For me it was reason and logic.
Reason and logic are truth, God always appeals to us through our intellect. It is Satan who appeals to us through our emotions. Love is not an emotion or a feeling...it is God’s extraordinary gift through the Spirit that lives within each of us. If we know God’s love intimately, then the light shines within us and it is easier to ward of decisions made with emotions and look to our intellect to guide us.
Really? I would be hardpressed to find any other religion that was more reasonable and logical. Yes, there are things that I just cannot fathom: the Trinity, for one, the timelessness after the Angel in Revelation declares there won't be time any longer. Things like that I cannot rightly imagine. But none of that is rightly illogical or unreasonable (take a couple of high-level math courses and you'll quickly get into a similar spot, and that's pure science.)
In a nutshell the story is this:
God lovingly creates man, so much so that He made man in His own image (s.t. mankind can rightly be called children of God
), but man then sins — God being infinitely Just cannot stand sin (and sin demands death); but God loves man and, being infinitely merciful Himself, dies instead. But this would only break the chains, leaving man alone and in the dark
so he comes back! to lead us and light our way out of the dark despaired place we'd gotten ourselves into because of sin.
Yes it's on oversimplification, but it has all the main points and shows just how awesome God is. I mean I wouldn't do what He did, I seriously doubt you would either, but that's because we are unrighteous. That said, God's actions and work in people's lives have seriously changed the world — it is entirely because of Christianity that slavery is illegal in all countries today.
Same here.
For me, at the time I was atheist, it was due to young arrogance and rebellion. I was so much smarter.