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Post by xna on Apr 12, 2014 20:43:49 GMT -5
I changed my mind, belief is not a choice. I understand belief as; being convinced that a claim is true. Many “get religion” suddenly, by epiphany. Others like Obama said he joined the Church by choice, and not by epiphany. “According to Terence Penelhum, there are two general schools of thought when it comes to how beliefs originate: voluntarist & involuntarist. The voluntarists take the position that belief is a matter of will: we have control over what we believe much in the way we have control over our actions. Involuntarists, on the other hand, argue that we cannot really choose to just believe anything. According to them, a belief is not an action and thus cannot be attained by command.” www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201109/disbelief-is-not-choiceatheism.about.com/od/atheismquestions/a/beliefchoice.htm
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Post by snow on Apr 12, 2014 22:18:23 GMT -5
You might be interested in a book by Jonathan Haidt The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. He is a social psychologist that believes that moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings. It is actually an interesting book so far (I'm not done it).
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Post by xna on Apr 12, 2014 22:31:21 GMT -5
You might be interested in a book by Jonathan Haidt The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. He is a social psychologist that believes that moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings. It is actually an interesting book so far (I'm not done it). Ordered it.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2014 0:46:15 GMT -5
isn't being convinced of something a choice?
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Post by matisse on Apr 13, 2014 1:26:45 GMT -5
isn't being convinced of something a choice? Maintaining a closed mind might be a choice.....though it might also be a predisposition, which might not be a choice!
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Post by matisse on Apr 13, 2014 1:33:38 GMT -5
You might be interested in a book by Jonathan Haidt The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. He is a social psychologist that believes that moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings. It is actually an interesting book so far (I'm not done it). He also gave a TED talk on the topic.
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Post by matisse on Apr 13, 2014 2:21:50 GMT -5
I'm in the involuntarist camp. The loss of my faith in the God I was brought up to believe took me by surprise. The bubble burst and in that moment I understood all at once that there had been a bubble, and that there would be no putting that bubble back together. There was no moment of "should I stay or should I go?"
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Post by kencoolidge on Apr 13, 2014 5:42:11 GMT -5
I'm in the involuntarist camp. The loss of my faith in the God I was brought up to believe took me by surprise. The bubble burst and in that moment I understood all at once that there had been a bubble, and that there would be no putting that bubble back together. There was no moment of "should I stay or should I go?" matisse Some groups might cause you to react that way. I don't believe God does that. Alligiance to a group when you find so many things contrary to what your natural instincts tell you would cause a reluctance to stay jmt ken
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Post by matisse on Apr 13, 2014 7:13:58 GMT -5
I'm in the involuntarist camp. The loss of my faith in the God I was brought up to believe took me by surprise. The bubble burst and in that moment I understood all at once that there had been a bubble, and that there would be no putting that bubble back together. There was no moment of "should I stay or should I go?" matisse Some groups might cause you to react that way. I don't believe God does that. Alligiance to a group when you find so many things contrary to what your natural instincts tell you would cause a reluctance to stay jmt ken I lost my faith in the 2x2's some time before the moment I describe above. Losing my faith in the God I had believed in up to that moment did not at all involve a "reluctance to stay." It was a sudden paradigm shift. There was never a moment in which I asked myself, "Should I believe or should I not?"
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Post by kencoolidge on Apr 13, 2014 7:32:07 GMT -5
matisse Some groups might cause you to react that way. I don't believe God does that. Alligiance to a group when you find so many things contrary to what your natural instincts tell you would cause a reluctance to stay jmt ken I lost my faith in the 2x2's some time before the moment I describe above. Losing my faith in the God I had believed in up to that moment did not at all involve a "reluctance to stay." It was a sudden paradigm shift. There was never a moment in which I asked myself, "Should I believe or should I not?" Matisse Could we agree that what you believed was what you were taught? Your faith was not a result of your understanding or revelation but some persons thoughts and not your own. Learned behavior versus a unexplainable experience . Many of lifes experience get preprogrammed by family friends and school.How do we interpret what is unexplainable? Perhaps you have never had any experinces thatwere/are unexplainable yet. ken
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Post by matisse on Apr 13, 2014 7:57:17 GMT -5
I lost my faith in the 2x2's some time before the moment I describe above. Losing my faith in the God I had believed in up to that moment did not at all involve a "reluctance to stay." It was a sudden paradigm shift. There was never a moment in which I asked myself, "Should I believe or should I not?" Matisse Could we agree that what you believed was what you were taught? Your faith was not a result of your understanding or revelation but some persons thoughts and not your own. Learned behavior versus a unexplainable experience . Many of lifes experience get preprogrammed by family friends and school.How do we interpret what is unexplainable? Perhaps you have never had any experinces thatwere/are unexplainable yet. ken I don't expect you to understand my experience. I am open-hearted and inquisitive by nature. My world turned upside-down when I lost my faith. It was no joke. In the 25-plus years since then, somehow your God has not found a way to reach me. Some things that we understand today, were at one time "unexplainable." There are things in life today that are not explainable, yet. I do not throw "God" into the "gaps."
