This is a subject that comes up with some regularity in these discussions, so I'm going to start a thread for it. I'll start with something that spun off a discussion with TitL in another thread:
Trust in the Lord:
Hmm. I have always thought you were saying we couldn't change our beliefs. Weird. I guess a non issue for me then. I accept that people can make choices to follow or not follow God, whether you feel He exists or not, and abide by that.
Tycho:
Whoa! Major progress that! I've been trying to get that across for years now! :) Okay, while it seems like a "non issue" for you, some important things follow. You often say things like "atheists choose not to believe in God," but hopefully you realize now why that's not accurate.
Trust in the Lord:
It's completely accurate. I am choosing to not believe in no God, I am choosing actively to believe Allah is not real, etc.
Not that you've changed your wording in the two quotes here. The first said you could "choose to follow," but the second talks about "choosing to believe." These are NOT the same thing. Following is an action, which you can choose to take or not take. Belief is a reaction to your experiences, and you cannot change it based on simply deciding to do so (therefor it's not a choice). You seem to be treating them as the same, when there are important differences between them.
Again, I posit that we can test this very easily: if you
choose to believe that Allah is not real, then you could just as easily choose to believe that he is. Try it. Just start believing that Allah is real (don't worry, you can change back in a few seconds if you're able to do it). I'm guessing you're not able to do this. You can't just choose your beliefs, you need to have experiences to change them. You can choose to seek those experiences, but that's not the same as choosing the belief. Choices are
decisions, beliefs are
reactions. Both are important, and they influence one another, but they're not the same.
Tycho:
Belief is not a choice. You can say "atheists choose not to go to church" or "atheists choose not to act like they believe in God when they don't" or "atheists choose not to seek out the experiences that are most likely to change their beliefs" etc. But those don't mean the same thing. And, when saying something like the latter, it'd be great if you could keep in mind the particular choicethat led to your conversion. If I recall correctly, you choice to read more of the bible because you wanted to prove it wrong. That reading was the experience that changed your beliefs. You didn't choose to start going to church and praying and the like because you wanted your beliefs to change. What you wanted was confirmation that your former beliefs were correct. So while you follow God now, that's because your beliefs are already changed. Your current christian actions are a consequence of your changed beliefs, not the other way around. You didn't become a believing christian by acting christian; you started acting christian after you became a believing christian. The change of belief had to come first. So if you imply people could change their beliefs just by choosing to change their actions, you're ignoring that that's not how it worked for you. You didn't choose to become a christian. You chose to try to prove christianity wrong, and end up as a christian in the process, completely unintentionally. The importance of this is that when you say things like "people choose not to believe in God," you imply a degree of intent, and imply that they should intend to become christians. But it makes no sense to do so, because belief has to come first.
Trust in the Lord:
It looks like we disagree.
Which part is incorrect in the above, then? Did I misremember your conversion story, or are you objecting to what I'm saying the consequences of it are? Am I correct in remembering that your beliefs changed when you read the bible looking for contradictions you could use to prove christianity was false?
Trust in the Lord:
For example, I accept that I go to judgement in front of allah, than I clearly have chosen to disobey him. I don't really see this as a concern. I think it's a pretty conscious choice that if there is no God, then I'm wrong, if there is 1000 gods, then I am wrong, and so forth.
Tycho:
Exactly, great example. Do you feel guilty for any of this? Do you feel you deserve punishment? Does this possibility change your actions? No, of course not. You "don't really see this as a concern" because you simply don't think those things are true. Likewise for non-christians. For them it's just as much a non-concern for them, as Allah judging them is for you. The only way to make it a concern is to convince them that God is real. The belief has to come first. Then the actions can follow. Expecting actions before belief is to confuse the cause and the effect.
Trust in the Lord:
I see it as a non issue, yes, but if I'm wrong, it's because I made the choice to do so.
You have made choices, yes. But what you choose is your
actions, not your
beliefs. Your beliefs influence what actions you take (ie, which choices you make), but they aren't same thing.
Trust in the Lord:
I see it as a non issue. If you choose blue, then you are also choosing not red, not green, not yellow, etc.
Tycho:
Yes, but choosing blue is an action. Believing that blue is the best color is not. Treating the two is the same thing misses important differences.
Trust in the Lord:
What? Could you rephrase?
Okay, perhaps an extended example is in order. Let's imagine you find yourself in box, with two levers on the wall, each with a sign above them and a little slot in the wall below them. Over the left lever the sign says "pull this lever to get a green skittle," and over the other (on the right) it says "pull this lever to get a red skittle." Let's also assume that red skittles are your favorite.
