, please say and I will attempt a re-iteration with some clarity.

they are expected to be religious and so they are

No one could talk me out of my beliefs, but I am sure there are others out there who could be talked out of theirs.

You might not realize that certain steps lead to others, but it's still your choice.

Religion is the man-made construct we (some of us) use to try to understand and come closer to the divine. You use what works for you, and it's entirely possible over the course of a life to find something else works better.

I became a Christian because I was told it would help me. I became one, and eventually left because I was depressed as hell from being told what a worthless sinner I was every week at church. I was still depressed and unemployed. The so called Christians in my church would not help me find a job. Praying and believing didn't help; in fact, I was even more depressed and felt more helpless. I didn't have any religious experiences; I didn't hear God telling me what to do.

So I stopped believing. I saw no evidence that belief in God helped my circumstances.

Now I am an atheist. The only belief systems I can fit into are Unitarian-Universalism, and Buddhism.

And I am speaking for myself. I wouldn't speak for others. Right belief is not the focus of my religion. So you have people who believe in a spooky watchful personal God and the people who some would describe as people with a non-theistic God idea, following the same religion. The religion being an ethical system that evolved through generations and Jewish folkways. So it is a choice of mine to follow my religion otherwise I could still have the same belief or disbelief but not follow my religion by not subscribing to Jewish folkways. You know, I could consider myself one of those people who call themselves spiritual but not religious or not spiritual at all, therefore, not religious. So I see it as a choice.

Faith itself is experiential. You either experience it or you don't, but you experience it by remaining open to it. Like love, it strikes unexpectedly.

However, if you're an adult in pluralistic America, the way you choose to EXPRESS that faith is a choice.

I can not decide to start believing in something that cannot be proven to exist. I've never believed in gods, guardian angels and demons. To me, they are no different than any other mythical creature.

Trust me, as much as I love the horror genre, I wish I could believe vampires and werewolves existed. The are far less scary than politicians and right wing religious fundamentalists (not to mention way more charming and better looking).

But I have come to realize that not everyone has a free and independent and critical mind. I'm still working on understanding how people can not choose what to think, but it seems like a lot of people just sort of live on auto-pilot and think and say and do whatever other people tell them to.

A belief system, however, is not. According to most sociological standpoints, we are stuck with belief systems (or worldviews, to your fancy), but we can still alter them, or modify the contents by which they are construed, whether they are spiritual or physical.

Commonalities between evidence of religious belief systems and belief systems include a congregation of people for the purposes of worship to or observance of a pre1uisite focus that is integrated (formally or otherwise) into the belief system itself. Religious belief systems often share these characteristics with belief systems. However, misrepresentation of what is a 'religion' or a 'belief' or (fuck it) a 'system' crop up more often than prairie weeds. If the presentation of these ideas is flawed, (intentionally) people's expectations often suffer for it, as does their obedience. I think this goes for most varieties of worldviews. It is, however, all about expectations and if you subscribe to a belief system to which a goal of having your expectations slide in obsolescence is attached, then the participant in or holder of that belief system better damn well have foreseen such an environment.

So, yes it is possible (and proven) that people can be talked into, out of, through, around, and forth with religious belief systems.

Why hold a non-belief? What does NOT believing get you? Immediate peace of mind? Sustainable satisfaction? People can choose whatever they please, but it doesn't follow that simply choosing religious beliefs because they are 'different' is necessarily the accurate idea. Trying to stay obviously clear of value judgments, but your question implies a fundamental mistake in critical (if i use this word badly, let me know) observation. For me, criteria for decision making should be more comprehensive than simply an identification of difference.

Trying to be concise, sooo....let the befuddlement commence.

Not believing in white male christian heterosexual supremacy makes me tolerant.

Feel free to change my mind.

Religious leanings are part of personality, like handwriting, or favorite flavors or colors. They are mostly emotional and aesthetic. Sometimes people go through a conversion experience, but that usually involve some sort of catharsis, or deep emotional experience.

Since personalities are all unique you can't make a rule that covers all situations.


--IMM

The conversation usually goes like this:

Fundy: Being gay is a choice!

Me: And that makes it acceptable to discriminate against gay people?

Fundy: Yes indeed.

Me: What about racial discrimination?

Fundy: Race is an immutable characteristic.

Me: So it is wrong to discriminate on immutable characteristics but ok to discriminate on deliberate choices?

Fundy: That is indeed so.

Me: Are you born again?

Fundy (somewhat confused at the non-sequitor): Of course.

Me: You made a deliberate choice to follow Christ?

Fundy (catching on): Yes, but that is....

Me: So you would have no problem with laws that discriminated against you because of your lifestyle choice to be a Christian?

Fundy: Now wait just a ....

Me: Prohibited you from being a teacher or scoutmaster, or having contact of any kind with children....

Fundy: Religion is protected ....

Me: But religion is a choice, and that makes is a mutable characteristic. As such, it is wrong to legally protect people on the basis of their choice of religion, correct?

Fundy (after a long, silent pause): Oh, burn in Hell you damned sinner! I'm out of here.

However, I feel that a person's actions reveal his or her true beliefs. Someone can say they are of a certain religion, whatever it is, but their actions and motives reveal their true beliefs.