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2014 7:59:28 GMT -5
My beliefs are all based on weighing the facts and the evidence, as well as the application of reason. The conclusion is involuntary since the highest score, so to speak, wins. As new information or better reasoning is injected into the equation, the conclusion may change to give a new, better result.
So insofar as the answer to 2 + 3 + 1 = 6 is involuntary, so is belief. If the equation changes to 2 + 3 + 2, then the new answer is 7, there is no choice about it.
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Post by slowtosee on Apr 13, 2014 8:28:17 GMT -5
It would seem , according to a very tiny glimpse into a short period of Russian history, that 12 - 20 million believers, were at least not willing to change their belief in God, even though many of them were given a choice. Their "crime" was that they believed in God, and their fate was determined by their answer, on whether they did or not, often with torture ,prison etc,, but some simply by a single shot. The ones who died with at the end of a gun, were often viewed as the fortunate ones, compared to starvation, etc. It seems like, it would have been easier to just "choose" to not believe for a while, which obviously some would have done, but some could not ? Alvin Wikipedia - The state was committed to the destruction of religion,[2][3] and destroyed churches, mosques and temples, ridiculed, harassed and executed religious leaders, flooded the schools and media with atheistic teachings, and generally promoted atheism as the truth that society should accept.[4][5] The total number of Christian victims of Soviet state atheist policies, has been estimated to range between 12-20 millions.[ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union
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Post by xna on Apr 13, 2014 8:47:35 GMT -5
You might be interested in a book by Jonathan Haidt The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. He is a social psychologist that believes that moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings. It is actually an interesting book so far (I'm not done it). He also gave a TED talk on the topic. www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_humanity_s_stairway_to_self_transcendencewatched it. I don 't fully understand the homo duplex idea, reading the book should help. People behave differently in a group vs alone.
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Post by matisse on Apr 13, 2014 9:05:39 GMT -5
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Post by faune on Apr 13, 2014 9:34:17 GMT -5
Matisse ~ I appreciated your honest answers shared earlier. I will have to bookmark this TED link for a later viewing. However, I also appreciated you sharing your thoughts about your loss of belief in God and how it was like a bubble which burst and could not be put back together again. From what I have read about atheistic beliefs, some people who have become atheists over the years were at one time devout Christians in their beliefs. This part really amazed me, as I thought it would be the opposite in which the irreligious would eventually turn in that direction, but not devout believers. However, I have learned since from different articles I have read and even some which Xna has presented here on TMB, that this is sometimes the case due to new knowledge gained along the way. Even Dmmichgood professed for about 30 years before she departed the 2x2's and it was over a progression and number of years that she changed her views entirely late in life. That's truly remarkable, in my own estimation, considering people tend to go the other way around, becoming religious in latter years?
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Post by xna on Apr 13, 2014 10:39:53 GMT -5
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Post by SharonArnold on Apr 13, 2014 11:03:32 GMT -5
My beliefs are all based on weighing the facts and the evidence, as well as the application of reason. The conclusion is involuntary since the highest score, so to speak, wins. As new information or better reasoning is injected into the equation, the conclusion may change to give a new, better result. So insofar as the answer to 2 + 3 + 1 = 6 is involuntary, so is belief. If the equation changes to 2 + 3 + 2, then the new answer is 7, there is no choice about it. For me, as an adult, I see belief as a total choice. As a child, depending on the degree of indoctrination by the adults in your life, beliefs may be largely inherited and it may take a great deal of work/life experiences for you to be able to overcome those beliefs. There’s nothing magical about a belief – it is just a thought that you keep on thinking. Over and over again. If you can choose your thought, then you can choose your belief. Even in very emotionally charged situations, I normally have the ability to step back and make the choice of how I am going to process the situation. And even when there is so much emotional charge and my thoughts/beliefs seemingly have hold of me, I usually have the ability to say to myself “This is not helpful; let it go.” Then, when the emotional charge has dissipated enough for me to choose how I process things, I come back to it. Even if you believe that your beliefs are somewhat “involuntary”, because they are based on “weighing facts and evidence, and the application of reason” – you are still choosing what “facts and evidence” you allow your consciousness to take in, and how much weight you give to each. I believe as you mature, this process seemingly becomes less “involuntary” and more “voluntary” – but the real change is in your awareness of choices you are making. (Your choice of an arithmetic equation is a poor example, because most things in life cannot be reduced to common agreement like the study of quantities.)
