Now, as to why I believe. It's the reason that I cannot simply turn off and on my beliefs, even if I wanted to. As yes, I have done my own research and concluded that the existence of God far outweighs the possibilities that we came from nothing, there is no denying that for me. But what made me really want to do that research in the first place was an event that took place in my junior year of high school.
To make a long story short, I lost the will to keep on living. I got sick of humanity, all the pretentious douchebags, the bullies, the unrealistic expectations and pressure that came from trying to ask girls out to dates, sinking grades, the feeling of hopelessness about my future and how I wouldn't graduate high school and go on to be a homeless man on the streets, no family or friends to support me or to air my frustrations out with because they were all too self absorbed into their own little drama worlds. That whole spiel. Like I said, it's a much longer story when written in detail.
But basically, I was done. For the longest time I had been fighting my emotions, ignoring my anger and sadness because I felt the need to be happy for everyone else around me so that their lives weren't so horrible. But that caused me to neglect my own feelings, and it all bottled up until it exploded in a flood of negativity. I even tried writing my thoughts down on paper to clear my head and all that came out were things like "die, die, death, fuck it all, die, kill, nobody loves you, die, die" ect. ect. ect. And I decided that if I were going to end it all, I was going to take a few people down with me who had helped make my life so miserable.
But on the morning that I had planned on doing so, I don't know what happened exactly. I wasn't thinking straight, as by then my entire world was nothing but negativity. But something happened, something burst through all that negativity and commanded me to stop. Most atheists just say I was too good of a person and my conscious finally came through for me and told me to turn myself in. But it didn't feel like that. It felt like I was actually joined by someone, or something. A presence I couldn't see, but I could hear. It told me what was the right thing to do, and I ended up talking to my counselor and they arranged to take me to a mental hospital up in Sacramento.
After some periods of recovery, the doctors there told me that I was experiencing a bout of schizophrenia. That it was just Good James Vs. Bad James and good James came through in the end. And with some therapy and recovery, I was to bring both James' back together and I'd be normal again.
So I didn't think much of it then, I just followed doctors orders. I eventually got better, and I decided to start looking up information about God and things because another thing the doctors wanted me to do is find a reason worth living for. I was skeptical through reading the Bible itself, as it just seemed too demanding, unrealistic and cruel to non believers. But I continued to do some research, I read some books from atheists and theists alike, and the theists were able to construct dozens of arguments in support for God. Most particularly, the works by Lee Strobel in "The Case For Christ" "The Case For Faith" and "The Case For A Creator" really hit home alot of my concerns about the belief in God.
Especially "The Case For Faith" which answers alot of atheists questions regarding "If there is a God why is there so much bad in the world?" "Why do bad things happen to good people and bad guys get away scot free?" and things like that. And it didn't answer the questions with bullshit ideology and vanilla scriptures that just point you back to the Bible. It actually gave me the answers I was looking for. And I was convinced that without a shadow of a doubt, God exists, and although I can never be sure, I believe it was God who helped me fight out of the darkness and prevented me from doing something I would of regretted my entire life.
) but at the end of the day, I think you'd be surprised at how many people do know what's going on and have felt it too. As much as it seems there are no good guys out there, there are. You just have to sift through a fuckload of douche bags first.