I can agree with almost everything you say, and I have few good arguments for your points about the organized christian religion. The fact that people overwhelmingly inherit their beliefs should be a serious problem to any religious person, and I have no good rationalization for it. It's one of many things for which God owes me an explanation someday.

> Yes, as you say, we're the most powerful consciousness on this planet right now

That's not really what I'm driving at, for that misses the point that I've been trying to defend on behalf of nvahalik. What I'm saying is that by necessity you are the most powerful consciousness in your own life. Same would be true for me were I not a believer. Society may judge and punish deeds that disregard social norms. My friends and acquaintances may value me more or less, colored by their own human experience. My family may need me, for a time.

But if I'm my own boss, then all these folks can go fuck themselves as soon as I become grumpy about their involvement in my life. They are, after all, hairless apes just like me, arisen from and destined to be dust just as I am. As an atheist, you are your own authority/judge/prescriptor/appraiser/lover/whateverer. You may generously entertain your fellow apes' performance of these roles if it suits you. But that choice belongs to you alone. You are your own beginning and end. You are Tom Cruise.

My belief in a creator relieves me of that burden. I rest easy in the confidence that I was created by and live in the quiet presence of a force whose intelligence is transcendentally beyond mine, and yet not totally alien from me either, for I have been assured that, as you say, we are created in the image of God. Not physically; the hairless ape bodies are temporary vessels. But as I alluded to before, your passions, sense of humor, your love of soft furry animals -- these are things that your creator understands. Care was taken in your design and manufacture. It's obvious to me, anyway, that some serious fucking care was taken, one way or another, to give rise to you, a creature with a sense of self and desire to talk religion on the internet.

> And no, as above, I don't think 'it was bound to happen', as that implies an intent to achieve the current state of the universe.

Very well put. I personally feel that intent is overwhelming implied, if not brazenly avowed, by the preposterously complex and beautifully engineered results. If see more than three rocks stacked atop one another while hiking, I know with near certainty that an intelligent being (another hiker) built the structure to mark the trail. It boggles my mind that anyone can entertain lack of intent in the rise of The Whole Fucking Universe, with all of its stacked rocks, furry animals, and sentient self-aware beings.

Original sin and the creation myth and all that... I don't know, and I don't care. I know some do care, but they're the minority, albeit the loudest minority. Here's a trick for when you meet one of them: ask them if they'd still have any use for Christ's mercy if the creation myth were not literally true. That ought to shut them up.

As to why I chose the message of Jesus for my own faith... it probably helps that my family is nominally Christian. But I also really believe myself to have enough objectivity and an open enough mind to chose freely. I've shopped around, and the message of Christ is only one I've found that puts no burden on me whatsoever to earn my way. In fact, Jesus makes it quite plain that we can't earn anything by deeds, and that our only choice is take our salvation as a free gift. Obviously you have to believe in the giver, and once that really sinks in, it's impossible not to love the giver of such a gift with your whole heart, which ends up being the meat of Jesus' response when he was asked what we need to do to be redeemed. The rest of the new testament has a lot of good advice about how to live life, IMO. But there are plenty of believers who have no access to a bible, and a God of mercy and love takes them too.

> I think saying 'it just happened' is to give up on some potentially very interesting lines of enquiry. But I don't think it's necessary to invoke a 'higher intelligent creative force' to address any questions around the process.

I'm genuinely interested to know what alternatives you like. What you would invoke instead of a higher intelligent creative force?