Thanks for taking the time to listen and to post comments.

I often make the point that I have no choice but to disbelieve. I cannot "choose" to believe something that my logic says doesn't exist - I would know that I was lying to myself. (This in answer to Pascal's Wager.)

Do believers "choose" to believe? Every believer I have met has been very sincere, so they certainly are not consciously lying to themselves. I usually diplomatically say that they have reached a conclusion that is not warranted by the (lack of) evidence and reason. (This is a nice way to open a conversation about what constitutes evidence and reason.)

Or, to put it another way, we both look at the same reasons and evidence and come to different conclusions. But can we help which conclusions we reach? Maybe believers only "choose" to believe because they have not heard the atheist gospel (good news) yet.

There is also the question of whether we have free will at all, which I tend to doubt. If there is no free will, then "choice" is a meaningless term.