Would your belief in theism be different if you did not have a fear of losing the belief even if not true? To what extent does this fear compete with your desire for accurate beliefs?
AND Assuming no fear of losing Theism if Theism was not true, then
THEN I would drop Theism as soon as I convinced myself it wasn’t true
Other variations on the above format:
IF Assuming Theism was not true
AND Assuming there is fear of losing Theism if Theism was not true, then
THEN I would drop Theism as soon as I convinced myself it wasn’t true
ONLY IF I overcame my fear of losing Theism.
I would expect convincing myself Theism isn’t true would be harder than overcoming my fear of losing Theism. This leads into your question:
To what extent does this fear compete with your desire for accurate beliefs?
You are implying a scenario more like the following:
IF Assuming Theism was not true
AND Assuming there is fear of losing Theism if Theism was not true, then
THEN I would convince myself Theism wasn’t true
ONLY IF I overcame my fear of losing Theism.
Which is a subtle but important difference. I like to think that my fear wouldn’t cloud my ability to perceive the truth… but I don’t actually know how to verify that. Signs seem to point the exact opposite way, in fact.
I suppose one solution would be to lesson my fear in losing Theism, which seems to be the route pjeby suggested in another comment.
Would your belief in theism be different if you did not have a fear of losing the belief even if not true? To what extent does this fear compete with your desire for accurate beliefs?
Ah, okay. Bullet point answers:
IF Assuming Theism was not true
AND Assuming no fear of losing Theism if Theism was not true, then
THEN I would drop Theism as soon as I convinced myself it wasn’t true
Other variations on the above format:
IF Assuming Theism was not true
AND Assuming there is fear of losing Theism if Theism was not true, then
THEN I would drop Theism as soon as I convinced myself it wasn’t true
ONLY IF I overcame my fear of losing Theism.
I would expect convincing myself Theism isn’t true would be harder than overcoming my fear of losing Theism. This leads into your question:
You are implying a scenario more like the following:
IF Assuming Theism was not true
AND Assuming there is fear of losing Theism if Theism was not true, then
THEN I would convince myself Theism wasn’t true
ONLY IF I overcame my fear of losing Theism.
Which is a subtle but important difference. I like to think that my fear wouldn’t cloud my ability to perceive the truth… but I don’t actually know how to verify that. Signs seem to point the exact opposite way, in fact.
I suppose one solution would be to lesson my fear in losing Theism, which seems to be the route pjeby suggested in another comment.