Hello, foreveryoung.
Allow me to add my two cents worth to this discussion, if I may. I came to EvC Forum in 2003 or so, I think. When I came, I was quite the fundamentalist/charismatic Christian who honestly believed (and still do, to some extent) that I had met God through Jesus Christ and through the inspired word of God. To me, canons were what sunk the Bismarck....I had neither care nor concern that many differed and thought that many of the intellectually minded skeptics and naysayers here were simply too proud to accept the God that I knew and loved.
Jar challenged me. He asked me things like "How Do You Know Its God?" At first I rebelled...how dare some unenlightened person challenge my sincere belief? Later, I softened up. After all,
if God exists, God exists regardless of what I believe, know, or think I know. Thus, challenging my beliefs does not challenge God in any way. All that it challenges is my understanding of God. God can take care of Herself.
I came to understand the difference between beliefs and facts.
At first, I resisted labeling my beliefs as scientifically nonfactual, but as I became more secure I simply let that concern go. Some of us believe that not only does God exist but that He is personal...through Jesus Christ, knowable to a degree through communion with the Holy Spirit, and defensible. Others may say that there is no way to defend the belief. That too used to bother me, but now it does not.
Lately I have stopped trying to defend my beliefs through science. I no longer believe that most scientists are atheists and are blinded to the truth due to their refusal to accept final answers. I will even admit that I want my beliefs to be true, and I want a personal, interactive God that loves and even favors me (and all humanity) because He "so loved the world."
I no longer attempt to prove my faith. I maintain that it is based on more than emotionalism, however. And finally, I respect your belief that the whole Bible is absolutely "true"...though I may believe it to be symbolic and true in a thought for thought sense rather than a word for word sense.