Just as the title says. Can you choose to believe something? Choose to not believe it? Or are beliefs things which we can only change through much mental/physical/emotional work/experience?
There are things about my old belief system which still haunt me. Though I don't believe in God, I still feel emotional about deconverting and I am often angry at God for, well, not existing. It's a complex feeling. I suspect that it may be that I didn't resolve my anger with God before I stopped believing, and so it is left unresolved with no one to place it on. :P
So how can how make yourself stop believing, or change your beliefs? Is being an atheist a choice?
For me, this was not a choice--it was a realization of the truth. Not necessarily the objective Truth; MY truth that I did not really believe in God, and did not believe God could help me because he doesn't exist.