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Post by snow on Apr 13, 2014 12:58:22 GMT -5
I'm in the involuntarist camp. The loss of my faith in the God I was brought up to believe took me by surprise. The bubble burst and in that moment I understood all at once that there had been a bubble, and that there would be no putting that bubble back together. There was no moment of "should I stay or should I go?" When I think back on that, it was like that for me too. I left the 2x2's because I couldn't worship their god, but I still believed it existed. Then one day the belief in god just disappeared, like it had never been there and left me wondering how I ever could have believed. It felt a little like the clouds parted and the sun came through.
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Post by snow on Apr 13, 2014 13:01:49 GMT -5
My beliefs are all based on weighing the facts and the evidence, as well as the application of reason. The conclusion is involuntary since the highest score, so to speak, wins. As new information or better reasoning is injected into the equation, the conclusion may change to give a new, better result. So insofar as the answer to 2 + 3 + 1 = 6 is involuntary, so is belief. If the equation changes to 2 + 3 + 2, then the new answer is 7, there is no choice about it. For me, as an adult, I see belief as a total choice. As a child, depending on the degree of indoctrination by the adults in your life, beliefs may be largely inherited and it may take a great deal of work/life experiences for you to be able to overcome those beliefs. There’s nothing magical about a belief – it is just a thought that you keep on thinking. Over and over again. If you can choose your thought, then you can choose your belief. Even in very emotionally charged situations, I normally have the ability to step back and make the choice of how I am going to process the situation. And even when there is so much emotional charge and my thoughts/beliefs seemingly have hold of me, I usually have the ability to say to myself “This is not helpful; let it go.” Then, when the emotional charge has dissipated enough for me to choose how I process things, I come back to it. Even if you believe that your beliefs are somewhat “involuntary”, because they are based on “weighing facts and evidence, and the application of reason” – you are still choosing what “facts and evidence” you allow your consciousness to take in, and how much weight you give to each. I believe as you mature, this process seemingly becomes less “involuntary” and more “voluntary” – but the real change is in your awareness of choices you are making. (Your choice of an arithmetic equation is a poor example, because most things in life cannot be reduced to common agreement like the study of quantities.) This author I speak of above has found through studies that reason is the servant of intuition or emotion. That we rarely look for material that will prove what we already believe to be right, wrong. Other people, however, are great at getting us to look at things differently and they are usually the instrument of change of belief in ourselves. Even rarer he states does one just come to the epiphany on their own. I guess that's why other people are so important to us. They help us evolve and grow and make us look at life differently.
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Post by snow on Apr 13, 2014 13:07:40 GMT -5
xna and Matisse thank you for the links to the TED talks for this author. One intriguing thing I just read was the concept of what we value more in ourselves, our reputation or our values. He gave the question
"Suppose the gods were to flip a coin on the day of your birth. Heads, you will be a supremely honest and fair person throughout your life, yet everyone around you will believe you're a scoundrel. Tails, you will cheat and lie whenever it suits your needs, yet everyone around you will believe you're a paragon of virtue. Which outcome would you prefer? Plato's Republic -- one of the most influential works in the Western canon -- is an extended argument that you should pick heads, for your own good. It is better to be than to seem virtuous."
It has been argued that people will be virtuous to preserve their reputation far more often than to prove to themselves they are virtuous by doing right, just because it is right. I think this subject is very interesting and could probably use a thread all to itself.
