Prior to the Ascension of Jesus into heaven, He told the disciples that He would no longer be with them in the flesh. The disciples were worried about how they would carry on. Jesus told them that they would have to have faith in Him.
Jesus also told the disciples to spread His Word to everyone, every tribe, every nation. Jesus made no mention of previous religious experience as being a requirement for His grace and salvation.
Faith in Jesus is literally the bedrock of Christianity. We must trust that Jesus is our Savior.
And I trust in Him. Jesus is even more real to me than anything that is tangible to me. And I thank God for Him... as I am so fallen, only Jesus can raise me... and the rest of us.
But what if someone doesn’t trust in Jesus, for example, if they were raised in an environment that either mocked or ignored religion? Would they be unable to ever believe in a creator unless they had a “St. Paul” experience?
I certainly respect your opinion.
“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to contemplation of the truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know Himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.” Pope John Paul II.
I like to paraphrase this as “faith and reason are two wings by which man ascends to heaven.”
I think the history of Christian thought has emphasized both faith and reason as ways to know God. Special revelation and general revelation have played a role. As an example of special revelation, God spoke to Moses and provided him with the Ten commandments.The miracles that we are familiar with from the Bible are examples of special revelation.
General revelation involves looking at the world and seeing the handiwork of God. These are everyday miracles. Our universe, vastly improbable, incredibly finely tuned to allow intelligent life, is an example of general revelation. The complexity of your body, composed as it is of trillions of cells, each more complex than a nuclear submarine, is a miracle. Your consciousness, easily explained as your soul, but really inexplicable otherwise, is another miracle.
Many intellectuals in the 19th and 20th century used “science” (junk science and junk philosophy) to “debunk” religion. Rather that take on the debate many religious people simply responding by saying “I believe.” Well, it is a short argument which leaves time for family, work, and church. So it is an efficient reply. But I think correct reflections on science can be supportive of religion. I suspect the evidence will always be mixed, allowing people to choose what to believe. Free will, that's what it's all about.