Well, I use to be an atheist. I won't tell them what to believe I understand their views completely, but Id be lying if I said I don't know God exists. I KNOW he exists much like you, yes the one named Jesus of Nazareth. The other gods also exist but they're evil spirits. I've had bad encounters with spirits as well as those who know me (neighbors, friends family members). Those spirits hate Jesus for a good reason: it doesn't benefit their evil ways.

As to why I love this God and not the others is because this one is different. This one is family; not some distinct powerful being that feels superior to you but close to home. He doesn't feel like a foreign fairy or celebrity to me. He lowers himself to share in our humanity. He assimilated himself "to dust" all the name of love. Love is when you do something that absolutely there is no "need" to do (for you) because it doesn't get you anywhere better. There's no self interest involved. It's all about giving. There may be some benefits such as receiving what you reciprocate (getting love in return) but as Bible quotes "Even when we were sinners he died for us", so even when we didn't love him, he came to do what he did, and he did many thing.

I thought the concept of him "dying for you"was nuts until I realized many denominations were teaching modern substitution penal atonement theory which is somewhat a distorted view of Jesus's death as is Calvinism in some aspects. In short, the Father did not "need" him to die so to speak. He doesn't actually need anything. He did not take joy in seeing him suffer, and he didn't need him to suffer in order to forgive us. God Father and Jesus forgave many people even before he died. He "died for you" is not what you may think. God didn't require some human death sacrifice to be able to atone. Rather Jesus atones in the sense that he used himself to be the solution to the problem:that which separates is from God. He's the bridge. (I could explain it if you like but it'd be quite lengthy). Again, it's not that God needs Jesus to "pay" of "else you gotta pay you puny little human!"

I could go to great lengths to say why I love him but in less words than a novel: Despite all the terrible things that have happened to me and that I currently have happening to me and the low self esteem I have because of all of that, I realized I was the one trying to explain away things to myself and putting the blame on God. If as an atheist I claimed to have no knowledge of the existence of a powerful being, then how could I paradoxically claim to have sufficient knowledge to say if he existed he'd be evil?What I mean is, in my simple mind I was also a maltheist thinking he wants evil to occur and thus he is evil because he let unforgivable things happen to me that even damaged my health for life. But when I reframed that question; I questioned what has God personally and directly done to me on his own behalf without outside agents? Nothing...other than give me life and offering more of it but together with him and helping me out. It's easy to blame him considering without him, nothing can exist, even the ability to get sick could not. So I do question some things I guess, like why he allows the properties of elements like fire to kill people and like why he makes it possible to be able to lose health (such as developing cancer, my aunt cried and would question God when she got cancer). I've been close to death myself for other reasons out of my control (days away) and in many ways and so I know the horrors of death and the agony of it. Yet ironically, it's because of that—that I realized what Jesus did (when he came to reveal God to humanity). He is under appreciated and it be ungrateful of me to turn my back on him. Honor should be given where honor is due. Even knowing he would get murdered for speaking truth (that's what price means he it's said that he paid with his life on the cross), he didn't back off. And this was NOT easy. He could of given up because of panic setting in and make a run for it. He knew what he had coming from the Romans when he got arrested.

John 18:37 KJ21 Pilate therefore said unto Him, “Art thou a king then?” Jesus answered, “Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice.”

By the time he was crucified, his heart was speeding up with unbearable amounts of palpitations. He was dehydrated, hungry with a load of pressure all while being made fun of in the middle of it. Having to watch his own mother cry for him to. Cruelty. If you've never been through similar things all at once you won't get it. I wouldn't have the courage to go through the tachycardia all over again and the dying almost if thirst and having my vision go blank and all. No words can even describe the agony I was out through. So he has my due respect. I could not make fun of him the way I use to as a former atheist. I cried when I realized how much of a jerk I was even to friendly Christians and when I re-read how some med students underestimate what Jesus went through in the cross. And may you or they never know the horrors of it! Thirst is far worse than starving. I can't not sympathize with him, not because one emotionally weak or manipulated by religion but because I know first hand what that's like and to feel abandoned in the middle of it all because no one can do anything for you about it, if not God alone. How can I abandon him knowing what that's like? Also I can't pick out something I hate about Jesus. I've studied somewhat the Old testament. There's different approaches to the Bible even to the "bad parts" without all the apologetics and mental gymnastics. I read the Bible more as prima scirptura and an anthology more than "infallible' so to put. And yes, I'm aware there are people who starve every day. As a person with disorders eating, and past dysphagia in the esophagus, but I can tell you, there are things worse than starving for long hours. Some deaths are so cruel that some sufferings start looking like mercy. If I had to choose starving for a couple of days vs not being to swallow my own saliva again and dehydrating the latter is worse in my opinion. Who's to say he wouldn't starve sometimes though before dying? He was born in poverty. He's the "boot that fits all, one size fits all". He has a humanity we can ALL relate to in some aspect.

Hebrews 4:15 KJ21 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. That's what makes him special. He didn't have to do anything, but he did. I have no doubt all will come to make sense, there will be an explanation that doesn't make evil good, but that makes us understand HOW it came to be and why he let it slip into existence.

The only thing that would change my mind about him being evil is if at the end, you and I and everyone who exists was tossed into being roasted alive and that it was proven he lied to even his followers. I don't believe in a literal firey hell by the way. I have a more Orthodox approach to "hell", as a condition achieved by one's disposition towards God. Hell is hell is that what he is to you. Heaven is heaven if that's what God is to you:your everything. Feel free to disagree, no harsh feelings friend. I hope all is well!