I did not claim that we could choose what to believe. I said we are free to choose reasons for what to believe.
Fair point, of itself. Do you not think, though, that reinforces the idea that our reasons to belief are post hoc rationalisations of prior subconscious behaviour?
Perhaps I should have stated it more clearly as: We are free to seek reasons to support what we want to believe, and we are also free to seek reasons to support what we do not wish to believe.
In the interests of clarity - not that I find this one particularly an issue, but I know some do - there is no need for a reason not to believe.
For example, I have offered reasons to support the spiritual nature of human beings as it being a necessity which enables us to consciously drive our thoughts and conscious choices. Many have responded with reasons to dismiss this possibility based on the premise of such consciously driven freedom being an illusion.
To be fair you've claimed that we have such freedom, but not demonstrated that, and you've claimed that such freedom necessarily requires a spiritual dimension which you've neither demonstrated, adequately defined, shown is actually necessary or demonstrated is possible.
Sassy's opening post rightly observed that this forum shows evidence that many posters seek reasons not to believe in God.
No, it doesn't. There is no 'reason' not to believe, not believing is the default position. Until there's reason enough to believe, there is a lack of belief. I lack a belief in God, and I make arguments not to show that there isn't a god (because I'm an agnostic, and I don't think that can be done) but rather to show why I'm not convinced by the arguments put forward for any particular god.
I have offered some reasons to believe that there is more to reality than what can be determined from human scientific investigation of material behaviour.
Again, you've claimed that, but all of your arguments seem to fall foul of the argument from incredulity - you don't show it can't be material behaviour, you assert that it can't be because you don't believe it's possible for something that complicated to emerge without direction.
People have responded by quoting reasons why everything can or will eventually be explained by science alone.
They might have done, I've not interpreted any of the arguments quite like that, and I think if they're there it's a poor argument. We can, at this point, no more state that everything will be explained by science than we can state that something is definitively existent but outside of science. What we can say is that science is our most comprehensive and effective tool at the moment, that we have reason to presume that anything is outside of its remit and scope given enough time, and that if anyone wants to suggest that something falls outside of science then they need not just to explain what that is and why, but also what methodology is used to demonstrate that and why it should be considered reliable.
There may be things outside of sciences capacity to demonstrate that are real, but not only do we not have any reason currently to think so, we also don't have any other tools for demonstrating that it's so with any logical or practical validity.
I have not dwelt much on reasons to consider the content of the New Testament as giving meaning and purpose to our existence. Any mention of the Christian bible usually results in it being dismissed by such labels as fictitious, inconsistent, myth etc ...
That rather depends on the claim. If your argument is that are valuable lessons in the New Testament most people wouldn't argue, although they might point out that there are troubling messages as well. If your claim is that a particular element of the New Testament (particularly some of the magical exploits) is an accurate history, then people start to take exception.
But many people in modern times have discovered reasons to believe in the essential message of the NT.
Innumerable different denominations of Christianity can't come to an agreement about what the essential message of the New Testament is, which is further undermined when they attempt to reconcile that with the 'essential messages' of the Old Testamant which it claims to validate but which it profoundly contradicts in a number of significant ways.
Reasons such as the historic viability of the resurrection, the profound, world changing message of the Christian gospels, the miraculous conversion of Paul, the absurdity of the son of a Jewish carpenter - executed for blasphemy - with no written records of His own, becoming the most famous, influential individual who has ever lived.
Oh boy. The 'historic viability of the resurrection' is essentially zero. The message of Christianity has had a profound influence on the world; but it could be argued at length that this is less about the intrinsic worth or merit of the argument, and more about the fact that it was predominant in Western culture, which politically and economically spread its influence (and Christianity's influence with it) across the world. In particular, if you look at how much of the behaviour of Western culture meshed with 'the essential message of Christianity' during those times when it was being spread, if you look at how the most fervent, devoted and aggressive exporters and proponents of Christianity in the modern world are divorced from what many would consider to be the 'essential message of Christianity' then you have to conclude that Christianity's ubiquity is a byproduct of Western culture's dominance on the world stage through the late middle ages and into the Enlightenment, and it's current decline is a result of modern, secular values realising its limitations.
No, we cannot choose what to believe, but we do have freedom to seek, to find, to discover.
Yes, but we need to be mindful of our, possibly evolutionary, tendency towards type 1 errors; that is, of finding meaning in the random, of presuming intent where there is none.
We also have freedom to seek reasons to dismiss the possibility of God and of our spiritual nature.
We do, but we don't need reasons in the absence of any substantial argument in favour.
Such conscious freedom which comes from the spiritual power of the human soul - not from the physically predetermined reactions in a material brain.
He asserted...
O.
