uh, I believe you're wrong
(for those uninterested in thinking right now, you may want to skip to the entertaining links below.)
My friend Carl had an interesting post on his blog a couple of days ago. It dealt with the concept of belief. Specifically, do you get to choose what you believe? I'd like to frame it a little differently: is believing an active, conscious process that you control? or is belief the product of the unknown clockworks inside our hearts and minds?
I submit that it's the latter. Carl offered an intriguing test: try to make yourself believe something that you don't believe. For example, believe now that you are in Mexico. Of course, you'll say that's impossible because you can prove to yourself by looking at your familiar surroundings that you're actually in Virginia (or wherever you really are).
A different, less concrete case: Do you believe that man landed on the moon? I do, but I don't remember choosing to. If you believe it too, try to believe it didn't happen. Any luck? me neither. You may think this is pretty cut and dried as well, but I know at least two people who don't Neil Armstrong ever touched a moonrock. Why don't they believe it? good question. What I want to know is, what caused them to seriously disbelieve it when they saw the same evidence as the rest of us? Furthermore, I don't think their disbelief is just an obstinate choice - I think it is complete and heartfelt.
Maybe its similar to the concept of understanding. As an example, I offer my Calculus studies from long ago. More than once, we covered an idea or technique that I just didn't understand. I could listen to the teacher, read and re-read the text, but it didn't matter -- it just didn't click. I wanted to understand, I was trying to understand, but I could not just choose to understand and thereby force myself to comprehend.
Do you agree or disagree?
and anyway, so what? Does any of this matter? well, Carl asked how that affects our ideas of Christian believers and unbelievers. I've got a few thoughts on that as well, which I plan to make the subject of my next post.
posted by david @ 10/07/2005 05:55:00 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
The interesting this about your moon example is that you will only be able to change your belief if you find/experience something that would cause it to change. You can't actively change your mind on it.
Another question (I didn't want to open this can on my blog) is what impact would this have on homosexuality? If you believe you are gay, then you are and you can't choose to not be.. How does this relate to God who says that it's a sin (to prevent flaming: I would like to say that yes I think it's a sin, but no worse a sin than any other. We are all sinners and we all need Jesus. Thank you.)?
I think you're right, Carl. new evidence can prompt a change -- that's why we should be open to considering new evidence, ideas and points of view. So, challenging/testing our beliefs can (and should) be an active process, but the final change, I think, is passive.
Now, the gay issue -- I think the sin is in the practice, rather than the temptation. I'd say we don't choose what we are tempted by, but we can choose whether or not to succumb to those temptations. In that respect, whether or not you believe you are gay may be irrelevant.
These are good thoughts, ya'll. I've been thinking a lot lately about true belief. I have a lot of questions about what it means to truly believe.
David- I don't know if you will remember me- my maiden name was Erin Sheppard....now it's Lonard. (I think we went on a spring break campaign to houston) I used to live in Fairfax and it is where I met my husband! Maybe I'll see ya there sometime.
Let me throw this out there for dealing with the mind/body problem - does it make any difference if we are really machines that cannot control our thoughts and decisions, but they are rather made for us based on heredity and environment? Since you can't control it, your future is already determined. So really, why not then decide to made decisions AS IF you really do have a choice? That way, you're covered. It also means that you are "choosing" to believe that there is a God.
While I think our heredity and environment have a huge impact on our decision making process, I will not be a determinist.
A few more thoughts - how would deterministic thinking affect our social situations, such as how we penalize "criminals" who never "chose" to do such things?
To see the deterministic arguments, a great book is "The Blank Slate." The author is a linguist from Harvard is argues against people being born with a blank slate.
By the way, "Hey Dave!"
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