Thread: Is Faith A Choice?

Is Faith A Choice?

I vote yes!

Surely you have to believe to be religious?

Yes, and a poor one.

I choose this faith!

In an ideal world it would be a choice, but that's not always the case in reality. Case in point: I was brought up a Catholic and believed until quite recently. I now consider myself an agnostic and certainly not someone who has faith in any kind of personal God. However, I still occasionally worry that I'm going to burn for eternity, find it impossible to enter a church without genuflecting to the altar and feel naked without the crucifix I've worn all my life. You can reason yourself out of active belief in a religion but the power of what you were taught as a child will always haunt you. It's not as simple as changing your political allegiance and when things affect other intellectual choices you make, however small and seemingly insignificant, what is it other than residual faith? The Jesuit who said 'Give me the boy at 7 and I'll give you the man' was more right than he perhaps knew...

Originally Posted by wedge35

In an ideal world it would be a choice, but that's not always the case in reality. Case in point: I was brought up a Catholic and believed until quite recently. I now consider myself an agnostic and certainly not someone who has faith in any kind of personal God. However, I still occasionally worry that I'm going to burn for eternity, find it impossible to enter a church without genuflecting to the altar and feel naked without the crucifix I've worn all my life. You can reason yourself out of active belief in a religion but the power of what you were taught as a child will always haunt you. It's not as simple as changing your political allegiance and when things affect other intellectual choices you make, however small and seemingly insignificant, what is it other than residual faith? The Jesuit who said 'Give me the boy at 7 and I'll give you the man' was more right than he perhaps knew...

I tend to agree. The faith that one was either born into, baptised into or just generally sidled toward does tend to stay and pervade, if not consciously, then at a much deeper level.
I was brought up as a Methodist (surely one of the most boring and restrictive of the Christian groupings) but became CoE in Basic training, simply because there were only three choices. Cof RC or other. And the 'other' stood outside a relatively warm but dry church. Ergo I adopted CoE. However, by inclination and desire I lean toward Buddhism, and have followed that creed for a number of years, but still the old CoE surfaces from time to time.

Re the Jesuits; (in red above) sadly, withing the catholic church, and also CoE, this has taken on an entirely different meaning.

It should be a choice (for the gullible or those needing either a crutch or a reason to behave well), but as others have said it's often a product of parental input. Which is why brainwashing your children with your religious beliefs should be viewed as child abuse. "Don't have a w@nk or you will burn forever" - nice.

You know, this is a very interesting topic. I'm an atheist and have been so for some time but I am fascinated with religion. Not the content, but the psychology behind it.

I've read philosophy from spinoza to nietzsche. Read the bible front to back, all three versions, at least twice. Read the Srimat Bhagavad Gita, and parts of the quran. The thinking is that how do you contest something that you do not understand. Blaise Pascal was one of the first theologian/philosophers that I had issue with.

I came to atheism as a conclusion, and much less a life choice or as rebellion from being brought up any particular way. My mother was Catholic but didn't enforce any of that on me or my siblings.

Let's not confuse the atheism with being morally corrupt. I don't think it really takes someone writing in a book to understand that it's not ok to kill someone, rape their wife, or shoot their dog. That's just common sense and ethical compass. All Vantillian Pre-Suppositional Apologetics aside. There is no such thing as absolute moral superiority no matter how much fundamentalists want to prove by faulty finite math equations.

My wife was raised Catholic. Knows very little about her religion. I think that many Catholics here in the US joke that don't need to read the bible, they have it read to them.

She always would say to me, bleh, I have to go to church at X time. I would respond with, well, then don't go. You hear yourself, you are saying "I *have* to go" not "I want to go". So, don't go. I then proceed to watch her get visually agitated while I can almost see the conflict going on in her head.

My wife, her mum, her grandmother, and sister all have OCD in some form and varying degree of severity. Writing lists, rechecking, ruminating, et al. I recently read that there was study linking OCD to Catholicism in particular but they didn't specify if it was the religion that caused it, or those with it flocked to the religion. (I'm not sure how many, given the choice, would *flock* to Catholicism). If given a choice, I would go Mormon. At least then you get a couple wives out of the deal.

They all go to church, none of them could specifically quote any kind of bible verse, don't know who constantine was or the significance of his decisions for christianity, pretty much know nothing about the history or the bible. That being said, they will defend their faith vehemently even though they pretty much know almost nothing about it.

That leads me to believe that it's not about truly believing or wanting to understand, or wanting to learn. It's about the indoctrination they underwent. It's like attacking ones family name or culture. It's that sort of reaction when confronted with a conflicting view or shown flaws in the doctrine.

I have two small kids. Both my wife and I decided that we will not indoctrinate the kids into any specific religion but when old enough to understand, will explain as unbiasedly as we can about the various beliefs. If they pick one up or want to join we will support them.

I think the reason they go after the children, and the church, at least the catholic church my wife goes to, had some pretty creepy customs in order for us to get married. I did all of them (pre cania, etc) except one. I absolutely refused to sign a contract promising to bring my child up catholic. To me, signing away my first unborn child is something a different biblical figure would ask for. My wife does not want our children to undergo the sort of stress and confusion that she went under.

