Day 19. What do you think of religion

I am a Christian.

I believe the Bible to be the inspired, inerrant word of God, revealing the character of God and His plan for His creation, and the only source of divine authority on Earth. I believe it gives us everything we need to determine how to be saved, which we all surely need to be, and how to live in this life and the eternity to come.

Of “religion,” I think poorly, if at all. The human concept of religion is generally nothing more than a way to define, categorize, and communicate whatever one’s personal worldview demands of him/herself, and therefore what he/she likely demands, or at least expects, of others. I’m not interested in your religion, I’m interested in what you believe, and whether that belief has any basis in reality. I am a Christian because I am convinced, utterly convinced, that the claims of the Bible are true, that historical and archaeological evidence has time and again proven the biblical record accurate in every meaningful particular, that not one major doctrine is affected by so-called “errors,” that tens of thousands of pieces of manuscript evidence point to a nearly completely accurate modern survival of the original texts, and that if God exists at all, He is who He said He is in the Bible. If He had meant something different, He’d have said something different, and if He’s not who He said He is, He’s not God at all.

But in the end, if God does not exist, my faith won’t conjure Him up. But if He does, all the accumulated doubt of the ages cannot harm Him.