Zzyzx wrote:
Perhaps 'belief' works best if taught to children before their judgment has developed sufficiently to evaluate what they are told to believe.
What about the adults who come to Christ including ex-atheists such as C.S. Lewis, J. Warner Wallace and Lee Strobel?
Lewis described his conversion in Surprised by Joy this way:
“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words “compelle intrare,� compel them to come in, have been so abused be wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.�
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/8 ... early-life
Strobel described his conversion this way:
I (studied) for a year and nine months until November the 8th of 1991, and on that day I realized that, in light of the torrent of evidence flowing in the direction of the truth of Christianity, it would require more faith for me to maintain my atheism than to become a Christian. Because to be an atheist I would have to swim upstream against this torrent of evidence pointing toward the truth of Jesus Christ. And I couldn't do that. I was trained in journalism and law to respond to truth. And so on that day, I received Jesus Christ as my forgiver, and as my leader.
http://www.washedred.com/content/?contentID=47
J. Warner Wallace's father was an atheist and raised him to be one as well. In other words, he was taught not to believe in God before, as you put it, he was old enough to reason for himself. Here is a video in which he explains how he applied the methodology he used as a cold case detective to the issue of Christ and Christianity and how this led him to Jesus:
https://notashamedofthegospel.com/testi ... christian/
As Wootah rightfully pointed out, Christians don't carry burdens -- at least, they don't have to as Jesus invited us to give all our burdens to him (Matt. 11:28). If Christians are carrying burdens, it's because they have failed to do that.
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