Friend of mine is 18 years old. Not from a Christian home. Good kid, but his life has been difficult with low paying job, no education, etc....
He has said to me several times, that he really wants to learn more about Christ, but he is having a hard time because it all "sounds so fake". I have asked him to join me at church, but he is too skeptical.
I have been praying for him. What is the best response to "I want to believe, but it all sounds so fake."?
Frankly, there are a lot of fake and bad groups out there.
I do not think anyone can read the Gospels and come away arguing, sanely or reasonably, that this was faked. Generally, atheists and "the world" are very mixed about this. By which I mean, the only critic I have ever come across in several decades as an adult Christian has been Nietzsche, the famous philosopher.
Obviously, we have all heard of how modern cynics believe Jesus was not a real person, but if you want to actually look for anyone hitting at the things Jesus said and really taking it all apart? Forget about it. Nobody does that.
I read, I think, all the books on the subject by the atheist leader Dawkins, who admittedly, has human genius, but him (and Sagan, notably for me), both are complete knuckle dragging idiots when it comes to Scripture.
Just as Jesus called folks who were unbelievers "hypocrites" because they could process complicated weather signs noting impending storms... so, too, are modern "worldly wise" people absolute laughable, hard to even comprehend how they can be so stupid about Scripture. Yet dare approach it as if they had something to add.
Neither Dawkins nor Sagan did so. Nor will anyone of their kind.
Rather, if one looks at what Jesus said and did, one can only come to the conclusion that Jesus somehow literally lived exactly what he taught.
And that "no one ever spoke the way He did".
But, the fact of the matter is, what Jesus taught is put into modern, Christianized society's concept of "heroic". So, really it is a done deal.
While your friend is apparently ignorant of what Jesus taught, invariably, he will have grown up looking at hero and heroine from all sorts of modern stories expressing their heroic by the very virtue Jesus taught.
Every time you see a movie or tv plot where the hero or heroine "saves the world", remember that.
So, not sure what your friend thinks is fake.
Turning the other cheek? Trying to save people? Loving your very enemies? Going the extra mile? Being more then appearances may show? And on and on and on.
As for the miraculous, I have found, bizarre, and painfully (to me), very many actually never have had any significant glimpse of the miraculous or heavenly.
That is another matter.
Plenty of saved Christians have only the most abstract of evidence. Plenty have something noteworthy, but rare. But, there are a lot of groups that talk and talk about being God's best friend and Heaven's only confidante... and have zero real experience.
Talk, but, somehow... no one ever really sees anything or ever really has anything happen.
That is a warning sign.
