It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. The birds are chirping. The flowers are vibrantly colored. "I am glad we are moving here," I inform my dog, "but it seems a little deserted this morning. Perhaps everyone went to church."
"Oh yes," you explain to me over the fence later that day. "Many of us take our faith quite seriously here".
"That's interesting", I respond. "I personally don't have much faith in any deity. Seriously, why should I adopt your faith?"
You step back, pause, and reply...
You don't have faith in any deity because you equate "having knowledge" of something with "having faith" of something, but these two things are indeed quite different. To know of something is to have proof, there is no need for trust or faith, because it is observed, understood, and accepted based upon the tangibility of one's own senses. To have faith of something is to have no proof or evidence that declares the smoking gun for why you believe it to be true, but rather, you place your trust and confidence in it without knowing or having certainty - this is truly faith. Christians do not "know" God exists, Christians do not "know" God died for us, and Christians do not "know" they will go to heaven when they die. No, instead, we "believe" God exists as a perfect creator that opposes the fallible imperfection of our sinful nature (sin we ourselves chose to commit, not God's fault), we "believe" God became flesh to sacrifice himself as an invaluable atonement for all who trust him to save us from the wickedness we don't deserve to be saved from, and we "believe" that we will be with God in heaven when we die because we "believe" that God is as much a loving God as he is a God of justice.
I would say to you that you yourself have as much faith in the things of this world as a Christian does in the Lord Jesus Christ, you just don't realize it. When a person tells you that the President has been assassinated, at first telling, you would believe it - who wouldn't? But wouldn't you truly
know afterward the President was assassinated, when you had had it verified to you? The same is with Christians, we trust and have faith that what God gave us as inspired scripture written over the course of 2500 years by 40 different authors all testifying (from the past, from the present, and from the future) of the same thing - Jesus Christ coming to save mankind - is true and we trust it because we know we cannot trust ourselves or any other person. The Christian is a humble man, who accepts his evil nature as being wrong, but deserving of judgement, and we seek refuge in the Savior to keep us from the wrath and justice of God that is to come against all unrighteousness of men.
I, as a Christian, could never do well to convince you of the truth - I could only present to you what I believe the truth is, and you would have to either receive it unto eternal life, or reject it unto eternal damnation. You would have to accept that you're not good enough to meet God's standard, and that you need a Savior to save you from your sin. But, again, I couldn't convince you - you would have to decide to believe it, because you could never know it was the truth until you died and went to heaven.
The unfortunate part is... that we will all end up "knowing" the truth of the afterlife, whether we end up in heaven through Christ, or whether we end up in hell - I would just urge you not to be hasty in making the wrong decision, friend.
