Why should I bother believing anything at all? Why shouldn't I just do whatever seems right at any given time and deal with the consequences later and learn what I can as I go?
Mostly for the same reason we discourage toddlers from playing in streets I think. They get hit by things they couldn't possibly comprehend. And then they don't toddle so well. You have an innate love of Truth I suspect. Humans don't like being misled or being lied to (I certainly don't). And yet, in my own natures I have found that I am a liar and misleader. God is a God of Truth and Light; believe that as a starting point if nothing else "in Him there is no darkness at all"
What makes you think there is a God?
In desperation I screamed something. "What the F is wrong with me?!?" At the time I was very sick, mentally and spiritually. I had put away all my concepts of God; I was very angry. Except for one. And I thought, if God was anything like this (the Conductor), why would I fight Him? Because I was ready to take my instrument and smash it.
But anyway, I got an answer to my question. Felt it settle into my soul and mind not like my own thoughts. And not condemning, but honest too. More honest and more sane than I was. And I knew, there was something there.
One time, years back, I was scuba diving, and we were going to scuba dive a boat wreck, and I was still inexperienced, and we went down slowly, the visibility was about 20 feet. I followed the guide leading us. Off in the distance I saw a dark shape ahead, and as we swam closer it became clearer and clearer, and finally it materialized into a boat and then to a boat with coral and then to a boat with fishes. God's a bit like that, a dark unknown, but something that gets clearer and clearer the closer you get.
Mind you, if I hadn't followed the guide and swam in the opposite direction, I wouldn't have found the boat. But once I got closer, the guide was needed less and less. The boat itself did the guiding. And I was free to explore. It was a big boat; and I saw parts of it that some of the others didn't see, I'm sure, and they saw parts that I didn't see.
What makes you think Jesus is God?
That took a while. It was probably another 3 years before I visited any other Church. I read Tolstoy's "What I Believe", the first 6 chapters I loved, and the end of the 6th arrives at that conclusion. Mind you, I don't agree with everything of Tolstoy and he and Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated each other for all intents and purposes... but he was not entirely wrong either. He was definitely wrong on
this point though -
"Why should Christ have given to us such clear and good precepts, applicable to us all, if He knew beforehand that the keeping of them was impossible by man in his own unaided strength?"
I facepalm every time I read it. lol. Tolstoy, Tolstoy - you were
never meant to do it of your own unaided strength! He had some true things to say, and he struggled with faith like I did. He had some harsh things to say about the Orthodoxy of his day, and I knew nothing of it. So it was particularly ironic (and beautiful) for me when I was later led to searching for it (Eastern Orthodoxy) through a series of interesting circumstances. I think God wanted me to have the full perspective from both sides, to see both what Tolstoy had to say, and also what Tolstoy missed.
I never read beyond chapter 6 though, that ended me where I needed to be for where God was to take me next.
The most intense experience for me knowing Christ as God was about a year ago, before the Cross after a separation. I prayed, and Christ answered. I was in turmoil over a relationship, I had separated, she had descended into a bi-polar chaos during Covid, and I was full of anger, and praying before that Cross (a Palm Sunday cross, tacked on the wall of a place I was staying at after having to leave the house I had bought), Christ revealed to me about
me (and not her). Christ is faithful in that. Because He revealed to me about me, I was able to love her as He wanted me to. I can only say what was a matter of faith, has become a matter of experience. And (perhaps) if you are like me - demanding God to present Himself or prove Himself or account for Himself or behave a certain way will never work. But instead of asking God to reveal Himself to you, maybe ask this instead:
Ask God to reveal Yourself to You. That's what I did, and that's what He does. And He shows me the difference between the two, between Him and me and in doing so, He is revealed. At least a little, at least enough for that day. But, of course, you have to want to know the answers to that question. And most people think they already have it. But, we don't really. Until He gives it to us.
Why is it not completely obvious that everything Orthodoxy preaches is true?
I love the book, the Orthodox Way by Kallistos Ware. Take a red highlighter and a green highlighter and yellow highlighter. Pray a bit before reading it and ask God to reveal to you. After prayer, every thing that seems false in that book, highlight in red. Everything that feels true to your spirit as you read it after prayer, highlight in green. Everything that seems still uncertain, highlight in yellow.
Let me know what you find.