This is true for the better part of a person's development. We choose to believe things, thinking our sense of reason will lead us in the right direction. We rely on authority for many of our beliefs. We appeal to the popularity of belief in other cases. In some instances, the story or idea that elicits the most emotion is what we believe. Sometimes we believe things because we fear they are true. Other times we believe them because we fear they aren't true. There are many shortcuts we use to build our collection of beliefs, and these are called heuristics.Doc Manifest wrote:It's a simple matter of what you choose to believe.
Some people grow out of this phase, and realize that we shouldn't be choosing what we believe. We should instead sort through our beliefs with some sort of method, step by step in analytical fashion. Not using heuristics, which are usually fallacious, but logic instead. Logic alone isn't enough, of course. We also must apply rigorous trial and error to the real world, to test it bit by bit. This way, using methods that have throughout history lead us most often to truthful beliefs, we can be more confident that the end product is more truthful.
When you do it this way, letting proper method choose your beliefs rather than choosing them yourself, you end up with the truth. It's highly unlikely there is any invisible god. It's impossible there is any such god who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. The universe wasn't created as man's playground. Our vile behavior isn't a product of some magical force called sin. These are childhood fantasies that a sad percentage of adults still haven't outgrown. But these adults are the ones that still choose what to believe, not realizing there is another, better option.