Daniel wrote:
"As for reality, my belief is that perception is the only certain reality."

Up to there, I agree with much of your essay and find its thoughtfulness encouraging.
That sentence needs more work. Most of the big words serve as widely varying values in the sentence-equation, so I cannot make any sense of it.

Daniel wrote:
"Only seldom (such as now) do I stop to wonder whether external physical reality exists."

Now that you are wondering, have you raised any
unresolved questions on the topic that are scientifically coherent and which you do not resolve by choosing a belief?


Daniel wrote:
"I choose to believe in the physical reality, and in ethics and morality, because existence without those things would be depressing and devoid of purpose."

Ethics is an excellent word, for it implies standards which conform to the idea of revision with improved understanding.
Morality is that word we have so much confusion with. It appears bound up with "a map that can never be modified" which you attributed to fundamentalists.
Is morality the same as ethics?
OR, is it one of those things about which you say,"I can't describe it, but I know when I see it."
If the latter, do you think there is an unexplored region of the mind with chores yet to be done (ie. time to explore it)? Morality is a mush word to me. If something is important enough to prohibit or require, it is important enough to put in a code of ethics.

That idea about God lying or not lying also seems a little weird. By definition, what kind of a universe or God _ would lie to us? It would be
one which saw us as an adversary or unworthy of trust...OR, one with so little confidence it was waiting for a chance to confide but was still too timid. That means it's being intimidated -- probably by spammers? :
Mike