Can We Choose Our Beliefs?
First of all… What exactly is a belief?
A belief is an odd thing. It isn’t quite fact, nor is it pure fancy.
An opinion someone holds about the contents of consciousness, regardless of empirical evidence to prove it as factually accurate.
The Ancient Greeks seem to have two concepts that define aspects of belief. Pistis basically means to have faith or trust in something, like a Christian would have in Jesus being the Son of God. Doxa is closer to public opinion or a widely accepted belief, like most people believing in the concept of money. You could also distinguish having a ‘belief-in’ something/someone or a ‘belief-that’ something can or can’t happen.
The beliefs we hold serve the purpose of impacting the actions we take. In some cases, we may think or state we believe one thing, but our actions betray that belief. This is evidence of an underlying or conflicting belief we hold.
Beliefs are not necessarily useful for pointing at what is true. Some beliefs are true, but not all. Many of our beliefs can’t be proven to be true or false; they are unfalsifiable.
A delusion takes the true/false continuum to the extreme: it’s a belief in something when the likelihood of it being so, is clearly nil — at least to outside observers.
This article will be taking into account the broad spectrum of beliefs, from ones that are justified and true (knowledge) to justified and false and ones that are widely accepted as delusional.
A note on free will
I don’t intend to make an argument about free will here and, purely for the sake of this discussion, I’ll assume that we do have free will to make at least some choices.
And why would we want to choose our beliefs?
What kid wants to stop believing in Santa? Inevitably however, some chump comes along and breaks the bad news: there is no Santa. It’s more often than not, a pretty sucky day in any child’s life.
Of course, I could tell you I believe I am a dog or Queen Elizabeth or that I am on Mars right now. I can pretend as much as I want, but that’s not the same as believing that those things are true. Inside, I know these are just words and my experience feels like a different reality.
Similarly, our actions can appear like we believe one thing, when our inner experience contradicts it. I went to church with my family for many years, but if someone asked me if I really believed a man 2,000 years ago was nailed to a cross and three days later, busted out of his own tomb, I wouldn’t bet £10 on it.
We hold some beliefs more tightly than others. For example, if you asked me if I believe all rodents are polygamous, I might tell you with 90% certainty that yes, I believe they are. If you then point me to an article that describes the mating habits of Prairie voles, I’m not going to argue with you and tell you they got their facts wrong or are interpreting the literature incorrectly. I’m not invested in the mating lives of rodents quite enough to cling to my original belief.
So can we make choices that will affect our beliefs?
You might have doubts about your religion. At this point you have a choice to ignore those doubts, or dig in deeper. Whether the urge to do either of these is within our control, is another matter.
Currently, I believe the earth is round. But, having not seen with my own eyes the globe I’ve seen replicated in books and other media, I can be open to other possibilities.
The choice I have is deciding whether or not I look into other theories, like the earth being flat.
It’s possible, if I choose to research this enough, I might find a good argument as to why the earth is indeed flat, and with this additional information I could end up changing my beliefs.
However, the knowledge that I have a choice is not up to me. Unless I come across the possibility that the earth could be another shape, I don’t have a choice in what I believe. Choice comes when an alternative enters the picture and becomes viable.
We can choose to look, but we can’t choose what we find.
Can we practise being better at questioning our beliefs?
Yes, in the personal development world, as cheesy as it sounds changing your ‘mindset’ is a lot of the work that gets done. Working one-to-one with a coach or a therapist, someone can state a belief without realising it themselves. The coach then picks up on that as a belief and if they see it as clearly preventing that person from doing something or moving forward in some way, they can help the client by challenging that ‘limiting’ belief.
The advantage of this is, over time, many people who work in a coaching or therapeutic system will find themselves more able to readily catch and question their own beliefs, at least some of the ones that are clearly unhelpful.
For example, if my coach asks if I’m happy in my job, and I say I’m not but I’m not qualified to get a better one, they might stop me and ask me to question that belief. Do I know for sure I’m not qualified for a better job? What have I tried before?
This line of questioning, as annoying as it can be to the receiver, I’ve found to be immensely helpful for catching my own beliefs, positive and negative. Over time, I’ve become a firm believer (hah) that this is a practice we can improve at.
Are some beliefs beyond the possibility of doubt?
