For the moment I'll set aside the issue of religious faith and concentrate on more mundane instances of belief.
If a belief can be chosen, if it's a simple act of will, then it should be easy for me to choose to believe that George W. Bush is a lesbian. But I can't. I keep trying, but experience and definition get in the way, suggesting to me that my choices in belief--if they exist at all--are subject to my sense experiences and my ability to reason.
But I'm open to the possibility that I'm wrong. Anybody have a nuance I'm missing?
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His ties are rarely un-coordinated with the rest of his outfit. Either he himself is playing for the other team or his wardrobe manager is.
On a more serious note:
Perhaps tying this conversation more closely with religious faith, despite your opening qualifier, I feel that belief is something that comes in two forms: chosen and inherited.
Chosen belief is basically a situation in which a reasoning and fully functional human being is given choices of beliefs and makes that choice. ("And by God, I'm gonna stick with it!") This is why religious converts are sometimes so much more frightening than people who have grown up with a religion. They've made a conscious choice and so refuse to have anyone else question their logic, lest they prove to have made a poor choice. To prove such a thing would cause extreme damage to the ego, so the fierceness of their belief stems from a twisted kind of self-preservation.
Inherited belief is when a child is raised with a set of beliefs. It is only when they reach adolescence that they truly begin to think freely enough to go through the same process of choosing that the Chosen Belief group went through. However, in this case there is no need for the ego to feel at risk, as the questioning is a natural extension of the ego's quest for self-definition. The frightening thing is when the Inherited Believer consciously decides to stick with the original beliefs, not because they agree with the beliefs, but rather out of fear of familial reaction, or even fear of trying something new.
I may have gone on too long.
I'f I'm interpreting you correctly, your idea of how beliefs are chosen is that the options are presented and the person in question consciously adopts one of those options. Is that accurate?
To an extent, yes. With "chosen" that is exactly how it works, although it is distinctly possible that their choices are limited by lack of access to certain ideas. With "inherited" however, they are simply indoctrinated before they have the cohesive thought required to question. They simply accept until their ego arrives at a state that allows questioning to take place.
Here are my two cents:
I agree to a certain extent with both of you. I think that "belief," whatever that means, is not a chosen thing to be grasped. That's the Lutheran in me.
M.Filly, I see your point about the two forms of belief. I was wondering if by inherited, the catechism stuff, it could be instruction in what to believe, not belief handed down. If so, does that change that premise?
Hmm... I don't know what I think about your "chosen" belief idea though. The new converts are almost always the most fanatical about whatever they are converted to. Is this still a choice? Did they chose to believe that? Like, "Honey, for my New Year's Resolution, I think I'm going to become a Buddhist."? I don't know if I can buy that, but then why are new converts so fanatical?
Argh! I just gave myself more questions!
sean, I feel like you just repeated to me what I said about the Chosen Believers. Now, usually the choice is made after some research is done, and in some cases after a deal of indoctrination takes place. But I already explained why I think the new converts are so fervent in their belief. Did I miss something, or did you? (I think it was you, but I'm willing to accept that I could be wrong.)
Filly, sorry, my true questions were surrounded by rhetorical thoughts about thoughts... that and typos.
My question was really, did they choose their belief? And then if they woke up one morning and said, "Hey, I'm a Buddhist," would this make them as fragile as you say they are?
I mean I see the point that "they" ARE fragile. Case in point, some of the fanatics in the music department at MSU: I tried to have a regular conversation with some and usually got my head bit off. So, I know that their egos are fragile. I just don't buy that their fragility stems from a choice about what they believe.
Honestly, I was just trying to make a quasi-serious comment for a change. I didn't do research or anything, just tried to figure out why it seems to work that way.
How about "George W. Bush is Lebanese?" Is that anymore worthy of belief? Probably on par "W is a genius!". Note how my emphasis makes it more believable.
A number of ideas have sprung up here that have moved away from the subject of the post, so I’m going to isolate those and file them away for future posts. Most of these are already part of the book I’m working on, but I like to bounce the ideas off of people—especially people who are liable to see things differently than I am.
1. M. Filly has advanced a two-class system of belief types: chosen and inherited. At some point we’ll have to discuss the idea of classification, the different classes we can identify, and some sort of methodology for distinguishing one from another.
2. Sean has identified as “Lutheran” the conviction that belief (or belief systems) aren’t subject to choice.
3. You’ve both mentioned the fanaticism of new converts, which seems to reside somewhere between truism and cliché. This interests me, so I’ll bring it up again later.
4. Dave has brought up the idea of “worthiness” of belief. That, though it was mentioned in jest, is close to the core of my project. That might come up often.
As for what has addressed the original post, I’m going to reformulate the question and start again from the top.
Feel free to continue bantering, ribbing, and carrying on. It’s amusing.
This is all very interesting. I'm with m.filly on her(his) thoughts about chosen and inherited beliefs.
After much thought on the matter, I believe. . .that I would like a beer.
Duhwhat?
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