I view Christianity as a very old structure of values compiled by people who had lost all bearing on their existence. The manifestation of a set of guide lines and an external parent figure takes the responsibility off the hands of humans and places it on the head of an 'intrinsically good, all-knowing and omnipotent being'. My beliefs aside, let's look into this God business a little.
Existence is truly an overwhelming thing. If you take a moment to look deeper into any of the things around you one cannot help being utterly lost in the complexity of it all. God is an all too convenient simplification of it all. I do not think that the belief that existence was created by a deity is helpful to a successful existence.
Existence as we understand it is a finite occurrence, it will pass. Whether or not our existence as we understand it on Earth is a mere stage of something much larger we can do nothing other than execute this existence, or stage of existence, in the way we see most fit.
Christianity will have you believe that the way of God is the most fit way to exist.
However, I feel that one should take their own existence into their own hands. The only thing you can do in your 'life' is exist. No matter what you're doing or not doing, you're existing. Given the magnitude of this it makes sense to me to define how you exist by yourself. You're opening yourself to grave errors if you just accept the pre-packaged existence that Christianity and religion in general provides. Even if God exists the bible is nothing but a story book written by bored and lost humans.
In order to lead the best possible existence one must evaluate their actions through their own eyes, not through the words of a book.
Humans are fallible (a fundamental Christian belief) so why accept the work of many humans (many fallible humans involved creates the possibility of many mistakes) as fact!? It is a
monumental error to accept the work of others before you without checking it yourself. You wouldn't do it at school (if you wanted the best grade), you wouldn't do it at work (if you wanted the best from your job) and you
shouldn't do it if you want the best from your existence.
To each their own, of course, I am not trying to tell the Christians of Aces High that they're wrong. My suggestion is that you look into everything the bible tells you and critique it with your own sense of moral judgement because the bible does not contain the word of God, it contains man's interpretation of the word of God. Use the bible as a hand-drawn road map rather than a dictionary and you will be on the way to a fuller existence.
I've studied the philosophy of religion at university and through the many hours I spent looking through it all I learnt is that it's all hot air and words on a page. There is no way to say that there is some omnipresent being controlling or 'guiding' everything and there is also no way to say that their isn't, so I'm not trying to suggest that there is or is not a God. All we can do is use our our time to do our best.
Besides, assuming that God does exist for a moment, he gave you a brain and it would be an insult to him not to use it, right?
