In response to the OP, coming to faith or belief in anything normally comes by experience(s)...
Has ANYone EVER even come to faith in material objects in any other way???
The question is: "What experiences?"
Denial of OPE's* is not helpful.
Arsenios
*Other People's Experience
Yes...keeping the OP in focus is a good idea.
We come to "believe" something [not] in the way we come to "know" something. And most of the arguments here are really asking, "How do you "know" what you "believe" is true?
That is two (different) questions.
Question #1 - We come to believe something [not] by "substantiating" or "proving" it with evidence, nor even by being "convinced."
We come to believe something, by first believing there is something more than we "know." That is where the personal "experience" comes in. When what we experience falls short and we know that we have not seen all there is to see - we in fact reverse our thinking to "know" there is something more. But that "knowing" is not the "knowing" that substantiates what we might otherwise "believe" - not at all.
The other component to all of what we might like to "know", but only "believe"...is that there are those who actually do "know." This component has been explained, as being by design: a plan of timed partial revelations leading to a final complete revelation of all things. These partial revelations personally happened to real people, and they were share then, and eventually written down. Similar accounts of "knowing" have continued down through all of history.
But, again, if all that one "experiences" in the world fulfills all, without a hint of "something more" - then, you have no reason to be here. And if your reason is just to campaign against the very idea of "something more"...then, what you don't realize, is that you are being used.
Question #2 - We come to "know" what is true, much like anything is known - by overwhelming evidence. Except, evidence of "something more" is not something less, it's
something more - something beyond the something less you once were limited to.
So, when I say, "I know", it is because I have been beyond the horizon of this world. And yet another will say, "I know, because God met me where I was, and made himself known to me by circumstance - things that would not
naturally happen."
And yet, to "know" is not to "believe", and to "believe" is not to "know."
