Can you choose what you believe?

For instance I believe that relationships with other people are one of the most important aspects of life.
Is it possible for me to wake up up one morning and just on a whim decide to change that belief and instead believe that relationships with other people aren't a very important part of life.

Can we choose what we believe, and why or why not? 

One day when i was 10 i decided to be a Vegitarian, I dont particually like animals or care if they die, but i havent eaten meat in 17 years, Could i choose to eat meat again? Probally not as the thought now makes me feel sick.

But i think most things we can change, maybe when your younger Money and material possession's may seem more important but when you get older you may change your mind are realize that other things like relationships matter more.

We are free to believe what we want to believe.

Hmm I think agree with you Original Poster, its not so white and black as it may seem. Things like " Is love really all I need ? " Can easily be change to " Love is all I need! " The very next day when you meet the perfect women.

Views and things like that change for me on a hourly basis it seems, I dont know one day I could be boycotting chairs and preaching the word of Zero emissions, while later that day sitting in my favorite chair watching disel trucks being taken out to drag, and doing burn outs.

Life lives on a maybe and a I dont know yet boarder for me, and I have enjoyed the ride so far.

Yes you can change even your deepest most fundamental beliefs but it requires equal deep fundamental desire to change. For example, having a baby that's asthmatic might be the motivation to quit cigarettes - something the person never could before.

A near death experience ran radically alter one's perceptions on life. So can a disastrous relationship or winning a lottery.

But can you do it without life giving you a kick in the groin first? Yes. The human brain cannot distinguish reality from vivid imagination. Ever remember doing something and then realized, no wait, that was just a dream? If you really want fundamental change in your beliefs you can consciously do so but it requires associating current beliefs with negative outcomes and a new belief with a positive outcome and vividly seeing that outcome in your head consistently over time until it takes hold.

Basically, that's what we always do, whether we are conscious of it or not.

Well for many years I pondered a similar idea, which once in college and taking philosophy had this idea confirmed and is considered a hard idea to wrap your mind around (+10 to me for thinking it up on my own) anyway its that every action, choice, and incident influences the next, if you choose to be friends with someone its because how they acted around you and you liked their impression, that friendship effects your future, so all in all like a domino effect, even a drastic change of heart suddenly is governed by something that happened where it could be anything from I wanted to do it to bipolar disorder, which that choice will effect something later on.

So to answer your question NO you don't make you're own choices as you choices are in some form affected by the past anywhere from something that happened to you or to the action of your parents conceiving you, meaning you wouldn't have the choice today if they had not got it on that night.

it depens on the country you live in---in america for the most part you can choose , but in countries like china and middle eastern they have more rules and more regulations on freedom of choice

They have rules about whether you can believe the moon is made of green cheese in ChIna? Reallly? If you can give me a reference for a law that that can regulate what you're allowed to believe in I would be interested.

That was not the question, That actually begs the question. Can you choose what you believe? If it based on what you want to believe then the question becomes "why do you want to believe something?"

So you're saying you can't change a belief that you have on a whim. You basically have to have a traumatic experience or some type of brain-washing to change beliefs.

Wow.  The Nintendo Discussion forum sure gets the odd threads.

 Well, if that's what you choose to believe.