I think that’s a very different debate… But I would say that it depends. Some people incorporate the teachings of their old religious affiliation into new beliefs. Some do not. That said, I don’t think you can quantify this “some important sense” you speak of in any case.
Wanted to add this in edit but was too late: The only way religion is NOT a choice is if the adherant knows of no other religions at all and thinks that everyone in the world believes as they do. And not many people live in caves isolated from the rest of the world these days…
Did you miss the “certainly not” part of my post?
I interpreted that as you were saying a negative to what I was saying, not agreeing with me. So we agree that even someone staying with the religion they were born into is still a choice?
Unquestionably.
Cool. Wouldn’t want any Pit threads started about me… 
There’s a perfectly good one already. 
As a scientist, I’d say “very interesting, but preliminary until replicated on an independent sample”.
PLoS ONE is an odd journal as traditional scientific journals go. I’m not knocking it - I have several papers published there (2 this year alone). PLoS ONE reviews papers only on the technical aspects of the science, not the context or “sexiness” of the work. That is, if the authors sampled their population correctly, measured their data according to proper procedures, and analyzed their data by proper statistics, it’ll get published no matter how crazy.
Not to say the reviewers take it easy. We had extremely thourough reviews on our work. But PLoS ONE will eventually publish almost anything, as long as it is techically correct. In my view, this is a good thing, as many scientists have data sitting there that would never have been published an a regualr journal; PLoS ONE gives an outlet for these data.
Some crazy stuff has been published there. But I’m willing to bet that some of that crazy stuff will turn out to be very important.