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by rjbwork
759 days ago
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I don't think it's a choice. If you don't believe something, no amount of trying to make yourself believe it is going to make it so. A whole lot of people raised in a religion who are now atheists can attest to the extreme mental turmoil trying to do so during the deconversion process can cause. You either believe, or don't believe in any given brand of supernatural unobservable phenomenon. |
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What I have found helpful, when I went through something like this, is to distinguish between the "feeling" of certainty and the "choice" to put my faith in something. A lot of the time, we talk about "faith" and we conflate those two. I can choose to trust something and not feel confidence in it until after the fact. How much confidence I feel in a choice varies for a lot of reasons, but I may still choose to accept the risk and act on the little information I do have because I don't have better alternatives.
In that sense, you can choose what you believe. Or at least, you can choose what you put your faith in.