Do you believe in God?

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Personally, I am not so exclusive in my thinking about other religions. In fact, again, it is the opposite case for me. My whole project in my intellectual pursuit of science, theology, and philosophy is to connect the dots.. and that means bringing all viewpoints from all sources of knowledge and disciplines together... analyzing our experience systematically and comprehensively... and thinking outside the box. Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and a whole slew of "systems of philosophy" my favorites being Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Berkeley, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Whitehead, and Alan Watts all merge together in my mind to build an extremely complex system of ideas that influence the balance of my scale that measure the weight of my assessment of the truth about the question of the existence of something like what we all know we are talking about and referring to when we use the word God in the affirmative.

Also, when this subject is raised, I feel compelled to point out that as Christians and theists, we believe that all men are created in the image of God. What does this mean? We are created in the vision of God... what he had in Mind. And we are also endowed with our own minds and free will. But we are of the essence of God. We have inscribed in our heart a moral sense and a self-awareness. The Abrahamic tradition tells the story of a broken world. Something went wrong that God did not foresee. I speculate that the metaphor of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil is precisely communicating this break in what was supposed to happen from what actually had happened. This is the story of the Fall. And incidentally, I believe, God recognized this brokenness... and how our degree of self-awareness and understanding/rationalizing corrupted the "play." So he has entered the minds eye of the various mystics throughout history through the holy spirit which is endowed in all of us as beings made in "the Image (Mind) of God" in order to inspire influence in "sufficient ways." for me, all of the worlds religions say the same thing, but in a different way. This is what frustrates me in a way, is that even the modern christian apologist, who is at the top of the intellectual game at this point in time, does not recognize the supplementary nature of the ideas contained in eastern religion/philosophy. Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Christianity go hand in hand for me as purely intellectual complementary systems. keep an eye out for a book by Noah Yates in the future on this connecting of the dots between all ideologies and disciplines.

"Not only is your atheism based on YOUR perception, but it is also YOUR choice to believe it."

No, it's based on acceptance of a chain of rational arguments. There is a vast difference between accepting an argument as both valid and true, and believing in a conclusion without having done so.

"When people claim that their atheism is simply a lack of belief in God, I remind them that agnosticism is actually what they mean, because if they are actually atheist they are positing the claim that there is no God"

Russell's Teapot applies here quite nicely. Atheists accept that not only has it been shown that a god or gods don't exist, they also are not needed, nor do they best explain any observable phenomenon other than those that originate within the minds of Men.

"I feel like people who say we cannot know anything about God are simply ignoring the actual content all of the worlds religions and the entire enterprise of metaphysics and epistemology and science"

Those examples explain much about Man and nothing about god or gods unless one presupposes its/their existence without needing proof. And that fits nicely with the worlds religions, metaphysics, etc. in that they exist not because of reason, but rather tradition (or Tradition, if you prefer).

Also, Pascal's wager only works in a purely heterogeneous (ie one religion) environment. In reality, based on the number of different gods across time and cultures, it is highly probable he would've chosen the wrong one.

My question is,

"Why do theists insist on trying to use reason & science to prove the existence of their god or gods when their realm has been relegated to the gaps?"

In other words, in the face of proof that the sun is the center of our solar system & we are on an arm of a galaxy, in the face of proof that germs exist and cause disease not immoral behavior, in the face of knowledge of what actually causes lightning and thunder...why keep trying to hold that argument together?

It's a losing battle as the gaps get smaller.

Why not regroup and simply let one's god or gods be responsible for the only thing it or they have ever expressed an interest in, the ethical behavior of people toward each other? Why is it so important to try to control the beliefs and lives of others?

You have demonstrated how superficial your understanding of theology is.

That is because the sentence was in reply to Edenthiel. My post and your post occurred simultaneously.