In aother thread, this comment was made:

Everyone can believe in God. God's love is free to all. If you ignore it, that is between you and Him, but that does not mean the church and Christians should not be showing the love the God gives freely to everyone.

My reply:

This is such a load of bullshit. Belief is not a choice. You can want to believe and not be able to, so much is obvious by the number of ex-Christians who did not want to lose faith, tried praying harder to God to restore it to them, but were unable to fool themselves and in the end had to face up to the fact that they could no longer hold onto belief...even though it had been a great comfort and otherwise beneficial to their quality of life. I used to really want to believe too. Strangely, that didn't make it happen. This 'if you ignore God's love that's up to you' rubbish is just a massive guilt trip, attempting to pass off the fact that non-believers exist by blaming them for not accepting fairy tales as truth. I've seen nothing of God's love, I have no reason to believe it is even there, so why should I, and how could I be expected to? [/rant]

This thread was primarily created to allow the author of the initial comment to reply without being off-topic in another thread, but all thoughts are welcome.

Can everyone believe in God? If one does not, is that a fault of theirs?

I think you are right, this is not about God but the nature of the beliefs (any/all) we hold and how they are formed.

However, if you accept (have a belief!) that beliefs are temporary, created, strengthened, supported and cast aside according to observation and sensory perception then they can be manipulated.

After all they are only a process in the brain just like the others.

John

I feel as free to believe in God as I do to believe 2+2=5.

Can everyone believe in God? If one does not, is that a fault of theirs?

If we define God as an omnipotent being who wants everyone to believe in its existence, then if someone fails to do so it is only because God did not use his omnipotence to create an argument persuasive enough to convince the non-believer.

Fallible wrote:In aother thread, this comment was made:

Everyone can believe in God. God's love is free to all. If you ignore it, that is between you and Him, but that does not mean the church and Christians should not be showing the love the God gives freely to everyone.

My reply:

This is such a load of bullshit. Belief is not a choice. You can want to believe and not be able to, so much is obvious by the number of ex-Christians who did not want to lose faith, tried praying harder to God to restore it to them, but were unable to fool themselves and in the end had to face up to the fact that they could no longer hold onto belief...even though it had been a great comfort and otherwise beneficial to their quality of life. I used to really want to believe too. Strangely, that didn't make it happen. This 'if you ignore God's love that's up to you' rubbish is just a massive guilt trip, attempting to pass off the fact that non-believers exist by blaming them for not accepting fairy tales as truth. I've seen nothing of God's love, I have no reason to believe it is even there, so why should I, and how could I be expected to? [/rant]

This thread was primarily created to allow the author of the initial comment to reply without being off-topic in another thread, but all thoughts are welcome.

Can everyone believe in God? If one does not, is that a fault of theirs?

First of all, I thank Fallible for making this thread so I can have a better, more in-depth discussion. Now into the argument!

Belief is not a choice. You can want to believe and not be able to, so much is obvious by the number of ex-Christians who did not want to lose faith, tried praying harder to God to restore it to them, but were unable to fool themselves and in the end had to face up to the fact that they could no longer hold onto belief

To which I readily disagree with. Belief and faith in this context should be distinguished. Belief is simply an acknowledgement of something, in this case God. Faith is the acknowledgement of God's works and actions in one's life, even though it does not always make sense nor is always routine or predictable. The former everyone is capable of; the latter is a gift from God. To make it into an analogy, I can believe my neighbor has a gun, but it requires faith to know that my neighbor will not shoot me if he does.

So you may sit here and think I am dodging, well, I am not, if you bear with me I will attempt to address the issue the best that I can. You mention ex-Christians who did not want to lose faith, well the argument was they never had true, repentant faith to begin with. Now I am not going to pretend I know everyone's hearts and reasonings, but from the "ex-Christians" I have talked to the primary core of this "loss of faith" stems from a misunderstanding of Christianity.

Most of them saw Christianity as a crutch, a panacea, a cure all for problems they were going through. They believed it would help them resolve problems by some magical cure and they'd be fixed and solved. When the problems were still there, and the stress and emotional pain and scars remained, many gave up, believing they were deluded and "fell from grace." A desire to believe built upon a loose foundation is not going to last long at all. So ex-Christians believe that they are incapable of believing because after all they have tried, they just did not "see" or "feel" God.

When I said "if you choose to ignore God" I actually did not have ex-Christians in mind. So I was not attempting to create a guilt trip. I was more going off the lines of Romans 1:20-21.

I've seen nothing of God's love, I have no reason to believe it is even there, so why should I, and how could I be expected to?

But you see, the capacity to believe is there. You say it yourself that you just do not have a reason to believe. As for seeing nothing of God's love, I cannot say anything too much for fear of preaching, but if its any reconciliation, I know as a believer that God loves you, and because of this my actions and responses towards you are out of love and respect.

