Raven,
I'm glad to really see your thought process!
I have doubted for about three years now, possibly even longer, and I'm positive they have been tremendously affected by OCD, though I only finally sought help and was thus officially diagnosed with it six months ago. Tonight I have even been tortured with some doubts. This is my thought process:
Doubt pops in: Gee, the Bible sure sounds weird and like someone just made it up. What if it's all nothing more than a myth?
Refutation I make: I know I have read a lot of evidence on the Bible's reality and wholeness. Even though I can't recall it at the moment, I choose to trust that the Bible proves true, no matter how much it feels to be made up.
When the doubts keeps popping in my head, I am tempted to go and find evidence of God to read. This would be a compulsion. But I simply keep reminding myself: No matter how things look, I choose to come to the same conclusion: That the Bible is real; I just don't have all the information right now.
Your conclusion should always be the same, even if 2 + 2 through Jesus seems to equal 17: Jesus is real.
One thing I would suggest to you is to not get hung up on the 'maybe's. This is a trap that all OCD people get caught in: mine have been and continue to be the 'what if's'. Maybe God exists? Maybe Hell exists? Unless god in all His glory popped down right in front of you, you won't have 100% proof of Him. There is always a 'maybe' factor in faith. You have got to decide to be on the 'yes' side of that maybe and say, "I trust that it IS." And your OCD will always cause you to feel as though what you're doubting is more probable than what you want to believe. That doesn't make what is real any less real than how you feel about the reality of Switzerland affects the country's existence. Maybe atheists are smarter? Heck, yeah, I've met some atheists who are smarter than I am. Does that make them RIGHT? No. Atheists are biased and twist information to fit their agenda. Not to say that many Christians aren't, but proof of Jesus and God has stood against relentless and thorough tests and has yet to be proven wrong. Whereas atheists must believe that something came from nothing, that life and conscious were created from nothing, that life has no meaning or significance while every human calls out for it, that there is no such thing as right and wrong, and that all humans from all time who have believed in any kind of god are completely wrong.
You have trouble seeing how God created something from nothing; the answer is that He IS existence. He IS. He wasn't created by anything, and I don't believe He created Himself. He IS existence. How does science answer the question that existence came from nothing? Science states that there must be a cause for everything. What was the cause for all causes? Who or what made the speck that was the beginning of the big bang? The ONLY plausible explanation is God.
The thoughts on reading atheistic papers are caused by OCD. And of course your OCD mind is going to try and persuade you to believe what you don't want to believe.
If someone WANTS to go to Heaven enough, they will find a way to believe.
Faith is a lot less complicated than you are trying to make it. It is a one-step process. I think you have already taken that step, (though I am not God and I don't know what decision you have truly made); you just have to learn now how to be confident in your salvation, not how to be saved.
Your 'heart' is a vague concept. Your heart can describe your emotions, which don't determine your salvation. I think the term heart can be used also to describe your will, and what choices you make and what you choose to accept and not accept; also what morals and values you hold true. Don't worry about your emotions, Raven. Only pay attention to what you have decided.
Many days Christianity doesn't make the most sense to me at all. I don't want to tell you what my doubts are because I don't want YOU to get hung up on them, or else I would share in the specifics of my struggle with you. I do understand how thinking that the Bible is real and the only truth can seem so unreal, though. We tend to put God in a nut shell, though, making Him smaller than He really is. The truth is, Jesus is everywhere. He is worshiped specifically and purposefully in churches, Christian music, Christian communities, and Christian books and movies, etc., but He is not absent from Beatles songs, a shopping trip to GAP, an episode of Gilmore Girls, or your favorite Nicholas Sparks novel. Though He is not part of any kind of sin, He has such a bigger influence and reach than we can grasp. Christ has a way of reaching everyone in existence, and His presence and reality is more than we can understand. We just have to trust that He is there and real, no matter how we feel.