Originally Posted by GeoW
Originally Posted by antelope_sniper
Originally Posted by GeoW
God works in the mysterious ways that he does?


Translated into English: Some of that stuff just does not deserve to be believed.


Believe it or not.. Your choice.


I disagree with this statement, made so often here. Belief is not simply a choice. People believe things for all sorts of reasons, often irrational ones. However, they have some sort of reason for believing. You cannot simply choose to believe something that you find unbelievable. Could you believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny right now, if you wanted to? No, your mind will not accept that. You could claim belief and act like you believed, which still wouldn't change the fact that you don't believe.

You study a theory or an idea, and depending on the information and evidence you discover, you either believe it or you don't. Its not a decision, it's simply what happens in your mind. You can choose how you respond to your belief(or lack thereof) but you can't choose whether to believe it or not.

There are many things I'd like to believe but simpy cannot, because I haven't seen sufficient evidence to allow my mind to believe it. There's things I wish I didn't believe, but I've seen too much evidence to not believe it.

Its very easy to condemn someone when you can simply say "they made a choice, let them deal with the consequences", and people do so love to condemn others. Its becomes more difficult to condemn someone when you realize that they are not simply choosing to believe differently than you, but have had a different life with different experiences that have led them to different beliefs.