Why are you (still) a Christian?

[Belacqua]

I can understand the various reasons that someone may convert, but I'm curious as to why someone would retain their belief after years of being a Christian and having spent time studying the bible and theology, looking at arguments for/against, and so on.

So, for those who have been a believing adult for more than 5 years, and who are feel they're conversant on the various arguments for/against, what is it that keeps you believing?  

Any particular philosophical positions, or specific events that happened, or a particular inner feeling or intuition, etc?

I'll say a little more about this, because I don't think any Christians will be answering.

When we talk about Christianity on this forum, we almost invariably talk about the believability of various propositions or arguments. "I'll believe when I've seen testable evidence," is a common refrain. 

I do not think that most Christians believe in this way. That's not how they approach it. 

Belief, remember, comes in two types. Type #1: "I believe in Santa Claus" or "I believe the earth is round" is intellectual assent to a proposition. But Type #2: "I believe in women's rights" is different. It is commitment to an ideal. In fact believing in women's rights, in the first sense of the word "believe," would be foolish, because currently women don't have equal rights in many places. Believing in equal rights would be like believing in Santa Claus. But commitment to the ideal of women's rights is a good thing. 

In my experience many Christians believe in Jesus in the second sense -- as commitment to an ideal. They may not have stated it that way, but that's how it works in practice. 

So for example I know three Japanese families who are all Christian. All of them are doctors, nurses, or hospital workers. For them, Christianity is a framework and lifestyle of commitment to charity. It is an ideal of selflessness which they found in Christianity and nowhere else. 

One couple I knew set up the Japanese branch of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which went on to win the Nobel Prize. He was from Hiroshima and she was from Nagasaki. 

Christian groups in Japan set up the first kindergartens and the first women's colleges, back when Japan had never heard of those things. Japan just didn't have charitable organizations of this type in its history, so still in people's minds such things are associated with Christianity. 

I once had the bad manners to ask one of these Christians if they thought the world had been created in six days. She had clearly never thought about it before. She said, "Well, I guess." The arguments for the truth of theological propositions were absolutely irrelevant to her religion. 

I know some Americans like this too, but I've gone on long enough.