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I don't argue, ... I'm just trying to figure out why people believe as they do.

The premise of the conversation, I believe, is to figure out whether faith exists completely apart from reason. I have asserted that it does not. In order to demonstrate that it doesn't, I am required to present an argument (not to be confused with antagonistic contradiction or anything of that sort). So I don't have a negative perception of arguments. I use the term in order to tell you that the reasoning is logical, given the assumptions I make. This, I hope, will help you understand why I believe what I believe, so that you can observe that faith can be derived through reason. That is not to say that we do not make assumptions; we must make assumptions. The question is whether or not those assumptions are reasonable, and it is fair to examine that at length, as well. It just all takes a lot of time, depending on your starting point.

I am not going to spend a lot of time, for instance, debating whether or not the assumption "I exist in mind and form" is valid. I think it is entirely a reasonable one to make---and entirely useless to deny. That assumption, admittedly, is a form of faith--and so is the assumption that the question needs to be answered definitively in order to obtain any practical benefit.

If you have been convinced from the evidence that we have that Jesus existed on this earth and was probably crucified, that puts us a lot further down the chain. But we need to come to an agreement that--regardless of what you or I have been convinced of--something happened. That event (or non-event) is completely independent of our beliefs.

I will be able to describe to you, I hope, my reasons for believing. Based on my assumptions, you will be able to see that the reasoning is valid, and that I was convinced of the likelihood of resurrection. You will probably--as this is most often the case--just have problems with my assumptions. But hopefully, whatever discussion we have about those assumptions, you will not think that faith and reason are mutually exclusive.

Does that make sense?