My only response to this entire thread is that, yes I could choose what I want to believe.
And I only want to believe that which is true.
I would like my beliefs, and the behavior of the world to have some logical connection. There are many situation where no logical connection can be established. And I chose not to believe anything in those cases even though it runs counter to my wish to understand the world as fully as possible. Because I would rather file things under “don’t know, really hoping to find out” than just chuck anything inexplicable under “God, Judeo Christian variety”.
My previous experience lead me to hypothesis that there is a high likelyhood that a bible quote will seem appropriate at this point ( “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man commeth to the father but by me.” would fit I suppose ). Yes I have read the bible. No I was not struck by the great truth and love in the Bible. I was struck by how it tends to ramble, and how doing really bad things, when god likes you, is okay as long as you’re sorry and give mad props to god in the end. And I did notice that it was written by people who believe in it, which makes the source a bit biased.
I’d compare that to believing Amway products are the best, based on the word of your neighbor the Amway guy, who’s filled his garage so full of Amway merchandise he’ll be using it for the rest of his life. And his incontrovertable proof that it’s the best is that he never uses anything else. He’s biased, he’s invested, he can’t afford not to believe. I don’t have a garage full of Amway. My parents never bought the stuff. My garage is nice and empty and I find it rather peaceful not to worry about if my cleanser is as concentrated as yours.
And I think I should get a prize for longest, most mundane metaphor in this thread 
It comes down to choosing not to randomly assign beliefs based on what makes me feel good, what makes society see me as “good” person, or what I might wish were true (for instance, meeting all my loved ones again in the afterlife. ) That would be wonderful. So would being able to fly. And understand everything that we don’t now. And how about some really cool robes that are all white and never need dry cleaning? And a really big house, like a mansion, something like that. This apartment gets sort of cramped. And how about a really great landlord, who only wants me to be happy, and will have everything perfectly set up for me.
Heaven by it’s very definition is the purest example of wish fullfillment. I’m not saying that makes it untrue. But it supports the hypothesis that Man created the concept of God in the image of what he’d like to be, equally as well as the belief that God created man, and just really wants to give us good stuff, once we say the passwords and join the club.
If not better.
)