Belief is not a choice, but only a result

In response to your arguments, I'm happy to change the first premise to match your description, namely:1. Belief is not a choice, but only a result of evidenceI disagree with you that belief is not a choice. I somewhat agree with the second half of the premise, though I would say that belief is a result of reasoning based on the evidence and emotions we have. The evidence itself doesn't create beliefs. It's our examination of that evidence, as well as the pull of our emotions, that determines our beliefs.I agree with you that it's not always given that a certain action will result in a certain belief. And there are definitely some things that the evidence at hand makes it just too hard to believe. For example, it's just too much of a stretch for me to believe that instead of being a human sitting down at a computer, I'm actually an egg being cooked in a frying pan. No matter how hard I try, I can't convince myself that I'm being served sunny-side up. Similarly, there may just be too much evidence to the contrary in your life for you to believe in Christianity. That's fine and normal. There's nothing wrong with that.However, just because there are some things that we can't believe in, doesn't prove that we are powerless to change any belief. Any belief which lacks definitive evidence to back it up, or in situations where there are multiple possible beliefs, all with similar amounts and quality of evidence, can be changed. And these can be changed by making a conscious effort to change how we view the evidence. This is where the cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) comes into the picture. CBT has been shown to treat anxiety disorders with the same or better effectiveness as anti-anxiety medication. The way it does this is by teaching people how to change their beliefs, by changing their reasoning on the evidence and their emotions. A good example would be a husband who gets really anxious whenever his wife arrives late for anything, which she often does. A therapist would work with the man to discover the belief behind the anxiety (e.g. "My wife doesn't love me. She doesn't care enough about me to be on time"). Then the therapist would provide the man with a series of steps he can go through in the situation to reframe his view of the evidence. Namely, whenever he is feeling anxious because his wife is late, he can remind himself of all the loving things she's done, and think of her in a more realistic light (e.g. "She gave me a back massage yesterday when I was really tired, and said how much she loves me just this morning. Her calendar is always messed up, and she never gets back to her emails. She loves me, she's just very disorganized")By choosing to step back and take another look at the evidence at hand, the man in the example is able to change his beliefs, from ones that cause anxiety, to ones that are more reassuring. Making this change is a choice, and sufferers of anxiety know that, though it's not an easy choice, it's one that has great consequences.To sum up, just because there are beliefs we can't choose, doesn't mean that there aren't beliefs we can choose. CBT is a proven method of doing just that, choosing to change our beliefs by changing our reasoning of the evidence at hand.Before moving on, you mentioned a point under the next premise that I believe belongs under this one. Namely that those who believe in Christianity do not choose to do so, but instead come to that belief from having reasoned through the evidence at hand. I agree with you that the belief comes from analysis of evidence. However, I disagree that some can't choose to change their belief in God by choosing to change their reasoning of the evidence. I'll give a personal example for this one. I am Christian. Years ago I visited the concentration camp in Dachau, Germany. The horrific images and stories I saw there shook my belief in God to the core. For many years afterwards, I wrestled with the idea of the existence of God, and my belief wavered back and forth. Whenever I thought about the amazing wonders of the universe, and my own personal sense of a higher presence in my life, I was able to believe in the existence of a loving God. Whenever I thought about the horrific atrocities that humans do to each other, I couldn't believe in there being a loving God. I could literally choose what I believed based on what I chose to focus my mind on at the time.2. Christianity requires everyone to be able to believe in it to be validOf the two, I believe this premise is the more important one.You said "I've always understood Christianity to believe that the only way to God was through faith that Jesus was the savior. The text in the Bible is pretty clear on that."The problem here is that Christianity is not one set of beliefs. Christianity is a huge umbrella under which are a myriad of different beliefs. There are Roman Catholics, Baptists, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Methodists, Mormons, United, Jehovah's Witnesses, Amish, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Quakers, Messianic Jews, Adventists, Christian Scientists, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Unitarians and more. And then there are the many thousands of churches that are non-denominational, as well as all the people who are Christian who don't belong to any religious community.The Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary estimated that there were 45,000 different Christian denominations world-wide in 2014 (link below). Each group has its own unique beliefs, on who God is, what is the meaning of Jesus' life or death, what is required of believers and what is moral or ethical. It is nearly impossible to say categorically that Christianity believes X. You can't even use the Bible as a reference, as many denominations have their own versions of the Bible, or have additional holy texts that they use as scripture. And of course, each interprets their Bible and texts in a different way.If we are trying to look for a common thread between all denominations and believers, to be able to say definitively what is Christianity and what does it mean to be Christian, the one belief all of these people share is that they believe the story of Jesus will help them better understand, and thus will help them have a closer relationship with the Divine (a.k.a. God).I offer a link below to a United church's website where they literally state that "Christians don’t have to believe that Christianity is the only valid path to God." If you dig deeper, you'll discover they're not alone in that belief.Summary (a.k.a. TLDR)Although I agree that our beliefs are formed by our reasoning over the evidence we have at hand, I argue that we can choose to change those beliefs by choosing to change our reasoning. Just because there are beliefs that we can't choose to change, doesn't mean there aren't beliefs we can choose to change, and I have personal experience believing and then not believing in God, based on how I chose to frame my reasoning.Also, Christianity encompasses a huge range of different beliefs, and the only common denominator is that all Christians believe the story of Christ is spiritually valuable. Many Christians do not believe in religious exclusivity, and I have given an example of one of many churches that fall in this category.Links# of Denominations http://www.gordonconwell.edu...Also see: https://theway21stcentury.wordpress.com...and: http://en.wikipedia.org...Religious Exclusivity a Non-Requirementhttp://www.mvucc.org...P.S. I was considering debating the existence of Santa Claus, but didn't have enough room. Sounds like a fun topic for another debate here. :)