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Post by xna on Apr 13, 2014 13:09:32 GMT -5
For me, as an adult, I see belief as a total choice. As a child, depending on the degree of indoctrination by the adults in your life, beliefs may be largely inherited and it may take a great deal of work/life experiences for you to be able to overcome those beliefs. There’s nothing magical about a belief – it is just a thought that you keep on thinking. Over and over again. If you can choose your thought, then you can choose your belief. Even in very emotionally charged situations, I normally have the ability to step back and make the choice of how I am going to process the situation. And even when there is so much emotional charge and my thoughts/beliefs seemingly have hold of me, I usually have the ability to say to myself “This is not helpful; let it go.” Then, when the emotional charge has dissipated enough for me to choose how I process things, I come back to it. Even if you believe that your beliefs are somewhat “involuntary”, because they are based on “weighing facts and evidence, and the application of reason” – you are still choosing what “facts and evidence” you allow your consciousness to take in, and how much weight you give to each. I believe as you mature, this process seemingly becomes less “involuntary” and more “voluntary” – but the real change is in your awareness of choices you are making. (Your choice of an arithmetic equation is a poor example, because most things in life cannot be reduced to common agreement like the study of quantities.) This author I speak of above has found through studies that reason is the servant of intuition or emotion. That we rarely look for material that will prove what we already believe to be right, wrong. Other people, however, are great at getting us to look at things differently and they are usually the instrument of change of belief in ourselves. Even rarer he states does one just come to the epiphany on their own. I guess that's why other people are so important to us. They help us evolve and grow and make us look at life differently. Who sees an Elephant? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant
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Post by snow on Apr 13, 2014 13:11:53 GMT -5
This author I speak of above has found through studies that reason is the servant of intuition or emotion. That we rarely look for material that will prove what we already believe to be right, wrong. Other people, however, are great at getting us to look at things differently and they are usually the instrument of change of belief in ourselves. Even rarer he states does one just come to the epiphany on their own. I guess that's why other people are so important to us. They help us evolve and grow and make us look at life differently. Who sees an Elephant? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephantyes, like that parable because it makes me realize how illusive truth is and how subjective it really is.
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Post by xna on Apr 13, 2014 13:36:23 GMT -5
My beliefs are all based on weighing the facts and the evidence, as well as the application of reason. The conclusion is involuntary since the highest score, so to speak, wins. As new information or better reasoning is injected into the equation, the conclusion may change to give a new, better result. So insofar as the answer to 2 + 3 + 1 = 6 is involuntary, so is belief. If the equation changes to 2 + 3 + 2, then the new answer is 7, there is no choice about it. For me, as an adult, I see belief as a total choice. As a child, depending on the degree of indoctrination by the adults in your life, beliefs may be largely inherited and it may take a great deal of work/life experiences for you to be able to overcome those beliefs. There’s nothing magical about a belief – it is just a thought that you keep on thinking. Over and over again. If you can choose your thought, then you can choose your belief. Even in very emotionally charged situations, I normally have the ability to step back and make the choice of how I am going to process the situation. And even when there is so much emotional charge and my thoughts/beliefs seemingly have hold of me, I usually have the ability to say to myself “This is not helpful; let it go.” Then, when the emotional charge has dissipated enough for me to choose how I process things, I come back to it. Even if you believe that your beliefs are somewhat “involuntary”, because they are based on “weighing facts and evidence, and the application of reason” – you are still choosing what “facts and evidence” you allow your consciousness to take in, and how much weight you give to each. I believe as you mature, this process seemingly becomes less “involuntary” and more “voluntary” – but the real change is in your awareness of choices you are making. (Your choice of an arithmetic equation is a poor example, because most things in life cannot be reduced to common agreement like the study of quantities.) --------------- Let's say you do NOT believe in reincarnation, yet 1.2 billion today do. Your Hindu friend asked you to "just will yourself into believing in reincarnation". I guess it wouldn't work for you. Belief in reincarnation doesn't work that way for me because I see no evidence of reincarnation. But If I were born & raised into a Hindu culture it would be hard not to believe in reincarnation, manly for social reasons. I probably wouldn't give it serious consideration.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2014 13:48:57 GMT -5
My beliefs are all based on weighing the facts and the evidence, as well as the application of reason. The conclusion is involuntary since the highest score, so to speak, wins. As new information or better reasoning is injected into the equation, the conclusion may change to give a new, better result. So insofar as the answer to 2 + 3 + 1 = 6 is involuntary, so is belief. If the equation changes to 2 + 3 + 2, then the new answer is 7, there is no choice about it. For me, as an adult, I see belief as a total choice. As a child, depending on the degree of indoctrination by the adults in your life, beliefs may be largely inherited and it may take a great deal of work/life experiences for you to be able to overcome those beliefs. There’s nothing magical about a belief – it is just a thought that you keep on thinking. Over and over again. If you can choose your thought, then you can choose your belief. Even in very emotionally charged situations, I normally have the ability to step back and make the choice of how I am going to process the situation. And even when there is so much emotional charge and my thoughts/beliefs seemingly have hold of me, I usually have the ability to say to myself “This is not helpful; let it go.” Then, when the emotional charge has dissipated enough for me to choose how I process things, I come back to it. Even if you believe that your beliefs are somewhat “involuntary”, because they are based on “weighing facts and evidence, and the application of reason” – you are still choosing what “facts and evidence” you allow your consciousness to take in, and how much weight you give to each. I believe as you mature, this process seemingly becomes less “involuntary” and more “voluntary” – but the real change is in your awareness of choices you are making. (Your choice of an arithmetic equation is a poor example, because most things in life cannot be reduced to common agreement like the study of quantities.) To me, a belief is simply my conclusive opinion about something that has an unknown component about it. I do treat it much like an arithmetic equation, assigning values to all the information and concluding the one that has the greatest values assigned to it. It becomes my opinion whether I like it or not so the end result is largely involuntary......it is what it is. True, one can make choices about what to include or exclude from the analysis, but a person is only fooling themselves to exclude relevant information. To properly develop a belief, every relevant bit must be included in the process. I lived too much of my life "cooking the books" on prejudiced beliefs by assigning values wrongly, including irrelevant information or excluding something I didn't really want to consider in case the end result was skewed away from my prejudice. Life is pretty great when one can just deal with what is, not what I want to think it is. Yes, we can choose to accept what we think sub-standard beliefs, but that doesn't make much sense, and it can't be very helpful.
