Wonderful, Oh this is good -

I tend to agree with you. I think that our beliefs are a set of inescapable conclusions we draw about the world based on our upbringing, disposition and life experience. For example, I was raised Christian, but I found very early on in life that I thought the whole thing was silly. I can't say that I 'chose' that line of thinking, but rather, that I arrived at it after reflecting on the teachings I had received in Sunday School. I don't think the difference is purely semantic. I think it's conceptual. If each of us simply chose what to believe, I think our beliefs would be disingenuous.

Sez Yudkowsky here:

This is why rationalists put such a heavy premium on the paradoxical-seeming claim that a belief is only really worthwhile if you could, in principle, be persuaded to believe otherwise. If your retina ended up in the same state regardless of what light entered it, you would be blind. Some belief systems, in a rather obvious trick to reinforce themselves, say that certain beliefs are only really worthwhile if you believe them unconditionally— no matter what you see, no matter what you think. Your brain is supposed to end up in the same state regardless. Hence the phrase, "blind faith". If what you believe doesn't depend on what you see, you've been blinded as effectively as by poking out your eyeballs.

If your eyes and brain work correctly, your beliefs will end up entangled with the facts. Rational thought produces beliefs which are themselves evidence.

If your tongue speaks truly, your rational beliefs, which are themselves evidence, can act as evidence for someone else. Entanglement can be transmitted through chains of cause and effect—and if you speak, and another hears, that too is cause and effect. When you say "My shoelaces are untied" over a cellphone, you're sharing your entanglement with your shoelaces with a friend.

Emphasis on the first sentence. Calling them "conclusions" rather than "beliefs" is quite powerful, I think. I agree with you both.