Let me begin by saying I feel all organized religion is more or less unnecessary. I single out Christianity because it is the religion with which I am most familiar and it is the most popular in today's America.
I am currently reading "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. In it, Bryson chronicles the history of all the sciences. He covers all of the major discoveries and breakthroughs and gives us background on the men who made them. What is amazing to me is that more often than not, the wrong person is credited with the initial discovery. Some of these discoveries go as far back as the 1600s, though the majority (of what I have read so far) are in the 1800s. For one reason or another, usually due to the quirkiness of the initial scientist but often political or geographic reasons cause the second or even third person to make a discovery to be the one who gets the credit. Sometimes there were specific reasons the first idea was kept quiet, other times it was simply a matter of paperwork.
This begs the question, then, if as late as the 1800s people were making earth-changing discoveries and were writing about them and publishing their works as soon as they could yet we still get misinformation how could it be remotely possible that 2000 years prior true, honest-to-goodness eyewitness accounts of Jesus were recorded by the men whose names are the Gospels? Saying "God did it" or that he "protected" these works is much to easy and lazy of an explanation. Even as a Christian I would reject such notions. If God is the God of everything, he is the God of reason (another interpretation for the word "logos" which was often translated from Greek to mean "God") then it follows there would be a reason for everything. In other words, God's action would not fail due to the logical investigation of man.
I find it interesting to note that the Pauline epistles are the closest we have to knowing it was the actual author who wrote the books, and yet there it is these epistles that changed Jesus' messages. Many credit Paul, not Jesus, with the creation of Christianity.
My point here, is that no matter how much faith we have, the bible is a book written by many different people over hundreds of years. To claim it as "the word of God" is simply gullible.
Now I've heard many more liberal Christians say "there may be little inaccuracies in the bible, but it is the message that is perfect. It is the message that counts." When asked what exactly that message is, usually the answer is "To love god and love others as yourself." Now I have to ask, is that really a perfect message? Really?
I had a similar conversation with my friend JAY SWIGER (he told me to reference him with big letters) the other day. The thought that this "perfect message" is far from what it claims to me first donned on me then. "Love others as yourself." What if you hate yourself? I know most people struggle with self esteem issues. If I treated my neighbor according to those, I'd come across as an awful person. On the other side, there are people who love themselves too much. To love their neighbors that much would result in idolatry and blasphemy, would it not? True, these arguments are fairly nit picky. The point is to put others before yourself, and I agree that is a good message--I don't know that I would go so far as to call it "perfect." If given the choice between saving a serial killer's life or my son's life I will selfishly choose my son. To truly put others before myself, would I not, by the merits of Christianity, have to save the killer?
And the idea that "loving god" is good for you is far less than honest. Atheist know that murder, rape, theft, etc are bad. Through evolution we have learned that these actions are bad for the tribe, bad for society and thus bad for us and counter to our survival. And if you need some supernatural being to tell you murder is wrong to keep you from doing it, then you have some other issues to work out.
Then there are the atrocities carried out in the name of "loving god." Not only the wars and killings, but also the judgement and resentment that kills relationships and tears families apart. No one has killed or excommunicated someone in the name of atheism. They have in the name of God. Yes, many churches help the poor and create charities, however, those things exist in the secular world as well. Does the charity make up for the physical and emotional damage caused in the name of God? I say no. If we remove God from society, we will still have love, charity, and selflessness. We would also have less wars and hate.
The purpose of God and loving him, then, seems ultimately to give us comfort in death. The promise of heaven makes death less scary. To me, this is supremely selfish and not worth all of the other atrocities. The more God is involved, the more disagreements, the more judgement, the more death and hatred--the more sin there is in the world. I say, remove God and you remove the evils that come along with religion. Society improves. Keep the love, lose the God. Contrary to popular Christian belief, the two are not mutually exclusive.
