Why are you (still) a Christian?

[FrustratedFool]

So, there's no real reason as such why you believe in the existence of God. You just do.  Is that fair?

No, it isn't fair at all. First of all you're asking me to express to you in a paragraph or so what it's taken me over 30 years to do. And I'm not talking about having an hallucination near death, or seeing Joel Osteen on the tele with a $400 haircut, or a "miraculous" prayer answer by Kenneth Copeland, I'm talking about an intense study of the Bible and other sacred and quasi sacred texts from all the major religions. Except for the book of Mormon or Scientology. I mean, c'mon.

Then, I combed the Superhighway of Misinformation on the World Wide Wasteland for a valid skeptical argument. That's what I'm doing now. There isn't one.

But it's very simple. I trust, that is have faith or believe in Jehovah God because there has never been any, and I mean ANY reason not to. If there were such a reason, just as simply I would reject him.

So, I think what unbelievers want when they ask this question is some metaphysical reason they can justify their disbelief by dismissing it without any scientific methodology or they want some stupid, lazy ass reason to change their mind and believe. All the while hoping they never get it. And confident, ironically, that they won't.

I'm not sure that makes sense. Believeing in X because you have found no reason not to believe in X is not sufficient warrant to believe in X. You must have a positive case as well as an absence of defeators.

When I was a believer I could answer the question I posed to you, and could give it succinctly in a post. Many believing philosophers of religion could do the same, pointing to what arguments they find credible and/or to religious experiences they've had. Likewise, now as an apostate I could explain succinctly why I lost my faith and why I no longer believe.

It seems that your reason for believing is that you read various religious texts and found that something within one of them cohered sufficiently with your intuitions and currently existing WV to take it seriously. And then in taking it seriously you became more convinced that it made sense to you and that there were no good segments against it. Personally, I don't think that sufficient good reason to make your belief rational.

That aside, I'm curious as to you saying you've discovered no valid sceptical argument. Even as a believer I would have found that an odd statement. Laying aside technical issues with the word valid (which I'm not expert enough to get into), are you honestly saying that there are no fair or strong counter-arguments that give you pause? Most philosophers of religion take the counterarguments very seriously, evebif they ultimately fall on the theistic side at the end. If you were going to steelman atheism against your particular brand of theism, what would be the strongest arguments against your POV?