I can understand why you feel as you do. From your perspective, we are all voluntarily putting ourselves under the yoke of rules and moralities written by men hundreds of years ago. But from our perspective, we are trying to follow the One who has created us and loves us with more love than we mere humans can possibly understand or love in return.

God is not a religion. God is a REAL being. Religion is what we mortals have set up to try to relate to God. Since different Christians believe differently in some areas, there are different religions or denominations, which causes many non-Christians to think Christians just brainwash themselves into believing some weird dogma to help them cope with life. But every true Christian I have ever known has a personal relationship with God, mano-a-mano, so to speak. It goes WAY beyond merely following some set of rules or dogma.

You may get the impression from our posts here that Christianity is just one big struggle. But most of us use this board to talk about our troubles, or questions. I guess we don't often post about the good stuff God is doing in our lives. Maybe we should. Most probably do that in their own church and use the board for things we can't talk about in church. My point is that being a Christian is a great way to live. It's the ONLY way to live. I've been a non-Christian, as we all have at one time or another. And I would never want to go back to being a non-Christian. Even if there were no eternal rewards, even if EVERYONE went to heaven regardless of what they believed, I would still follow God. Once you've experienced first hand the awesome personal love of God, following Him is the biggest no-brainer in the world.

Dakota