Christianity

What exactly is that selection?

And have you bothered to check Christianity?

You ask yourself how likely it is that you will find the truth there.
It would not seem worth a deeper examination to me (I know the basic principles).

If the whole idea of examining and rationalizing our beliefs is just to provide us with comfort in what we already tend to believe, but we don't really base our beliefs on rational examination (just on crude intuition), than what's the whole point of it? It won't actually say anything objectively about the world, etc., beyond justifying one's biased position.

Very true.

It turns out that belief (and inquiry) is essentially not a factual claim about the world, but an excuse for why I'm not crazy for thinking somehow?!
But what if someone (psychologist/sociologist) could come up with better excuses for why we tend to have certain intuitions – what value does this intuition still have – other than being my invention with no reason to abandon it?
Is that what you call rational?

It turns out? How does it turn out? It turns out from what you wrote, not from what I wrote.
You wrote that if I search only to justify my a priori belief, it is not a straightforward search and does not have much value. As I wrote, that is completely true. But what does this have to do with what I wrote? I did not write that the search is intended to justify my beliefs, but that I navigate the search according to my common sense and choose what to focus on (after all, it is impossible to examine all the possibilities to the end). This is done in every area of life, and the same is true in faith. What does this have to do with what you wrote?