Religious folks, why do you think your religion is true?

I don't think I could 'enlighten' you but I can tell you why I trust the Jesus of the Bible. I came to this myself; my parents are not believers.

Intellectually: The New Testament gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the epistles and ancient texts outside the Bible canon from the Graeco-Roman period of history and later (for example Josephus), present a sufficiently solid case of the basic facts and corroborate enough for me to conclude that Jesus Christ was more than a man in that he did miracles and fulfilled prophecies from Jewish scriptures proving it, and was crucified and then two days later, his body disappeared and his followers were suddenly doing the miracles he had been alleged to have done.

Personally: I take medication for depression and anxiety and see a psychologist and a psychiatrist regularly. The ability to control my own mind and be 'present' is actually more functional when I remember God, irrespective of what's happening with my medication. An awareness of the presence of God seems to put my thoughts in order and gives me more freedom to live as I want. This wouldn't be a 'proof' to me, except that it is a hallmark of the activity of Jesus as you read about it in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John when Jesus had exorcised the demon-possessed man, the man was found clothed and in his right mind, as opposed to naked and raging as he had been before. When Jesus talks about casting spirits out of people he describes the healed person's mind as being like a room that has been swept and tidied. When the grave Jesus laid in was found empty, the graveclothes were neatly folded - not in a heap on the floor. There is something really 'tidy' about the state of my inner life when I open my mind to the presence of Jesus' spirit and let him work on it. This helps make me psychologically free, in a way the psychiatric drugs I take for depression and anxiety really cannot parallel.

Through other people: I have seen enough people transformed into healthier, wiser and stronger people after acquiring faith in Jesus Christ from a background of non-belief. I have seen them recover from trauma and addiction and one or two so-called miracle healings I think were genuine. The existence of quackery and fake miracles does not put me off and nor does the number of defectors or disgraced pastors because the Bible does itself document these things, and Jesus is shown in it to operate in a different way from these people, and we are told that genuine Christians will be like their master. I have spent years thinking that the saying of Jesus that true believers will be recognised by their love for one another was a bit vague and a bit of a cop-out because lots of people who aren't Christians are lovely, but with age I've seen that there are certain circumstances in which love is the last thing you'd want to show someone, and many of those circumstances are to be found in the bloody history of Christendom after Christ which endures to this day.

Because of the way of the world: the wisdom of the Bible about God and the realities of the world that it presents ring extremely true to life. Millennia have passed since some of those books were written and the way they present the behaviour of nations towards God and individuals towards each other and God, is uncannily realistic. The conclusions you can draw from years of reading and re-reading help you to appreciate why things are so. After a time, questions like 'Why does God allow suffering?' stop being such an obstacle to belief because in yourself, you understand more about where suffering figures in the way the world works.

I might edit/add more later...

Look around you really think this shit all built itself out of chance? I dont really believe that religions are 100% spot on I think that the stories were passed down for so many thousands of years that the stories got butchered. But I wouldnt be surprised if there was some intelligent force out there that designed this shit. And there probably is truth to some of the stories in the bible. They know there was a giant flood for example. The stories got butchered but there's probably truth to alot of then.

Most people default in it. Generally from parents or place.

Who knows?

I'll bet...

Gee, that doesn't seem gullible at all...

Because I've got countless proofs of miracles (Allah always does all the good things I ask him to do. Not that I think about bad things). And whatever my religion says makes sense.

How do you know? Because the Bible says so?

Why believe the Bible?

If you can't understand why your self, forget getting enlighten by someone else buddy you are too dumb.. because it's obvious. Everyone defend what you believe. That's all.