Relativity of God to individuals and Culture
John Wilkes Booth wrote in his diary May 10,1838, that God had made him pull the trigger the night he shot Abraham Lincoln. Later that night officers, found John Wilkes Booth in an abandon home in which the sheriff shot and killed John Wilkes Booth. His very words as well were God made me do it. So in this circumstance who was right? Neither, it was a matter of perspective, which is exactly my point. Since every culture is different, we can not correctly verify that Christianity is the one true religion. This is because religion is relativity to culture. What is considered socially acceptable may be considered taboo other cultures. Therefore we can never correctly define what good and bad is because it is a matter of perspective as well.
Story of Jesus
To analyze the story in a logical perspective, we must first look at the story in a literal sense, meaning we must first throw the impossibilities of nature out of the equation. We must throw out the virgin birth, the miracles in which Jesus is breaking the conservation of mass, and the resurrection of a no longer animate object. What we have left is just a story of man who committed blasphemy against the current religion by saying he was the Son of God. This led him to paying the consequences by suffering a common form of humiliation and punishment,- death on the cross. Well, most are going to disagree and say the virgin birth, miracles, and the resurrection are all true, but to an intelligent Atheist or Pantheist, they would say, so what. If you look at mythology that predates Jesus, we can see that the story of Jesus is not an original concept. Mythological figures of this would be; Budda, Krishna, Odysseus, Romulus, Dionysus, Heracles, Glycon, Zoroaster, Attis of Phrygia, and Horus. The first writer of Jesus was Paul, and Paul wrote the story of Jesus nearly five decades after the death of Jesus. The only knowledge Paul possessed about the story was the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Meaning the stories of the miracles and moral teachings, the meat and potatoes if you will, must have been fabricated.
What Religion has caused
I can boldly say that religion has caused the most deaths on this Earth up to today. A horrific example would be the Crusades, which maybe is one of the most immoral things human kind has ever done, beside the holocaust. The morality of this did not matter though, since these immoral acts technically abide by the bible and was given a divine purpose. Religion has also caused a stand still in the progression of human knowledge. An example of this would be Galileo. Galileo was accused of blasphemy because he believed in a Heliocentric Solar System instead of the Catholic belief of a Geocentric. Galileo later spent the rest of his days under house arrest. Another victim to this stand still would include evolution. The reason the bible is not scientifically sound is because the bible was written from about 1400 b.c. to about 200 a .d. Modern science and understanding of the natural world however has only started in the last two hundred years. Since we can see that there is about a sixteen hundred year gap we can then make a pretty accurate assumption and say there is no science in the bible.
Misconceptions
Einstein wrote very clearly that he was a pantheist or a deist. Meaning he did not believe in a God that could interfere with the physical world and/or answer prayers.
My Philosophy
I believe God is the very thing that keeps our universe from going out of balance.
It is not a living breathing intellectual being who knows our every move, every step, and every question able action. Otherwise, what would be the point of living if there was already a destiny made out for you that it knew? Life in that aspect would be viewed as a sick game of life and death.
