And yet, here we are. 

It is just as much a choice as most things are. Even the Bible says that. People may be born into a certain religion however we all have the choice at some point in our lives to decide whether to put our faith in those that taught that religion or to put our faith elsewhere and move on to some other religion or no religion at all. Your life experiences are the results of choices you make. You may have very little control as a child but I assure you the choices we have as adults are boundless and heavily influence what one's life experiences will be.

I totally understand what you stated. You stated that believing in any particular religion is not a choice and I strongly disagree. Of course it is something that is is a product of one's environment and life experiences but it is a choice.

Total BS. Logically if there was a God it could allow or disallow pain and suffering. So there are three and maybe more possibilities. The belief in a God is one of faith since the existence of such a supernatural being cannot be proven. You have faith that the people who taught you such things are revealing some truth.

There is nothing contentious in my statement. The bible states that people are given free will and are given the ability to choose to believe or not to believe and to sin or not to sin. Different religions use different ways of trying to steer their followers in a certain direction however people do have the ability to make choices.

The focus of my argument is believing in God, not in adopting a particular religion...though I may have seemingly used "God" and "religion" interchangeably (and quite mistakenly if it seems that way), let's be very clear on this before we progress further...

Semantics is key here (hence why I have put many words in quotes)...I am in no way making an argument in regards to free will or predestination (which is how it seems you have interpreted my points)...I am merely classifying the "choice" to believe in God as a different type of "choice" than the trivial decisions we typically make...my distinction is not based on the importance of the "choice" as much as the nature of the choice...the conscious decision making we generally attribute to most choices simply is not the same in regards to God and the existence thereof...faith based decisions are different types of "choices" that are grounded in feelings, intuition, and psychological phenomenon...faith based decisions are driven primarily by past experiences and reactionary feelings while trivial decisions are the products of decision trees that utilize logic, reasoning, and some intuition...

You seem to have recognized this difference though have taken my statements to be affirmations of predestination which is just not the case...

You are looking at hypothetical universes that are irrelevant...pain and suffering do exist, and analyzing imaginary universes where they do not exist is not going to accomplish anything...on a slight tangent, even if that was relevant, we'd be left with four universes as we have two dualities compounded with each other (a universe with both God and suffering, a universe with God but not suffering, a universe with suffering but not God, and a universe with neither)...

Since pain and suffering exist, the only other variable (in this simple argument) is the existence of God...that clearly leaves us with two possibilities: 1) God exists and suffering exists or 2) God doesn't exist but suffering exists...

It follows then that either 1) God creates or at least allows suffering or 2) God does not exist...I have simply extracted the parts of each possibility that are the most discomforting or problematic...from there, I still stand by my statement that how one feels about each of these possibilities is a huge contributing factor to their belief or disbelief in God...and I would again stress that feelings are not choices, they simply happen (creating an indirect relationship between decision-making and faith)...

You may believe this, and your church/community may believe this, but that does not make it a fact...the bible does not just state "people are given free will", it just doesn't...the concept of free will is highly contentious in general and your statement is 100% opinion...there are specific scriptures that can and have been used to argue for or against the allowance of free will in a given religion, but using evidence to support a conclusion doesn't make the conclusion fact, just a very informed opinion...

Different religions acknowledge varying degrees of free will, and in some cases salvation is clearly and explicitly dissociated from choice (as in the case of Lutheranism)...that is just one example, though if you really believe free will is a universal consensus I encourage you to do research...you will find many instances of loopholes or tweaked semantics that help coalesce free will with omnipotence...likewise, both sides of the issue rely heavily on "informed" or "unique" interpretations of scriptures, some of which on the surface seem to contradict each other....

I am by no means arguing in favor of predestination or against the notion of free will, and I will stress again that the main point of my argument is a distinction between a faith based "choice" and a trivial choice...

Not necessarily...deistic thinking holds that God does not actively interact with the world, but rather provided the initial conditions for a dynamic system that follows specific natural laws to guide its evolution...

With our present understanding of the universe and science, it is hard to coalesce all aspects of theology with science...for example, if we grant that Jesus actually walked on water, how do we explain it scientifically?  An inability to provide an explanation would suggest that God actively interacts with the universe, though a scientific optimist would put faith in science and argue that a scientific explanation does exist, we just haven't found it yet...

Science is promising in its ability to "crack all the answers", but I think the jury is still out on whether science will actually accomplish that goal...we have yet to solidly prove whether the universe is deterministic or not, and without that, science requires just as much faith as religion in answering fundamental philosophical questions...

That's funny you say that considering I just said the same thing... 

I specifically stated that the two terms cannot be used interchangeably, and I specifically made a point to clarify my argument in light of my error that I already admitted and have corrected...I don't know if you just read the first sentence of each paragraph or what's going on but it can't get any more clear than that...

My argument has nothing to do with free will...I am not advocating any particular theistic view or arguing against the idea of free will...if anything my argument implies free will...

This example suggests how the consequences of a chosen action affect one's beliefs...that inherently implies actions are choices and therefore products of free will...

Pain and suffering is simply one example...certainly there are countless other things that one can be exposed to that will arose feelings that affect how one thinks, and I have in no way implied pain and suffering is the only life experience that affects one's thinking...I simply picked a very specific example to work with as specificity helps demonstrate certain points better than abstractness...that, and I also have no desire to construct a "proof by exhaustion"...

Well that certainly makes sense in terms of how you would view religion, though that has very little to do with God....of course, it's your life experiences and if the abundant hypocrisy of religion has affected your belief (or lack thereof) of God well then so be it...your anecdote I think is quite typical, as it seems many (though not all) atheists have come to reject the notion of God due to the questionable history of religion... 

I would argue though that this conclusion of yours is based on a non sequitor, because God certainly can exist even if religion is completely fallacious...you have even contributed this statement:

Yours is a statement that clearly expresses God and religion to be independent of each other (ie you can have one without the other)...just as you can have a religion without a God, you can have a God without the "correct" religion...if the validity of religion is not necessary for the existence of God, then the invalidity of religion certainly should have no bearing on the issue...I am not criticizing your premise regarding the hypocrisy of religion, but rather I am questioning the logic used to make your conclusion...even if your premise regarding religion is absolutely correct, it does not follow from that premise that God doesn't exist, pointing to my statements earlier regarding faith-based decisions and the human mind...

Science essentially can not determine anything that has happened without leaving some form of evidence humans are capable of observing.

It's more than likely (in fact, probable certainty) that there is more we are not capable of observing than there are things we have already observed even the mere effects of.

Damn and blast....sucked in...

Seatbelt use and cellphone use [while driving, I assume] has nothing to do with morality.

It's social responsibility.   The cost to the general community of people dying whilst [and because they were] unrestrained, and the reckless endangerment of other people while text-driving, etc.

I don't know about you however my morals are based on how my actions might affect others. Is that not the same as social responsibility?

It's like this: If you are an adult and even if you only have a middle school education than you have the tools to do the right thing. After that it's up to you.

All this other talk about science and God and abortion and all that is just a waste of time to me.

DO THE RIGHT THING AND EVERYTHING ELSE WILL FALL INTO PLACE.

Nice post, Wiz. 

Seems fair enough. Even the Big Bang has been modified by the enthusiasts to the possibility of a "primordial soup" rather than nothing.