Everyone can believe in God. God's love is free to all. If you ignore it, that is between you and Him, but that does not mean the church and Christians should not be showing the love the God gives freely to everyone.

Bolding mine. This seems to be a common misconception in theists.

It's not between me and 'Him', it's between me and the theist. I do not reject god, I reject the concept of god.

It's just the same when I hear someone assert (as another poster did recently) that "atheists are angry at god".
I can't be angry at something which I have no reason to believe can exist, but I can get angry at the things that get said and done by some theists, using their concept of a god to justify their deeds.

Paul wrote:

Everyone can believe in God. God's love is free to all. If you ignore it, that is between you and Him, but that does not mean the church and Christians should not be showing the love the God gives freely to everyone.

Bolding mine. This seems to be a common misconception in theists.

It's not between me and 'Him', it's between me and the theist. I do not reject god, I reject the concept of god.

It's just the same when I hear someone assert (as another poster did recently) that "atheists are angry at god".
I can't be angry at something which I have no reason to believe can exist, but I can get angry at the things that get said and done by some theists, using their concept of a god to justify their deeds.

Well yes, I guess that makes sense. Like I said, the ability to believe is there, you just have not had any reason to believe or accept claims to prove God.

willhud9 wrote:First of all, I thank Fallible for making this thread so I can have a better, more in-depth discussion. Now into the argument!

No problem.

To which I readily disagree with. Belief and faith in this context should be distinguished.

Well so you say, but I take issue with this. The two terms are interchangeable. I do not want to go directly to dictionary wars here, but belief is defined as a psychological state regarding faith in something, and faith as belief, especially belief in God.

Belief is simply an acknowledgement of something, in this case God.

No, belief is a psychological state which one is in or is not in.

Faith is the acknowledgement of God's works and actions in one's life, even though it does not always make sense nor is always routine or predictable.

No, faith is synonymous with belief.

The former everyone is capable of;

This is just a reiteration of your initial comment.

the latter is a gift from God.

This is an unsupported assertion, requiring belief in God. I do not have such a belief, so it offers nothing by way of explanation.

To make it into an analogy, I can believe my neighbor has a gun, but it requires faith to know that my neighbor will not shoot me if he does.

This does not make a lot of sense. First of all, you can believe he has a gun without knowledge, or you can know he has a gun. Secondly, how do you know that your neighbour will not shoot you? Third, if you know it is not faith you have, but knowledge. If you know your neighbour has a gun, he either will or will not shoot you. You can believe either of those or reserve judgement for whatever reason, but you can't know. Finally, this analogy does not seem relevant to the definitions you already gave.

So you may sit here and think I am dodging, well, I am not, if you bear with me I will attempt to address the issue the best that I can. You mention ex-Christians who did not want to lose faith, well the argument was they never had true, repentant faith to begin with. Now I am not going to pretend I know everyone's hearts and reasonings, but from the "ex-Christians" I have talked to the primary core of this "loss of faith" stems from a misunderstanding of Christianity.

Of course that's a well-known argument - I see it used all the time. However it is also a cop-out of monumental proportions. All those who lose faith automatically exclude themselves from the group 'True Christian' the minute it happens. I bet many a 'True Christian' has used this argument, only to go on to lose their faith later. Is it so hard to acknowledge that even those who had strong faith can lose it? That they just went through an experience or series of experiences which flipped their psychological state?

Most of them saw Christianity as a crutch, a panacea, a cure all for problems they were going through. They believed it would help them resolve problems by some magical cure and they'd be fixed and solved. When the problems were still there, and the stress and emotional pain and scars remained, many gave up, believing they were deluded and "fell from grace." A desire to believe built upon a loose foundation is not going to last long at all. So ex-Christians believe that they are incapable of believing because after all they have tried, they just did not "see" or "feel" God.

I don't hold personal anecdote in very high regard. I do know that what you say here does not ring true for me with regard to what I have heard, but I do not offer up what I have heard here by way of an argument. I'll simply note that your comments here fall short of giving full coverage to the phenomenon of people losing faith in God.

When I said "if you choose to ignore God" I actually did not have ex-Christians in mind. So I was not attempting to create a guilt trip. I was more going off the lines of Romans 1:20-21.

Nor did I. My comments about ex-Christians were to do with your comment that everyone can believe. I am not an ex-Christian, nor do I ignore God. I would have to be aware of God first. I am not.

But you see, the capacity to believe is there. You say it yourself that you just do not have a reason to believe.

I have the capacity to pump blood around my system also, but it is not something I can choose to do by force of will. I also cannot decide to stop it. It is the same thing with belief. Having the capacity for belief is not the same as being able to decide to believe. I can only believe when that 'magic' point is reached which changes my state from non-belief to belief.

