It's a simple question I like to ask a lot of people, both believers and non-believers (and honestly, not necessarily having anything to do with religion).
Why do you believe what you do?
Do you have good reason to believe what you do?
Do you have good reason to not believe what you don't?
Is your belief based on facts, or on feelings?
These are all very important questions, as scripture tells us in 1 Peter 3:15 "... always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you."
So what is that reason? Do you even have a reason? Is it well founded?
That's the challenge I present to everyone here, regardless of what you believe. Why is it you believe what you do?
(I'll throw my hat into the ring once we get a few answers here).
I believe in Christianity because no matter what I did in life, somehow it always brought me back to Jesus. I remember the day I was baptized and someone asked me how I felt. I smiled and told them that I felt like if I jumped into the air that God would catch me. When I got older, though, I started resenting a lot about christianity. The church I went to wasn't very nurturing, and the lack of love and the worship of money and prejudice and rudeness I saw there made me think all Christians were like that. After a lot of bad things, I started blaming God for everything. Whenever I prayed for help, my situation just got worse and worse. Looking back now, I see God DID help me. It seemed like the worse thing in the world at the time, but if it hadn't happened, I wouldn't be happily married to my husband.
When I went to college, I was NOT living the life of a Godly person...whenever I thought about God or going to Church, I would literally turn my back on the idea. God actually came to me in my thoughts and in my heart, holding His hand out for me to take it, and I refused and threw myself as far into rebellion as I could. I was in hell, it was literal hell. I nearly killed myself because I didn't think there was anything left to live for.
Then I went to church one day, and I nearly cried. It felt like I had come home, and that my Father was there holding onto me, welcoming me back. I THREW myself into His arms. I picked up my Bible, I studied scripture, I challenged my worldly believes, I threw out ideas in my head that I had once tried so hard to justify (sex before marriage being good, homosexualty being okay, etc, etc). And once I did, my entire life turned around. I'm happy, I've stopped having anxiety attacks, i've got a wonderful marriage, a wonderful life, hardly any stress, and I love God so much.
That's my reason for starting to believe again, and yeah, it's mostly feeling based. If you want facts, I've got a few tangible ones for you.
When I was 14, I was dating a guy who I loved so much. I felt him slipping away and I prayed every night fr God to make everything better. EVERYTIME I prayed, me and my bf got in a fight, or I would hear he was cheating on me, or he wouldn't return a phone call, and finally he broke up with me because he'd gotten my friend pregnant. I was devastated and I blamed God for it. He was supposed to help me and instead He broke us up. Well, through my ex-boyfriend's ex-girlfriend, I met my husband. It was God's will that me and the other guy break up so that I could someday meet my husband...all that time I blamed him, and all He was doing was HELPING me.
Another example is that I have the WORSE problem with patience. I can't stand waiting around for stuff, and I REALLY can't stand anything not being in my controlled schedule. I was waiting on my husband to get off work so he could get me some paperwork I needed to get our marriage liscence, and the courthouse was going to be closing soon, he was several hours late, I had no way to get back to my car (parked off base), barely enough gas to get me back to the courthouse anyway, and if we didn't get our marriage liscence that day we wouldn't be able to get married the next day. I was stressed. So I sat down, and I prayed and prayed and prayed. When I turned on the telly, Evan Almighty came on. And it was at the part where Morgan Freeman was saying something about when you pray for patience, does God give it to you, or does he give you the oppurtunity to be patient? I was flabbergasted! Here I was praying for God to make everything work the way I wanted it, and He was giving me a situation to show me that everything was going to work the way HE intended, and all I needed to do was relax and let it happen. I got the courthouse with 15 minutes to spare and we were married the next day
I can't tell you how many times I've prayed about something and a song or a show or something comes on that answers my prayer. Sometimes when I feel really bad or am confused about something, I pray about it, and then close my eyes, and let my Bible open. Nearly every time the page lands to Scripture I can use to help.
God is real, I can feel him, and I have tangible evidence in my life of His existance. It's just like the wind. I can't see it, but I can see how it affects things in the world, I can't grab it, but I can feel it on my skin and through my hair. Same with God. I can't see Him, but I can see how he affects lives, especially mine. I can't touch him, or grab im, or measure Him, but I can feel Him in my heart.