In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus

[Alan V]

There are two conversations here, the cognitive structure and it's external validity, with prediction bridging the two.

When I talked about predictive mental models, I meant explanations and expectations about reality. The brain doesn't care about representing the truth of reality, it cares about functioning in it. And all of your beliefs serve a function, whether it is instrumental, symbolic, social, and so on.

Now, regarding evidence: Evidence doesn't exist in a one-to-one relationship with truth. It never points to a single definite conclusion. Instead, it points in all directions, and can support multiple overlapping theories. It requires argumentation and interpretation to make a case for one exclusive view.

No doubt Christians have a lot of unlikely expectations about the world, based on their worldview. However, they depend on social proof (other people agreeing with and supporting them) rather than evidence to support their beliefs. This is unfortunate for them because it cuts them off from so many other people who actually require evidence, as well as from other religious believers with other stories.

In contrast, multiple lines of evidence accumulated over centuries support a materialistic interpretation of the world. While science is open-ended, it has already discarded a wide variety of interpretations in favor of its own perspectives. If you want to change that picture, you have to offer evidence supporting Christian assumptions, and not just more stories of how something might be true.