Is Faith a Cognitive Error?

[marylandblue]

49. Don't we choose all of our beliefs?

We start off young, basically choosing to believe our parents most of the time, except when they spout apparent nonsense like "too much candy will make you sick." Then as we get older, we gather more evidence, perhaps getting sick from candy and changing our beliefs. Or perhaps determining we got sick from something else, then, for totally unrelated reasons, becoming fat.

We may one day hear of a relationship between candy consumption and fatness. Despute it's patent absurdity, we decide to test the candy-fat relationship for 3 days or so, feeling crappy and losing no weight, thereby disproving the ridiculous and harmful theory. Or we go on a diet for a year, losing 30 pounds and think that there might actually be some connection and thereby become an acandist. Sadder but skinnier, we continue our lives without the comfort of candy.

Alternatively, we may simply dismiss the idea that candy causes fatness and remain a candist for the rest of our short but happy lives.

So it's not like we suddenly choose one belief or another, but a series of small choices along the way, whether we going to accept what we we always thought, or try out new ideas to explore and eventually adopt.

I don't think anyone believes anything without evidence of some sort. The issue is what constitutes evidence. Often the evidence is "my parents told me" or "it make me feel good." Not scientific evidence, but still a type of evidence.