As for seeing nothing of God's love, I cannot say anything too much for fear of preaching, but if its any reconciliation, I know as a believer that God loves you, and because of this my actions and responses towards you are out of love and respect.

You know no such thing. What you mean is that you believe it. If that is where you are fair enough, but it doesn't mean anything to me. As for respect, I can think of many things a great deal more respectful than simply assuming that a non-believer is that way because they choose to ignore God. Your experience is not my experience. Your frame of reference is not my frame of reference. Trying to impose your experience onto others as THE experience because you had it is not respectful, and it requires you to pass judgements on people about whom you know virtually nothing.

This god of the Xtians is surely a frustrated & lonely being, I have little respect for a demanding child.
YEWAH, go to the naughty-step!

willhud9 wrote:

Paul wrote:Bolding mine. This seems to be a common misconception in theists.

It's not between me and 'Him', it's between me and the theist. I do not reject god, I reject the concept of god.

It's just the same when I hear someone assert (as another poster did recently) that "atheists are angry at god".
I can't be angry at something which I have no reason to believe can exist, but I can get angry at the things that get said and done by some theists, using their concept of a god to justify their deeds.

Well yes, I guess that makes sense. Like I said, the ability to believe is there, you just have not had any reason to believe or accept claims to prove God.

I think there's a bit of equivocation on the phrase "reason to believe" here.

Back to your example of having the "faith" that your neighbour will not shoot you. While I agree this cannot be known with the same degree of certainty with which you can know whether or not he has a gun, there are at least two senses in which you can say you have "reasons" to believe he won't shoot you.

For instance, you could have enjoyed the neighbour's friendship for many years and know him to be a gentle, reliable and honest person. Under these circumstances it could reasonably be claimed that you have very good "reasons" to believe he will not shoot you.

OTOH, the neighbour could have just moved next door recently and you don't know him very well. He seems a shifty, unfriendly character and has had some violent outbursts against you for minor things like letting the leaves blow over onto his yard. In addition, there are rumours going around that he was just released from prison after serving a sentence for manslaughter. Given all this, you can't help but worry that maybe your safety is endangered by your new neighbour. However, this thought is too anxiety-provoking to deal with. So instead you try to put it out of your mind, deny the evidence right before you, and instead convince yourself there is no reason to fear your neighbour might shoot you. Again, it could be said here you have "reasons" to believe he will not shoot you, but the reasons are of a very different nature than in the above scenario.

So the question then arises: Which sort of "reasons" compel someone to believe in God?

Sorry but I have difficulty with the "...between you and Him" bit, too. There is no 'Him' to have anything between. I never knew 'Him', I never felt 'Him', I never understood what people were talking about when they talked about 'Him'.
To me it was no different to walking into a waiting-room in a psychiatric ward and a man is sitting on a chair and you go sit beside him and he says, "Whoa!" You pause. The urgency in his voice and gesture causes you to look at the seat thinking perhaps there was something wet spilled on it but it looks fine, "Watch you don't sit on Jeffrey". You scratch your head. Clearly there is no one sitting there. You assume he's a bit mad and say, "Sorry". Then sit on a seat on the opposite side of the room.

When I was young we had to stay at my granny's sometimes. She was quite old and a bit scary, Catholic scary, her house was full of trinkets which had made the pilgrimage to her home from Lourdes and for some reason I always had to sleep in the spare bed in her room. I would pretend to be asleep but, as a child who never fell asleep 'til around one in the morning (and felt a certain amount of injustice at having to be put to bed at 8pm), I was wide awake. My granny would go to the end of her bed and start talking to Jesus. I thought it was the scariest thing in the world. An old woman, mumbling to an invisible man, in the middle of the night, while the wind whistled down the chimney and the last aeroplane hummed overhead.

This is my objection too. If someone told you that your choice to ignore that fire-breathing dragon was between you and it, your first reaction would probably be 'What dragon?', and your second perhaps 'I don't think that dragon you can apparently see is as important to me as you seem to think it should be'. It's the same with God. I've never had to ignore it, because I have no experience of it. Someone comes along and tells me that it's really important and it's good to believe in it, and if I choose to ignore it that's between me and it, but its love is available, my reaction is not going to be 'OMG you are so right, thank you'. It's going to be more along the lines of 'why the hell do you think I should care about your fantasy?'

From the starting position of being an atheist, you could perhaps make believe there's a God if you'd want - play a little game with the concept - but not easily actually believe there really is one. I mean - that would mean you actually thought there was a God "out there".

