In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus

[Angrboda]

In psychological terms, they believe because they converted for emotional reasons -- either a cathartic experience as an adult, or as a child who needs to minimize anxiety by adopting the commands and instruction of their parents -- they began to believe, and once believers, the inertia of belief made it more probable that their belief would intensify over time rather than weaken.

From a more fundamental aspect, belief likely has two things going for it. First, we are evolved to posit the existence of minds that we cannot see in other persons, making it easy to postulate a similar thing for non-human subjects, like waterfalls, streams, the wind, and ultimately to postulate a grand mind above everything else. The second follows on the first in that because the mind is not seen nor tangible, it's natural to presume it continues on past death. This has been shown in children wherein they possess confidence about the nonexistence of an agent's physical embodiment when it is killed, but are less sure about the mental or mind aspect of an agent after death. These two likely work in concert with an overall need to minimize uncertainty about the environment to make the idea of a great mind ensuring order and justice in the world an idea which is both appealing in how it offers us comfort and less anxiety as well as fitting with other intuitions (such as fairness, which when addressed by a just world belief, assured by a god, allows a contentment about existence which a belief in an ultimately unjust world would not).

As to the specific character Jesus, hero worship, wherein we conflate the ordinariness of a person with a mythical greatness seems to be a common narrative theme. Thus we likely gravitate toward belief in hero figures. And if said hero figure promises the above benefits of maintaining justice and order in the world, they're likely to be even more popular.

[Silver]

It's all dependent on how big your need is for an imaginary friend is.

And then you have those who only believe because someone else does

[AFTT47]

In psychological terms, they believe because they converted for emotional reasons --

My bold.

This is something we learned in the early days of the internet. Christians belief has nothing to do with logic, reason, evidence or proof. It's a powerful emotional attachment that absolutely blinds them to the fact that it's Santa Clause for adults. Think of that scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail where King Arthur battles the Black Knight.

Arthur: "Look you stupid bastard, you've got no arms left!"
Black Knight: "Yes I have!"
Arthur (pointing to his severed limbs on the ground): "Look!!!"
Black Knight: "It's just a flesh wound!"

And so it goes anytime you try to debate a Christian and base your argument on reason or empirical evidence. They just don't care or will refuse to see it.

[Ravenshire]

What caused them to believe?

Some willful ignorance, a bit of wishful thinking, and a metric shit ton of fear of death.

Basically the same recipe for near any religion.

[h4ym4n]

I think Santa is an awesome jesus training tool.

Good bad

Toy (heaven). Coal (hell)

Always watching and judging


And when your old enough and don’t believe, your parent will ask you to keep the lie going for your younger siblings

[PhCritique]

The cause for me is the false association between some god and anything positive occurring in life.

[Paleophyte]

I think Santa is an awesome jesus training tool.

What I find interesting is the obvious difference. At some point in their lives everybody stops believing in Santa, typically fairly early on. The same can't be said of Jesus. The idea of presents delivered by a jolly red fat man who slithers down your chimney should seem too absurd to believe, but no more absurd than mumbling some Latin over crackers and wine so that you can eat of the flesh and drink of the blood of a man born of a virgin who died and came back to life. I wonder what it is that renders the notion of Santa harmless during childhood but fails to similarly innoculate against Jesus.

[The Grand Nudger]

Society.

[HappySkeptic]

What caused them to believe?

Some willful ignorance, a bit of wishful thinking, and a metric shit ton of fear of death.

Basically the same recipe for near any religion.

I was a Christian for many years, and didn't start until age 17.

For me it was also loneliness, and that my friends were Christians.

I consider my early time as a true believer as insanity.  I read the entire NT and chose to believe it because I wanted the story to be true.  After the insanity wore off, I became sophisticated in making excuses for why God didn't seem to do anything.

[The Grand Nudger]

Did you believe in the christian worldview because you believed that christian superstitions were true, or were christian superstitions validated by being associated with a worldview which you felt (or still feel) is true?