Life is a mystery. Faith is a mystery.

I just finished Frank Schaeffer's "Patience with God," which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to know more about the "new atheists" and also about fundamentalist/evangelicals. I would especially recommend you give the book to someone you might know who is considering becoming a "born again" Christian, or who tells you you are going to hell because you're a Catholic.

This a conclusion to a chapter on the mystery of life, and that life is not based merely on facts or certainties:

It's only regarding unimportant stuff, such as buying major appliances, that we can go online and found out the 'facts.' When it comes to the person we spend our lives with, or having babies, or careers we end up killing ourselves for, or life-altering snap judgments like volunteering for military service, let alone the friends we meet and make and keep, we shoot the rapids, take our chances, and improvise. We learn as we do, not as we think about doing. . . .  And that is true about how faith in God is too. The truth is also that we either experience God or we don't. And just as in a marriage, once we have experienced God, we either choose to work to maintain that relationship or let it fade. In that sense we can choose to believe, just as on days when I'd rather be sleeping with another woman, I choose to stay married. (p. 169-170)