When I was a theist, I already had an emotional tie and reaction to the concept. I could feel God's presence. That's something an atheist for obvious reasons can't do (or wouldn't rely on even if he/she could) because they don't have that tie to it, so to an atheist, 'simply' choosing to believe a God exists, and thereby thinking it actually exists, is not possible.

But I think one could pretend, or make believe there is one. I can pretend and make believe there are unicorns on the dark side of the moon, and I can see them in my mind's eye. I almost believe it already, just by mentioning it.
But I don't think - or believe - they're actually there. Without any additional good reasons to believe a God exists, that's the kind of 'belief' an atheist could muster - at best; an imagination.

Lovely, Animavore.

Fallible wrote:In aother thread, this comment was made:

Everyone can believe in God. God's love is free to all. If you ignore it, that is between you and Him, but that does not mean the church and Christians should not be showing the love the God gives freely to everyone.

My reply:

This is such a load of bullshit. Belief is not a choice. You can want to believe and not be able to, so much is obvious by the number of ex-Christians who did not want to lose faith, tried praying harder to God to restore it to them, but were unable to fool themselves and in the end had to face up to the fact that they could no longer hold onto belief...[/rant]

Very accurate summary of my experience. I wanted to believe (in the words of Fox Mulder), but just couldn't sustain it with all the contrary evidence sloshing around all the time.

Sure anyone can believe in the judeo Christian god, and if they don't, they'll burn in hell. That's freedom for you.

willhud9 wrote:... You mention ex-Christians who did not want to lose faith, well the argument was they never had true, repentant faith to begin with ...

Ah, but no one really believes in God. Atheists are simply honest about it. Those that profess a belief don't really believe at all, they just claim that they do. Those that believe least claim the most that they believe. The real non-believers get all fundamental about the bible. Sort of over-compensating for their lack of belief. You know, like homophobic pastors hiding their desire for some hot cock action by denouncing the very thing they really crave. Quite sad.

A Christian will be alone shortly to tell us that they are a True ChristianTM and weally, weally believe, but they don't. The proof that they don't is in their claims that they do.

willhud9 wrote:Well yes, I guess that makes sense. Like I said, the ability to believe is there, you just have not had any reason to believe or accept claims to prove God.

The ability for wishful thinking is there too, as is the ability to self-delude, but it doesn't mean that I actually will win the lottery tonight. When it comes to the big questions, I prefer to base my decisions on harsh reality.

Animavore wrote:Sorry but I have difficulty with the "...between you and Him" bit, too. There is no 'Him' to have anything between. I never knew 'Him', I never felt 'Him', I never understood what people were talking about when they talked about 'Him'.
To me it was no different to walking into a waiting-room in a psychiatric ward and a man is sitting on a chair and you go sit beside him and he says, "Whoa!" You pause. The urgency in his voice and gesture causes you to look at the seat thinking perhaps there was something wet spilled on it but it looks fine, "Watch you don't sit on Jeffrey". You scratch your head. Clearly there is no one sitting there. You assume he's a bit mad and say, "Sorry". Then sit on a seat on the opposite side of the room.

I can have some sympathy for the patient in a psychiatric ward, at least his 'imaginary friend' is probably his own 'invention', not that of a third-party who lived thousands of years ago in the Middle-East.

Fallible wrote:This is my objection too. If someone told you that your choice to ignore that fire-breathing dragon was between you and it, your first reaction would probably be 'What dragon?', and your second perhaps 'I don't think that dragon you can apparently see is as important to me as you seem to think it should be'. It's the same with God. I've never had to ignore it, because I have no experience of it. Someone comes along and tells me that it's really important and it's good to believe in it, and if I choose to ignore it that's between me and it, but its love is available, my reaction is not going to be 'OMG you are so right, thank you'. It's going to be more along the lines of 'why the hell do you think I should care about your fantasy?'

Well, Mangaroosh says that God is the same thing as the Universe, and I certainly do believe in the Universe. So, there.

willhud9 wrote:
To which I readily disagree with. Belief and faith in this context should be distinguished. Belief is simply an acknowledgement of something, in this case God. Faith is the acknowledgement of God's works and actions in one's life, even though it does not always make sense nor is always routine or predictable. The former everyone is capable of; the latter is a gift from God. To make it into an analogy, I can believe my neighbor has a gun, but it requires faith to know that my neighbor will not shoot me if he does.

Not sure I follow this analogy. You know guns exist and are presumably legal where you live, so believing your neighbour has one is a rational belief in part backed by supporting evidence from other circumstances. This is not the same as believing your neighbour has magic powers, that would require suspension of disbelief.
With magicman as with a magically empowered neighbour, suspension of rational faculties is required to believe or have faith in such things - a totally different senario.

Now is everyone capable of suspending disbelief? - probably - to that extent anyone can believe in god, but most of us here have grown up.