CNN: Unbelief More Common

[YankeyMCC]

She opens with something like "...the number of people who choose unbelief..."

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/11/cnn_unbelief_more_common.php?utm_source=combinedfeed&utm_medium=rss

We don't choose, a person holds a belief or they don't it isn't a choice. Unlike skin color of sexual orientation beliefs might change but it isn't a choice unless you're lying to yourself.

[elocs]

1. Sorry, whether I believe or not is my choice. To choose to believe otherwise is your choice.

Christianity is all about choice. You must choose to believe. That's the whole point.

[YankeyMCC]

2. Your describing faith

not belief.

I don't choose not to believe the moon is made of cheese, or that trolls live under my bed. I just don't have the belief I can not choose to believe these thing and be honest.

I have faith in many things and I choose to accept that faith but my beliefs are either present or not depending on my experiences.

[cleanhippie]

10. non-belief is the default position. One only chooses to believe something.

You are born with a lack of belief in anything. As you grow, you choose to believe in things. Non-belief is the default position and choice is not involved.

By your logic, you are CHOOSING not to believe in unicorns, while I would argue that non-belief in unicorns is the default position and you choose to believe in them. The only way non-belief can be a choice is if you first chose to believe, then chose to not believe second.

[jobycom]

3. I guess it depends on what you mean by choice. I didn't decide to believe there wasn't a God

I just slowly admitted to myself that I didn't believe in God. Before that, when I did believe, I didn't decide to believe in God. I just believed.

It's not about "choice" in the way the debate over sexual orientation is. I'm not saying I was genetically predisposed toward a belief, or that I was born an atheist. I had questions, I sought answers, and those were the answers I came up with. I didn't choose them, though.

For a few years I didn't want to admit I didn't believe--fear of Hell or fear of being ostracized, or something. But it wasn't a choice over what I believed, it was more like a choice over whether I admitted to myself I didn't believe.

That's what the OP is saying, albeit without much helpful punctuation to make the text more clear.

[ZombieHorde]

5. Could you choose to not believe in computers?

I don't think I could.

[dimbear]

6. Could you choose not to believe in computers?

Absolutely, if you make it worth my while to do so. Might come a little high.

[struggle4progress]

4. I regard my religion as an existential choice

[DeSwiss]

7. K&R

I think (although I could be mistaken) that she was referring to people "choosing" unbelief as their answers on the http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-03-09-ARIS-faith-survey_N.htm">USA Today survey.

[applegrove]

8. I think it is genetic. My mom wasn't religious and neither am I. I've tried. I am a very

compassionate person but I just don't have the faith gene.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. You can choose to consider the subject carefully

or you can stick with whatever you have thought since you were a child, which stretches back to when you weren't fully equipped to understand what religions ask you to believe, or how to marshal the arguments. I wouldn't call that "lying to yourself'; perhaps it can be called 'an unexamined stance'.

Thus I think it's fair to say that many people who change from belief to non-belief (or the other way round) made a choice - not 'to not believe', but to work out what their best understanding can be. And there'll be some people who have also decided to examine things carefully, and have then reached the conclusion to stick with their present opinions. But so many people stick with the religion that their parents had that most of them have their belief 'by default' rather than by a conscious examination of all alternatives.

[YankeyMCC]

12. I think this is well said

and perhaps 'lying to yourself' is harsh, although a lie can be any sort of deception including that of omission. And it seems choosing to not examine your life seems to be an 'omission'.

Still the presenter in the video doesn't make that distinction. Sometimes I get caught up in details of word use and that opening statement apparently just pushed that button for me.

[Jim__]

11. Most of our beliefs are not isolated.

There are probably some simple examples of "a" belief, but most of our beliefs are not held in isolation. Most of them are part of a system of beliefs. A system of beliefs makes any individual belief within that system less than a free choice. To change one of the beliefs of a system, you may have to change your whole system of belief. That's part of what makes changing beliefs so difficult.