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Post by rational on Apr 13, 2014 13:50:21 GMT -5
--------------- Let's say you do NOT believe in reincarnation, yet 1.2 billion today do. Your Hindu friend asked you to "just will yourself into believing in reincarnation". I guess it wouldn't work for you. Belief in reincarnation doesn't work that way for me because I see no evidence of reincarnation. But If I were born & raised into a Hindu culture it would be hard not believe in reincarnation, manly for social reasons. I probably wouldn't give it serious consideration. This also points to the foolishness of Pascal's wager. Can you decide you believe in a paranormal being simply to hedge your bet in the event you die and discover there is an afterlife. Doesn't it seem that a paranormal being would see through this ploy?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2014 13:57:06 GMT -5
For me, as an adult, I see belief as a total choice. As a child, depending on the degree of indoctrination by the adults in your life, beliefs may be largely inherited and it may take a great deal of work/life experiences for you to be able to overcome those beliefs. There’s nothing magical about a belief – it is just a thought that you keep on thinking. Over and over again. If you can choose your thought, then you can choose your belief. Even in very emotionally charged situations, I normally have the ability to step back and make the choice of how I am going to process the situation. And even when there is so much emotional charge and my thoughts/beliefs seemingly have hold of me, I usually have the ability to say to myself “This is not helpful; let it go.” Then, when the emotional charge has dissipated enough for me to choose how I process things, I come back to it. Even if you believe that your beliefs are somewhat “involuntary”, because they are based on “weighing facts and evidence, and the application of reason” – you are still choosing what “facts and evidence” you allow your consciousness to take in, and how much weight you give to each. I believe as you mature, this process seemingly becomes less “involuntary” and more “voluntary” – but the real change is in your awareness of choices you are making. (Your choice of an arithmetic equation is a poor example, because most things in life cannot be reduced to common agreement like the study of quantities.) This author I speak of above has found through studies that reason is the servant of intuition or emotion. That we rarely look for material that will prove what we already believe to be right, wrong. Other people, however, are great at getting us to look at things differently and they are usually the instrument of change of belief in ourselves. Even rarer he states does one just come to the epiphany on their own. I guess that's why other people are so important to us. They help us evolve and grow and make us look at life differently. The bolded above is certainly a stimulating thought but I would argue the opposite. We can reason our emotions in any direction we choose....we can even speed up or slow down our heart rate based on what we choose to think about. The mind is the gateway for all emotions. Intuition, in my view, is simply sub-concious reason of the mind. They are thoughts and reasonings we just haven't consciously formed yet, if ever. I think he is right though that outside stimulation is the main impetus for change, but it's certainly not the only impetus. Introverted people are particularly adept at sitting back, reviewing and re-adjusting without others around....preferably without others around!
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Post by SharonArnold on Apr 13, 2014 14:12:27 GMT -5
Let's say you do NOT believe in reincarnation, yet 1.2 billion today do. Your Hindu friend asked you to "just will yourself into believing in reincarnation". I guess it wouldn't work for you. Belief in reincarnation doesn't work that way for me because I see no evidence of reincarnation. But If I were born & raised into a Hindu culture it would be hard not believe in reincarnation, manly for social reasons. I probably wouldn't give it serious consideration. It's not a question of "willing" yourself into believing anything. But, if you had a vested interest, need, want, whatever etc..., to believe in reincarnation, then whether or not you were raised in a tradition that supported it or not, then you would make the CHOICE (knowingly or not) to look for evidence that supports that view. You would also likely make the CHOICE (knowingly or not) to de-emphasize the evidence that does not support that view. Either way, it all gets down to choice. Yours. Even with inherited beliefs, you eventually make the choice to keep them or to de-bunk them.
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