I have a question: in light of boundless historical fallacies, is it possible to be a Christian, or a believer in the biblical God in general at all? God as we know Him/Her/It first came into parlance through a small tribe of people that was struggling to survive in a desert land, beset by much more powerful empires all around. Something like God becomes a survival mechanism, a means of uniting the people. And it's no wonder that this God was vengeful and vindictive, given the harsh circumstances. What better way to keep law and order than to invoke the most powerful being in the universe? This image of God evolved over time, becoming a loving Father, and further yet to be some gender neutral force-field. Anyway the point is that God evolved throughout history until the one we started with did not resemble the one we inherited in the 21st century. Where's the grain of truth in this inconsistency? You might say that God stayed constant while those we changed our minds over what God is. But ultimately, God started as a survival mechanism for a patriarchal society. I really want to believe in God, but is it not possible that he is ONLY the God of Israel and nobody else? Furthermore is it possible to discredit the Bible and still be Christian? It's one thing to reject the Church, but the very text itself is something else. But each book in it was hand-picked by a council of men who decided that this version, this point of view would be what all Christians must follow for ages to come. Who's to say they were right? None of the Gospels were written directly at the time of Christ, and none of the Church fathers who decided this canon even knew Jesus, personally. The faith of St. Paul appears very different from the faith of St. Peter, or Jesus himself and yet it's Paul's religion that spread across the mediterranean and beyond, taken up by the gentiles who became the inheritors of the Christian faith. And then at the Council of Nicea, they disputed over whether Jesus was literally the son of God or whether this was mere metaphor. the way we see Jesus and God was decided over a vote, not divine intervention. I'd like to have been there when they decided that, and how one side won out over the other(s). I just find it really hard to take what has been handed down to us for centuries to be the be all and end all of Christian doctrine. Why did the other Gospels not make the cut? What was wrong with them? Not to mention how drastically the whole thing changed when it became the official religion of the Roman Empire, undergoing further surgery and cross-pollenization with pagan customs. The Good News starts to feel like an f#$%ing long game of Telephone spanning two millennia.

So nothing that I'm saying is new. This is something that plenty of believers and non-believers alike are aware of. I'm not trying to discredit the religion. I think it's a beautiful faith, so much so that I wish I could return to it. I believe in everything the Bible stands for, but when I think about the fact that it's the final draft of what could have been many editions at the hands of very fallible albeit well-meaning human beings, I can't help but feel cheated, like I'm missing the bigger picture, and it's hard for me to take the Bible for more than just great literature. How do you take it for more than a human construct? Some might say that it's how it is written that gives people the sense that its Author is divine. But then I've found other works just as uplifting or insightful as the Gospel, works from people who don't claim to be prophets or messiahs. So I ask as someone desperate for spiritual nourishment, not someone out looking for a fight with belief. I believe there is something greater than us, and I am open to the possibility that the God of Israel is that very same force, so I ask: is there enough room in God's universe for skepticism, and in light of all of this that I've just mentioned, is it possible for a skeptic like myself retain a belief in a Christian faith? And if so, how? I would genuinely like to know.

Oh and I'm deliberately ignoring all the alternatives because I want the answers to these questions specifically. Trust me, I'm very aware that there is more than just Jesus or nothing at all. The other faiths and philosophies of the world--that's a whole other topic!