Need lots of different opinions! Help please!

I suppose I fit in the nonreligious category, as I am atheist and agnostic, and yes one can be both. But, I do belong to a religion - Unitarian Universalism. It would take a small book to explain why I don't believe god(s) exist. I was raised as a true believer of Mormonism and believed all the way until I was 30. I believed I had a lot to back up my belief from answered prayers and miracles, to feeling what I believed was the intense love of God and his guidance in my life, to the holy scriptures, to the good fruits that came from the works of the prophets, the gospel made sense to me logically, and it seemed to me that I received the promised blessings when I lived the gospel.

But, then I researched the origins of Mormonism, especially one of their scriptures called the Book of Abraham, and I found it was undeniably a fraud. My worldview was turned upside down. If the Book of Abraham was a fraud, Joseph Smith was a deceiver (there was lots of additional evidence of that as well); and if Joseph Smith was a false prophet, the Church he established was false, too. That meant that all of those times when I believed God told me the Book of Abraham or the LDS Church was true - I had to be mistaken. I realized that there was no qualitative difference between what I experienced when I thought God was telling me Mormonism was true and when I thought I felt God's love. Perhaps I was mistaken about it all! Perhaps god never communicated with me and it was all produced by my own brain. If some of the communications were real and some false, I knew that I could not tell the difference, so at minimum they were an unreliable source for determining what is real - whether god exists or not.

So, I began to retreat in my beliefs. If the extra Mormon scriptures were not true, was the Bible not true either? I researched the heck out of the Bible, reading both critical, apologetic, and original sources to try to get to the bottom of the Bible. I evaluated logical arguments and took a hard look at the qualities of the god of the Old Testament. I found that I really didn't care for the god of the Old Testament; if he were real, I wouldn't want anything to do with him as he is cruel and flippant over the smallest things and even commands his followers to do atrocious things. I reasoned that it is logically impossible and can be proven that god cannot be all-loving and all-powerful given the world is the way that it is (I'd be happy to share with you the proof and it takes into account that god could have purposes that we don't know). I eventually found that biblical theology is not true.

I then researched other gods and new age philosophies. I looked into near-death experiences, dreams that appear to come true, premonitions, odd coincidences, spells, etc. I remain completely unconvinced. I find that the model that best fits the world as I understand it is the natural one. I don't believe in the supernatural or the metaphysical. I am open to entertaining new evidence, but I no longer value faith. I find that faith opens you up to believing things that are just not true. Some things you cannot prove true or false. Some things you can. And for me, I am sure that the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob does not exist. Other gods might exist; it cannot be proven either way. I just find it highly unlikely that any gods exist. We don't need them to account for creation, evolution, or for the day to day events on earth. In fact using god as an explanation for anything creates more problems than it solves.

Now, I have said a lot of things here without laying out everything that would back it up (like I said in the beginning it would take a book), but you can find a lot on my blog. I never really got into what I do believe now, what my morals are and how I adopted them. Those things can be found on my blog as well.

I believe in Christianity because of the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Taking a look at 1st Century Palestine through anthropology (especially the honor/shame part of their culture), Christianity growing into the thousands makes no sense without the resurrection being true. Crucifixion was considered an extremely shameful death and most people were completely disgusted by it. The only thing that would vindicate Jesus from the extreme shame was a physical resurrection. I believe that the disciples and apostles had good evidence for the resurrection and that their martyrdom also only makes sense in light of the resurrection being true. If it wasn't, they would have given up their faith very early.

The apostles creed:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Maker of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;

He descended into hell.*

The third day He arose again from the dead;

He ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost;
the holy catholic church;
the communion of saints;
the forgiveness of sins;
the resurrection of the body;
and the life everlasting.

Amen.

*Hell in this sentence means the grave, not the place of everlasting torment. There is linguistic crossing in certain instances, this being one of them. Plus historical evidence to what the early church meant when it recited this shows that it clearly meant the grave.

"Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial."
-G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

You might find work by Joseph Campbell interesting for answering this question. "The Power of Myth" is available in book and DVD.

Also, don't forget Karl Marx' "religion is the opiate of the masses," for another approach.

Love the journey
-Auris

hi i can chip in here too. i was raised by a mom who wanted to go to our christian church every sunday. we went to sunday school until the age of ten. so for christianity it was just something we were raised to believe without thinking about it. i started reading about other religions after college. i think this was partially because of the bad examples of christianity.
i felt a natural recognition of budhisms teachings. it wasnt judgemental an it was based on balance in life an the idea that stuff isnt important. it doesnt matter to me what you call the religion as long as its based on compassion an love for others . at this point i have a little more acceptance of christianity because i recognize that i cant let the bad apples turn me away from the good parts .

hi i can chip in here too. i was raised by a mom who wanted to go to our christian church every sunday. we went to sunday school until the age of ten. so for christianity it was just something we were raised to believe without thinking about it. i started reading about other religions after college. i think this was partially because of the bad examples of christianity.
i felt a natural recognition of budhisms teachings. it wasnt judgemental an it was based on balance in life an the idea that stuff isnt important. it doesnt matter to me what you call the religion as long as its based on compassion an love for others . at this point i have a little more acceptance of christianity because i recognize that i cant let the bad apples turn me away from the good parts .

Im baptist thier is some evidence to support that baptists where before the catholic church and therefor are not protestant Anyways As stated before the evidence is thier. Also somthing cannot come from nothing so thier has to to be a creator or creators. Miracles where preformed by Jesus our savior which he taught where in the name of God i have no choice but to accept that he was part of the trinity. Also I belive in Auras and psychic people which is not taught at my church I belive this because it is clearly stated that thier are spiritual gifts in 1 cor chap 13 and 14. Auras are clearly scientific because the body is constantly expelling energy which in turn is the Aura. if you would like more info contact and send mail to me over Nano

ALL HAIL BRITTANIA!!!!!!!!

Also I belive that Angels and demons do walk upon the Earth and we must destroy or expel the demons from the Earth to have a better world not taught at my church but still very common in the bible Jesus expelled demons from people then so why arent thier demons now some religions state that demons do not exisit anymore upon Earth IT all depends on which religion you are

ALL HAIL BRITTANIA!!!!!!!!