I look at Christianity/Judaism as purely a cultural tradition. It's not even that old comparatively, so how is it supposed to answer questions of creation? Give us another 2000 years (if even that long) and they'll look back at it like we look at the ancient Romans/Greeks (multi god/goddess), Inca/Maya (sun god + lesser gods), or even Egyptians (pharaohs were living gods). And I bet they used some of the same arguments then to support their faith...that the complexity/beauty of the world suggests divinity, that their writings speak truth and have prophesised events in the past and yet to come, and of course that "straying" has consequences. But even Christians will agree these belief systems seem silly now.

I've tried the Christian path myself...didn't work for me. I'll accept that when you truly believe, that you indeed feel benefited from it. It's the accepting the bible as the divine word that I couldn't accept. Personally I think there prolly is a God so to speak, but I don't think it's as presented by the bible. To grossly oversimplify, it presents a picture not too different from Zeus really...old fatherly man sitting in the gates of heaven watching from above. I on the other hand assume there is no separation from our world and the spirit world; they are seamless. Our picture of the visual world is vastly restricted anyways. Imagine if you could see the whole wavelength spectrum, from high freq ultra-violet to low freq infrared. Not to mention our perception of time has been proven to be relative. I see "God" as more like the force of life, or even just energy of the universe, that initiates everything from chemical/nuclear reactions in stars to babies and kittens, and thus is truly a part of everything. "He" is not a seperate singular all knowing entity, but more like a field of all possible knowledge within the very fabric of reality, of which we only think we have a grasp of. Hell, I may be way off too. I'll be the first to admit I can't even imagine what the truth of "reality" is. Thus it's the conviction that organized religion holds the truth is what gets to the "un-faithful" like Schmange, and I guess me as well.