Choosing to believe

Dude, I would love to believe that there really was a avuncular patriarchial god who would reunite me with lost loved ones if I towed the party line.But I just can't see it.I don't have any choice. To believe in xian god would be to lie to myself.

I would say that any one with a religious belief makes a conscious choice to believe. At one point you had no knowledge of your god, then the concept was presented to you by your immediate culture.If it was presented as fact the choice to believe was greatly restricted for you; if it was presented as an idea that may have some merit and you embrace it you have done so through choice. Not so. It could have been a hallucination, a pantomime moose, a life sized picture of a moose, a moose like object etc.One infers that it is a moose based on the sensory evidence you aquire. One can very easily get it wrong.