For instance, I doubt there are many children, who after hearing or seeing something that suggests there is no Santa Claus, persist in their beliefs in spite of contradictory evidence. They don’t cling to the belief, and continue to expect Santa to arrive every Christmas Eve. However, a child who is brought up in a religious household, who goes to a religious school and hangs out with people of the same religion in college, might have a harder time questioning their beliefs.
One might argue that this is because not all beliefs are created equal. It’s possible that Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha have much richer stories and structures around them than Saint Nick. But I argue it’s not the belief itself that is any better or worse, but the value and quality of the impact it has in our lives.
For example, the possibility of burning in hell for all eternity if I don’t believe in something is something I really don’t want to risk. But not believing in Santa doesn’t mean I don’t get any presents — it just means I now know my parents are responsible for buying them. Which, despite the fact this makes them lying scum, they’re also pretty cool for putting on such a show for me and buying me brightly coloured plastic each year. The risk is much lower when I change my mind about Santa being alive and real, than about Jesus being the son of God.
In this way, there seems to be a sliding scale or a tipping point between beliefs that serve us a little bit to beliefs that serve us a LOT. The ones that have us thinking we will be rewarded after death might give meaning to our current existence and make life bearable are on one end of the scale; others like Santa and the Easter Bunny don’t offer quite so much in terms of giving us a reason to live.
Can we believe what we want to believe?
If this means we believe what we do because it gives us something that makes us feel better, safer, more important, powerful, etc. then would it behoove us to decide what we want to feel, and pick our beliefs based on that?
Could that even be done? What about belief systems that condemn doubt?
Let’s say it could. What would that even look like?
It might start with some reverse engineering. If a belief is chosen because it meets some great need we have, then we could start with a particular need. I need to feel… safe. Yes, most humans will agree that a desire for safety is on some level a core drive, and one we generally can’t change*.
I could consider what areas of my life I could feel more safe in. My finances for example. It would naturally make me feel more safe in that area if I had some more money coming in, so I can then consider some possible beliefs that I could have, that might assist my finances.
My choices might be to believe in the stock market, and invest some cash, buying some shares. Or I could choose to believe in the Law of Attraction, and make a vision board to remind myself that I AM ABUNDANT… Alternatively I could go about making a plan to supplement my income with a multi-level marketing product, because I believe I can sell idiots anything.
Some of these choices might, on a quantifiable level, be more effective at improving my financial situation than others. In that way, some beliefs are ‘better’ than others, because they’re more likely to produce a result that benefits us. Unfortunately, many humans simply aren’t very good at choosing the beliefs that serve us best. Otherwise I suppose we’d all be millionaires with six-pack abs.
In addition to our drives and innate urges affecting our beliefs, are our values. Our values come into play when we have to make a decision that the empirical data doesn’t give us a clear answer for. At some point, we come to a decision that can only be based on what we truly value.
“A value-system structures the very way you perceive the world.”
~ Jordan Peterson
The outcome is a belief; a decision to perceive the world or act in a certain way, based on our values. These values can be enough to override our needs or desires, through the decisions we make. A vampiric human might feel the urge to satisfy their bloodlust through killing their next door neighbour’s cat and draining it’s blood. However, that same individual might value the wellbeing of their neighbour more than their need to satisfy themselves, and chooses to stay well away from their feline companion. They believe it would be better to get their fix elsewhere.
Regardless, I am making a choice now, driven by my pre-determined drives and values. The choice I make is based on multiple factors, from my IQ to my upbringing to the culture I was born into to what I watched on Youtube last Tuesday.
Some of these factors I had a say in, but most of them were chosen for me or out of my control. I didn’t choose the recommended videos on my Youtube feed, and I didn’t choose my parents (or did I? Maybe I did and I forgot? Again, just a belief.)
The only thing I can choose is to remain open. Open to the idea that whatever I choose, regardless of how I feel about it or how many numbers I see that confirm it: is still just a belief. And for each belief I have, there are alternatives.
What I personally want from readers of this article is a bit more honesty. Let’s be honest about what we believe. We don’t believe something because it’s FACT or TRUTH. We believe what we believe because we want to. Because it gives us something better than what we perceive as ignorance. Or it gives us a sense of possibility, security or freedom — even if it doesn’t deliver on that in a practical way.
On some level, everything we believe is a choice. We just don’t have control over the drives we have that makes us choose.
*Unless of course, we become infected with toxoplasma. Infected subjects are more often aroused by their own fear, danger, and sexual submission although they practice more conventional sexual activities than Toxoplasma-free subjects.
