Grey Acumen said: You've never made clear what I supposedly denied. So I don't see how I can misrepresent my view on it when my view was "unlikely =/= impossible" and also asking you to clarify what the hell you were talking about.

You changed your view. You originally said:

"Just because you've never been successful doesn't mean it's not possible."

Which is just as true as:

"Just because you've never been successful doesn't mean it's not impossible." 

 

fkusumot said: Final-Fan said: fkusumot said: A lot of interesting responses. Just to be clear, the question isn't "Can your beliefs change?", the question is "Can you choose your beliefs?" It's two very different things. Part of whatever your own personal answer to the question is will be determined by what you think a "belief" is. For myself a belief is something much different than a preference or an opinion. Thanks for all the thoughtful debate. When you say opinion, do you mean it in the sense close to preference or in the sense of "I think this is true but there is room for doubt"? If the latter, do you think the difference between belief and opinion is more than a matter of degree? I haven't given it considered the matter at length but I more or less considered those words to describe different parts of a spectrum that doesn't have clear breaks from one part to another. Beliefs are more deeply held convictions and/or closer to the core of one's personality, while opinions are less tightly held and/or much less vital to one's self. (Preference is a separate category IMO.) I would like to know what your thoughts on this are. Well, you called me out there. I won't go into detail too much about the history. It was one of the major subjects in Plato's "Theaetetus" (over 2000 years old). Myself I hew very closely to the strangers view. - There is "preference" which can also be an "opinion" such as the typical "chocolate or vanilla" question. - There is "belief" which is conditional, neither true nor false all the time, or even necessarily referring to things that are real or unreal. - There is "true belief" which is what is generally called knowledge. -------- What I find rather amusing is that some people are arguing that it's possible to intentionally choose to be delusional. Think about that, how can it be delusional if you know it's untrue?

It's simple, well not really but bear with me.

Eventually you forget that it's fasle.  You start off telling yourself a lie every day and shutting out the counter point, and eventually you start believing the lie.

It would be very similar to people who start believing their own lie.  Like say I started a cult to steal peoples money by presenting myself as god, but eventually actually do start believing I am god.

It would be similar to do the same, though very hard as why would someone choose to intentionally be delusional.

 

 

^if you tell your self that it is after a while you start to question if it inst...then you start to believe it is....and finally get to the point where you try to convince others it is as well

fkusumot said: Grey Acumen said: You've never made clear what I supposedly denied. So I don't see how I can misrepresent my view on it when my view was "unlikely =/= impossible" and also asking you to clarify what the hell you were talking about. You changed your view. You originally said: "Just because you've never been successful doesn't mean it's not possible." Which is just as true as: "Just because you've never been successful doesn't mean it's not impossible."

I hardly see how that misrepresents my view. As other people have been successful, and if someone has been successful that DOES mean that something is possible, but simply not having been successful does not prove something to be or not be possible. I never stated that nothing is impossible, but in this particular case i am pointing out merely that the state of impossibility has not been proven, whereas possibility has been shown already, i simply didn't raise that issue because the only point I was replying to was the point about the impossibility.

So where exactly does the misrepresentation come in? 

 

Grey Acumen said: I hardly see how that misrepresents my view. As other people have been successful, and if someone has been successful that DOES mean that something is possible, but simply not having been successful does not prove something to be or not be possible. I never stated that nothing is impossible, but in this particular case i am pointing out merely that the state of impossibility has not been proven, whereas possibility has been shown already, i simply didn't raise that issue because the only point I was replying to was the point about the impossibility. So where exactly does the misrepresentation come in?

 Where has it been shown that it is possible to "intentionally choose to be delusional"?

superchunk said: You can always choose to believe in anything. I choose to believe every girl gamer I talk to on the web/games is semi-nude and extremely hot. Is it remotely true, probably not, but that doesn't mean I can't believe in it.

 But do you actually believe it?  No, you don't.  To believe it, you'd have to be convinced it was true - which is the crux of the question fkusumot was asking...

kenzomatic said: choirsoftheeye said: The number of people who answered the questions "Can you change your habits?" or "Do people have free will?" rather than the question asked makes me die a little inside. The question of free will is directly related to whether or not you can choose your beliefs.

 It's somewhat related.  It's a precursor to answering the question - free will indicates you have choice in your actions, or at least some of them.  However, universal application of that, even by people who believe in it, is stupid.  You have involuntary actions that don't even have the illusion of free will (see, for example, your heartbeat).  Given that fundamentally believing in something isn't like eating an apple - it's not something that you just do, it has to be deeper and more consistent, and be something that you're convinced is true, the question becomes significantly trickier...

fkusumot said: Grey Acumen said: I hardly see how that misrepresents my view. As other people have been successful, and if someone has been successful that DOES mean that something is possible, but simply not having been successful does not prove something to be or not be possible. I never stated that nothing is impossible, but in this particular case i am pointing out merely that the state of impossibility has not been proven, whereas possibility has been shown already, i simply didn't raise that issue because the only point I was replying to was the point about the impossibility. So where exactly does the misrepresentation come in?   Where has it been shown that it is possible to "intentionally choose to be delusional"?

Yeah - you can lie to yourself, but that's not being fundamentally delusional, it's pretending to be believing something you're not.

tombi123 said: chriscox1121 said: All athiest deep down battle with their soul about the existence of God. They say "soul I don't believe" the soul says "o yes you do". And this is a repeated cycle until the atheist death. They are all doubters and use extreme amount of intensive rhetoric to spread their "truth". blah blah blah...save me the garbage....Atheism is a joke. Bottom line they hate God and Christians...oh and accountability for their evil deeds.  Bolded part: If I was to say Christianity was a joke I would get banned from this site, so I think you should be banned for saying that. OT: Sometimes I want to believe in God, sometimes I want their to be an afterlife. But I just cant beleive in God, I just know that God doesn't exist. (Note that this God has nothing to do with Christianity or any other religion). I don't think anything could convince me that a God existed. If God were to appear and start to speak to me, I would question my own sanity before believing in God. Having said that, I went to a christian primary school and used to believe in God when I was like 5, but I changed my belief. So I suppose you can choose what you believe.

Isn't that being close minded? I am always willing to hear about other religions and what people say. Never once changed my view, but my prepective on life has changed. Whether its from getting older I don't know.

And no. You wouldn't get banned for calling Christianity a joke. Far too many people bash it and there are very few banned.

fkusumot said: Grey Acumen said: I hardly see how that misrepresents my view. As other people have been successful, and if someone has been successful that DOES mean that something is possible, but simply not having been successful does not prove something to be or not be possible. I never stated that nothing is impossible, but in this particular case i am pointing out merely that the state of impossibility has not been proven, whereas possibility has been shown already, i simply didn't raise that issue because the only point I was replying to was the point about the impossibility. So where exactly does the misrepresentation come in? Where has it been shown that it is possible to "intentionally choose to be delusional"?

Well, you'd agree that there are cases of scam artists and such being eventually taken in by their own lies, correct?  If so, it's not such a stretch to think that if some people intentionally tried to duplicate that phenomenon, some of them would be successful.  So you could say that they would have chosen to become delusional, even though the choice and the delusion would not be (and, it seems to me, cannot be) simultaneous. 

On the other hand, "become" is not the same as "be", and as I said, I don't think that the choice and the delusion can logically be simultaneous.