So perhaps you think to yourself, "wow, free skittles, awesome! I really like red skittles, so I'll pull that lever here." A few things have happened here. First, you've made a
choice to pull the lever on the right. You've done this because you
believe that pulling this lever will get you a red skittle. It is your
intent to do what will get you a red skittle, because you
desire a red skittle.
So you pull the lever, and pops a green M&M. That is the (somewhat surprising)
consequence of your action. It was not what
desired to get, it is not what you
intended to get, it's not what you
believed you would get, and you didn't
choose to get it, but you got it nonetheless.
It would be incorrect for someone to say that because you got a green M&M that you wanted to desired a green M&M. What you wanted was a red skittle. It would be incorrect for them to say that because you got a green M&M that must have been what you believed what you would get. What you believed was that pulling the lever would get you a red skittle. It would be incorrect for someone to say you intended to get a green M&M; you intended to get a red skittle. It would be wrong for them to say you chose to get a green M&M. What you chose was to pull a lever. It would be correct to say that you chose an action that led to you getting a green M&M. It would be correct to say that your action led to you getting a green M&M. It would be incorrect, though, to say you chose a green M&M.
--Your
actions are what you do.
--Your
choices are the decision you make about which actions to take. You
choose or
decide</> your <i>actions.
--Your
beliefs inform and guide your choices, but are not choices themselves. They are
reactions to your experiences. In the example you believed that pulling the lever would give you a red skittle because the sign caused you to believe this. You did not
choose to believe this, you simply did believe it, because of what you saw. You did not make a
decision to believe this, it was an entirely unconscious act on your part to believe it. Some who had run into such signs and levers before (ie, who had different experiences than you) might not believe it, but that also wouldn't be a choice, it would still be a reaction to their experiences.
--Your
intent is what you are trying to accomplish. It is your aim, or goal.
--Your
desire is what you want to happen. Often this will correspond with your intent, but not always. It is possible to want one thing to happen, even while working to make something else happen.
--The
consequences are what actually happens. They may or may not match up with your desires, your intents, or your beliefs.
All of these concepts are related, but different. Treating them as all the same is like saying "well, you got a green M&M, so that must be what you wanted."
When we talk about choice, we should make clear that we're talking about actions. Because actions are the things you can choose. You cannot choose your beliefs. Your beliefs influence your actions. Experiences influence your beliefs. The arrow of causality looks a bit like this:
experience --> beliefs ]
]--> intent --> choice --> action --> consequence
desires ]
Note that belief is before choice. Your believes influence your choices, but your beliefs
aren't choices themselves.
The consequences of your actions can lead to new experiences, which can lead to your beliefs changing. But the consequences we get are not always the ones we
intended. It is possible to
desire to change your beliefs, and thus
choose to take
actions that you
intend to lead to new
experiences that will change your
beliefs, but it is not guaranteed that your actions will lead to the desired result. In TitL's case, his actions led to the exact opposite: he desired proof the christainity was false, but ended up experiencing things that caused him to believe that christianity was true. Likewise, some people may
want to believe in God, and thus decide to go to church and have an experience they hope will convince them God is real, but when they get there find the experience unconvincing. Most of the time, though, people will not intentionally set out to change their beliefs, since doing so requires them to believe that they could have an experience that would convince them that their beliefs were wrong. For most people, simply believing that toe be the case is enough to change their beliefs. In other words the two assumptions "If I experienced X it would convince me that Y is true," and "I could take actions that would lead to me experiencing X" are sufficient reason to believe that Y is true. Because of this, most of the time when people change their beliefs it is an
unintended reaction, rather than something they did on purpose.
Why does any of this matter? Frequently religious people will say that people who don't share their faith "choose to believe" something different than they do. This is inaccurate, because we do not choose our beliefs. It is also potentially insulting, because it can imply a degree of intent or desire, when actually what we would like or desire to be true isn't really what matters in our beliefs.
Further, some people will make statements like "if you don't follow Jesus, you must want to go to hell." Again, this is not accurate. The reason someone doesn't follow Jesus (ie, doesn't take the actions Jesus tells them to take) is because they don't
believe that following Jesus will lead to them not going to hell. It's a bit like the example above. Even if
I what pulling the right lever does, I shouldn't assume that
you wanted a green M&M when you pulled it. It was your incorrect
beliefs that led to you getting a green M&M, not your
desire to get a green M&M.
Hopefully that makes sense. To me it seems pretty straightforward, but I've discussed it with enough people here enough times to know that not everyone seems to see it the way I do. Would be good if we could all get on the same page on this, so we don't talk past each other, and don't use phrasing that offends others by implying intents and desires that aren't actually there.