Anyway, they go after the children because there is no way you are going to convince an adult with a modicum of intelligence that what you are saying is an absolute truth. I hold priests in a bit of contempt, especially when shown as some sort of mentor on life or having more wisdom than most. I would tend to argue the opposite. They have less knowledge of a lot of life having had to either ignore or avoid it due to their faith. A catholic priest giving marriage advice is like richard simmons giving dating advice to straight young men.

Personally, I think of religion as a sort of primitive science. It's mans attempt at explaining things that were not understood and putting some meaning to concepts that we are still trying to understand.

I also think, that by the very nature and existence of all the religions, past and present, makes the authenticity of any one null and void simply due to the proof that it's human nature to believe, more than divine intervention exposing itself.

In other words, because there are 1000 disparate religions, it means that the focus is on man *wanting* as opposed to there *being* something more.

Everyone always asks the question. Who am I, why am I here, what's the purpose.

No one every asks... "why do I feel compelled to ask those questions?" Until you can answer that, then you cannot answer those.

Is faith a choice? Absolutely yes... but not yours... it's one for your parents.

I couldn't wait until I was old enough to give church the big swerve, i.e. when I was 'trusted' enough to 'go' by myself. Yeah... right. I'm not gonna bugger off down the runway threshold to watch aeroplanes instead am I? (I grew up next to an airfield and a bedroom ceiling-full of Airfix should have been a clue as to my true faith, mother.)

Religion is a pile of cock. You don't have to fill kiddies' heads with levitating Jews (and what have you) to teach them an ethical code to live by. Medieval control freakery has no place in the 21st century. Thank The Flying Spaghetti Monster for the Careers Office - which allowed me to escape the clutches of Catholicism for good.

I suppose the simple answer is that yes, faith can be a choice. It must be, because I'm sure we all know atheists who have become religious. Having said that, I think that a lot of the time faith is not a choice: if you're told from birth that the grass is green, fire is hot, a god exists, pressing the switch turns on the light etc, then of course you're going to believe that a god exists. You'll believe it at a basic level, because everything else you've been told is demonstrably true. The fact that some people are able to "break" this type of programming doesn't necessarily mean that every similar person is able to make a choice.

I don't agree with all of the points in the blog that the original post links to, though. She writes:

Surely, you are a Catholic if you believe in the doctrines of the Catholic faith.

That's overly simplistic at best. A Jewish friend of mine reports talking about polytheism at home: his father interjects angrily "Daniel! There's only one god, and we don't believe in him!" Religion and race become interchangable sometimes: one might legitimately describe oneself as Jewish because one's values and traditions derive from Judaism. That doesn't have to mean that one believes in the Jewish idea of god.

My understanding is that every individual has the right to choose what they believe in, and also to change their mind.

Of course you have the *right* to choose: that doesn't mean you have the ability to do so.

Of course it's a choice. As soon as you are old enough to evaluate evidence then it becomes blindingly obvious that every single religion is basically a hoax. Unfortunately some people go through life not knowing how to become enlightened through knowledge and cling to fairy stories instead.

This is an interesting thread, but then I read don't wa@k or you will burn in hell forever. I don't suppose anyone knows where I can buy an Asbestos suit because I am going to need it!

"Religion is for those who don't want to go to hell - spirituality is for those who have been to hell and don't want to go back."

Looks like all the posts here are about religions and not faith. I was never too top at someone telling me what to do (that's why I joined the army...) but there are many ways of believing without following some doctrinal methodology. If the bible/quran/iching don't resonate, then maybe the lessons are about changing you to the writers' will and can lead to internal strife.

I struggled with this for years until someone gave me Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch. Finally I found a definition that resonated, I realised I wasn't the only one with my views and it inspired a whole new approach. It tears apart a lot of the key structures of formal religion and explains how NDW was able to come to terms with a relationship with a God of his understanding.

Originally Posted by Bernster

This is an interesting thread, but then I read don't wa@k or you will burn in hell forever. I don't suppose anyone knows where I can buy an Asbestos suit because I am going to need it!

It's not the flames of Hades you need to worry about. It's deceased relatives watching!

[From faith to self abuse in eleven posts. Quality.]

Religion,the opiate of the masses.

Originally Posted by udipur

"Religion is for those who don't want to go to hell - spirituality is for those who have been to hell and don't want to go back."

Looks like all the posts here are about religions and not faith. I was never too top at someone telling me what to do (that's why I joined the army...) but there are many ways of believing without following some doctrinal methodology. If the bible/quran/iching don't resonate, then maybe the lessons are about changing you to the writers' will and can lead to internal strife.

I struggled with this for years until someone gave me Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch. Finally I found a definition that resonated, I realised I wasn't the only one with my views and it inspired a whole new approach. It tears apart a lot of the key structures of formal religion and explains how NDW was able to come to terms with a relationship with a God of his understanding.

An imaginary friend of his own.

BTB Check out the 'Are you religious thread'.