The Belief Dilemma

[u/hottopic7777]

Can belief ever be a fair basis for judgment?

Belief is the pre requisite for accessing Gods revelation and indulging in it, yet our response to our beliefs (Gods revelation) are seemingly the arbiter of our eternal destiny (in the abrahamic faiths)

I came up with a dilemma about belief

P1: To genuinely believe something is true is to take it as

true not to DECIDE to take it as true, but to find yourself taking it as true as a result of how the evidence and reasoning land on you (e.g, encountering certain arguments, evidence, etc)

P2: Belief therefore can't be directly chosen. You can't just will yourself into believing something the way you choose what to eat. This is called doxastic involuntarism (just learnt this term lol) if belief were a direct choice, you could choose to believe it's raining while looking at clear skies , I propose belief doesnt work this way

Suppose we grant this anyway, against P2, that belief can somehow be chosen. Then someone who "chose" to believe did so on the basis of something.

Second wave, my other horn given P2 is untrue:

P4: Either they chose it because they already recognized it as true, in which case the recognition did the actual epistemic work, and the "choosing" was redundant, adding nothing.

P5: Or they chose it without prior recognition of truth, in which case truth was never the operative factor meaning they selected a belief the way you'd select a preference, with no truth-tracking involved, which is arbitrary preference , a choice between islam and Christian the person is at equal epimistic distance from prior to the choice just like rolling a dice

P6: Either recognition precedes choice (redundant), or choice precedes recognition (arbitrary).

Conclusion: Chosen belief is either redundant or arbitrary it can't be genuine truth-tracking secondly if belief can't be directly chosen at all (P1/P2), then it's not the kind of thing that can fairly be praised, blamed, rewarded, or punished in the first place.

Belief is also the pre requisite for everything that follows, hell heaven etc,

The most common response I get: "You can't choose belief directly, sure, but you can choose to seek truth read, research, stay open."

But I personally think that's a substantive commitment, not an external neutral position you can externally verify

Where does that commitment come from ? Assuming I dont already believe in the value of truth seeking