OneOfMany – True, no one really starts with a blank slate, as you explained. And you anticipated my response by saying, “even if you actively verify with conscious thought what you already believe all the way back to its foundation, you will eventually find that your reasoning must be predicated on some truth that you cannot validate.” However, I don’t accept your conclusion. For even if you find, as you say, that your reasoning must be predicated on some truth that you cannot validate; it is still your choice whether or not to accept that assumption which you cannot validate.
Here’s how I see things. Let’s divide up people’s actions into two categories; Day to Day Affairs and General Way of Life. Day to Day Affairs presents choices such as deciding between Walmart and Target. General Way of Life has choices such as deciding between Judaism and Zoroastrianism. In Day to Day Affairs I find it easy to accept that there is a realm of free choice which most people tap into. But in General Way of Life I find it difficult, mainly because I don’t think many people consider changing their way of life that you could say they ever made the conscious decision to stay. I do think that everyone has a “nekudas habechira,” but I think most people’s is limited to their Day to Day Affairs. But what is the significance of bechira in Day to Day Affairs when one’s General Way of Life is determined by the establishment and not by one’s own choice? What is the significance in the free choice one utilizes to wake up for davening when it is done only because of a premise one did not choose? Frumnotyehsivish is right; the Taliban fellow is no more a “bad” person than a frum Jew who never thought about his or her General Way of Life. Neither are bad; they’re both robots; utilizing free choice only when it comes to questions of apples and oranges.
I guess I am a bit confused about the concept in that the more I agree with it the more I fail to see its relevance.