Converting

[cleansed]

You said it is not entirely cogent to pray to a God that you don't believe in, but isn't that the point of studying the bible in the first place?  You are studying to learn about who God is and so naturally you should be open to the idea of applying what you've learned to seek God out.  Something brought you to it, even if it was just a curiosity.  You could liken it to knocking on a door to see if someone is there.  When you pray to Jesus you are inviting Him to open the door and show you He is real.

You're describing motivations that don't apply to anyone but a person who already believes in gods.

They also apply to people who don't know whether God exists but are open to the idea.  They apply to seekers who can be of practically any kind of belief or mixture of beliefs.  Seekers are generally people who are exploring what life is all about and whether there is a higher meaning.

It applies to people who have had experiences that they can't explain.  I once had a discussion with someone professing atheism, and I simply asked him the question of whether he had ever had any supernatural experiences.  He thought for a minute and then said yes and admitted that in light of those experiences he would lean towards theism.  

This is how I believe the majority of people come to faith.  They start reading the bible and God begins to reveal Himself, leading them to commit their lives to Jesus Christ.  That is exactly what happened to me.

The majority of people come to faith by being born into it, as you likely did.

That isn't true in my case.  My father was an atheist and my mother an ex-catholic and we never went to church or talked about God.  So I was defacto an agnostic until my late 20's.

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No one has ever been able to adequately explain to me the logic behind 'You have to believe in God before you can believe in God.'

Not for lack of trying, though...

Boru

Hey Boru.  You don't have to believe in God to seek God out.  It's kind of like how people will search for hidden treasure that they saw on an ancient map but they don't know whether it is really there.  A lot of people begin the journey to seek God out because they can't reconcile their thoughts and feelings with their experiences in this world, and conclude that there has to be more to this life than what the world is offering.  That there has to be an overriding meaning to explain what cries out in the depths of their soul.  I think that is often a cry for justice, and a cry for meaning beyond the grave.  Everyone has a unique testimony;  you could spend days listening to Christian testimonies on Youtube on why they came to Christ and not get many duplicates.