What rational argument would you make to your friends that would convince them? What do you do about the fact that God has no intention of dying on a cross over and over again so each skeptic on the planet can have her own personal proof? His plan is to give just enough evidence in His own judgement and then see who can overcome their brilliant, rationale skepticism to seize the prize. [emphasis in original]

What an utterly insane, arbitrary way for God to sort the wheat from the chaff! Why in God's own name would he proceed as you suggest? And who would want to follow such a God anyway?

Regardless, your attempt to back away from your prior claim that faith is blind is just digging a deeper hole. You were, in fact, very clear in what you meant. Read your quote above again. According to your own theory, the geniuses of faith that you seemingly so admire didn't come to Christiantiy by evidence or reason but rather by overcoming their "rational skepticism". Again, why would God demand that only those who can overcome rational skepticism will be saved? Wouldn't it make sense for him to demand, if anything, that they overcome only irrational skepticism? But, even this requirement makes salvation "earned" rather than freely given.

And in any event, your geniuses of faith didn't know what we know today. They didn't know about genes. The didn't know, for instance, that order can arise from disorder (or less order) via "natural selection." They didn't know about plate techtonics or the dinosaurs. And they knew almost nothing about other religions (except maybe Judaism and Islam). In short, while geniuses of their age, they knew less about the world than today's average sixth grader, and they came to their conclusions from that dark place of ignorance. In short, they had an excuse. You don't.