The nature of belief
About: Agnosticism/Atheism has an article asking if we can choose our beliefs.According to Terence Penelhum, there are two general schools of thought when it comes to how beliefs originate: voluntarist and involuntarist. The voluntarists take say that belief is a matter of will: we have control over what we believe much in the way we have control over our actions. Theists often seem to be voluntarists and Christians in particular commonly argue the voluntarist position....I never really consciously thought about this, but I'm definitely an involuntarist. Especially in a religious context, I can't imagine rationally choosing to believe something.Involuntarists argue that we cannot really choose to just believe anything. According to involuntarism, a belief is not an action and, hence, cannot be attained by command — either by your own or by another's to you.
posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 8:44 AM
1 Comments:
Paul, as the UU Carnival host this month, I think it would be great if you'd consider writing more about this within the context of James Luther Adams' quote about atheists. Check it out over at PeaceBang. Cheers.
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