One discussion seems to follow me wherever I go these days.
Can you choose what you believe?
It's a question that appears constantly in debates about religion, particularly between believers and atheists. Usually it goes something like this: believers argue that faith is a choice, while atheists respond that belief simply doesn't work that way.
The more I listen to both sides, the more convinced I become that they're often arguing about different parts of the same process.
As is so often the case in philosophy, the answer depends entirely on which question you're actually asking.
If you're asking whether you can wake up tomorrow morning, snap your fingers, and sincerely believe something you currently think is false, then I don't think the answer is yes. Unless of course, you are a machine yourself.
Belief doesn't behave like a light switch.
It behaves more like gravity.
Your mind is constantly weighing experiences, conversations, evidence, emotions, habits, and relationships. Most of this happens beneath conscious awareness. Then, slowly—or sometimes all at once—your internal map of reality shifts. You don't watch it happen. You simply realize one day that what once seemed impossible now feels obvious.
That's how belief usually works.
Choice enters the picture much earlier.
You choose what books to read. You choose which conversations to have. You choose who you spend your time with. You choose whether to attend church or avoid it. You choose which ideas deserve another look and which ones you'll dismiss after five minutes.
Those choices matter.
In fact, they matter enormously.
They determine the environment in which your beliefs develop. This is the soil the will grow from after all.
Think about soccer. Fitting at the moment, right?
Imagine you barely care about the sport. Then you move to a new city, become friends with your neighbor, and discover that everyone around you lives and breathes soccer. Before long you're playing every weekend, watching every big match, celebrating victories, suffering defeats, and arguing over questionable referee decisions. (Iran got screwed, by the way)
You made plenty of choices along the way.
You chose to spend time with those people.
You chose to keep playing.
You chose to become part of that community.
But there was never a Tuesday afternoon when you consciously declared:
"I've decided to love soccer."
You didn't choose the feeling.
The feeling emerged from the life you chose to live.
That's why I think these debates become so frustrating to me.
When atheists say you can't choose to believe in God, they're usually talking about belief itself. You can't force genuine conviction any more than you can force yourself to believe the sky is purple.
When many believers say you can choose God, they're often talking about something different. They're talking about choosing the path that might eventually lead to faith: attending church, praying, reading Scripture(although sometimes this one backfires), asking questions, surrounding yourself with believers, and remaining open to the possibility.
Those aren't the same claim at all. Don't you see?
One is about belief.
The other is about the conditions that often give rise to belief.
Maybe that's why these conversations rarely go anywhere. People leave thinking they've disagreed, when in reality they've been describing different stages of the same journey.
Language has a funny way of doing that.
Sometimes our biggest disagreements aren't about reality at all.
They're about which part of reality we think we're discussing.
— MenO