Is Choice Only Legitimate if it's the Choice You Would Make?

@ParaTed2k (22940)
Sheboygan, Wisconsin
July 24, 2009 4:29am CST
We talk about freedom of religion, and freedom of choice, but we often treat the two as almost separate things that never meet. We act as if learning anything of the spirit somehow inhibits our ability to make choices for ourselves. This seems wierd because we usually consider learning new things important to making choices. We see that we can't really have freedom of choice if we never learn the options available. That seems to be forgotten when talking about spiritual things. Atheists and agnostics consider any study into theology as a corruption of education. Those of us who do believe in one god or another make the same accusations if the learning involves something other than their own paradigm. I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Life every other Mormon, I am a member by choice. Like every one of us, I have the ability to choose to continue being a Mormon and live the Gospel as best I can; continue being a Mormon but not living the lifestyle that goes with it; or just choosing another way and getting on with my life. If I did so, I am just as free to choose a different religion, or none at all as I have ever been before. You could take any reference to the LDS Church and replace it with any spiritual path you choose (or even Atheist or Agnostic) and it would work just as well. So why is it that we put spiritual things in a category separate from education. I don't mean public schools; that is a whole different topic. How does learning what others believe limit our understanding so much that it keeps us from deciding for ourselves?
1 person likes this
2 responses
Latrivia
@Latrivia (2878)
• United States
3 Aug 09
Kindly don't confuse us simple atheist/agnostics with loathesome anti-theists. I hate people thinking I look down on religion or the religious as a general rule of thumb simply because I'm an atheist. I actually find theology to be interesting, and see no problem with others furthering their education into the field of theology. However, I draw the line at forcing public school students to study certain religious beliefs as some sort of "educational alternative" to the real thing (i.e. creationism vs. evolution). Study theology in college, or in a high school theology class where it can be studied from an objective point of view.
katran
@katran (585)
• United States
25 Jul 09
The thing that bothers me about non-religious people is that they usually say a person needs to educate themselves before they decide to believe God exists, but when a person DOES educate themselves and comes to the conclusion that God DOES exists, a non-religious person will normally scoff and say that they are ignorant or that they did not research enough or that they are believing everything they hear. So, in other words, education means nothing. It is only the choice at the end that matters, and if the choice is not the one that you think the person should make, then obviously you were stupid to make that choice. I HATE this mentality. I like to think I spend more time than most people researching other religions and other points of view, but I am still always only happy with mine. Yet people still call me uneducated, stupid, and naive all the time. So, to answer the question in your title, I think that there are many people out there who would say yes.