So most of you probably think of me as a really stubborn Jesus fanboy. So maybe it is surprising to see that I have some doubts and am open to sharing them and discussing them.
I admit that I have never felt "on fire" for Jesus. I cringe whenever I hear someone say "I felt God telling me to go to so-and-so university, to go speak to a stranger at a gas station, to move to Nashville, etc." Basically, I have never loved God/Jesus the way I love my family and friends, or the way I percieve others to love God. I mean, I'll say I love God, and I'll tell myself that I love God, but if I really am honest with it, I am sort of apathetic about it.
Maybe this is for the better, because it enables me to make a more rational decision than if my emotions anchored me into a corner (which I see in many cases where a person's religious/political/personal values are challenged). When it comes to determining truth, the worst thing I can be is afraid to change my mind.
Recently, I have decided to take the quest for truth a little more seriously. Before, it was just a hobby, and being a "Christian" was just another adjective to add to my Facebook profile. It was just another team to support with little other reason than that I thought it was cool. My Christian status was comparable to that of a Laker fan, or a Team Edward fan. In my case, I was happy to be on Team Christian, as it instantly provided me with a means to connect with new people, and it gave me a sense of belonging. But things like comfort and belonging are in no way truth-determining factors.
As I am growing as a thinker and a person, I have grown increasingly aware of the power of C.S. Lewis's famous quote: "Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, is of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important." Replace "Christianity" with "Truth", and you have the basis of where I'm coming from. I don't want to die and learn that Allah is the one true God and that Islam is the truth, when I never even bothered to seek it out. Or Hinduism, Bahá'í Faith, Atheism, whatever. I don't want to be lazy here, and I'm willing to put a lot of work into it. I am pretty fresh on this journey, and I am about halfway through The God Delusion, but I plan to expand on as many belief systems as I can.
All that said, I still think that Christianity holds the truth. I think that there is more than ample evidence for Jesus' resurrection from the dead, which is extremely improbable if there is no supernatural force. Since Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, performed miracles, and predicted the events that would surround his death and resurrection, I am extremely inclined to believe that if there is a door to the supernatural, Jesus is it. He's the only link I can think of.
However, in spite of historical evidence, scientific evidence steps in and blows a huge chunk of Christianity out of the water: the Old Testament. We have great reason to believe that the Earth is billions of years old, and not 6000. We have great reason to believe that all life stemmed from a single common ancestor, as opposed to each individual species being uniquely designed.
Not to mention, we have many contradictions throughout the Bible, which invalidate the Bible's claim to perfection. We have no evidence for the existence of Abraham or Moses, or much of Israel's history outside of the Bible. There are all sorts of issues you can uncover just by performing simple searches on the internet, or reading the Bible at face value without resorting to tricky interpretation when two passages don't match up.
Yet Jesus' resurrection still hits me square in the face. Do I go against my own judgment and say "Well, even though I have every reason to distrust the Old Testament and much of the New Testament, I'm going to just believe the resurrected man anyway"? Is that what Christians are called to do?
So....I guess that's where I'm "at". Advice/questions/comments from believers, Christians, atheists, agnostics, and anyone else are welcome. This is a big task for me, and I'm worried sick that I'm going to die and learn that I believed something false and have to pay for it. To be honest, I'm not really scared about being wrong about theism, since death would be the same in a godless world whether I know the truth or not. But I still want to be as honest and objective as I can, and if atheism holds the truth, then I hope I come to it.