No, I don't pick and choose what to believe. The whole point is that these beliefs you are claiming I believe
1) I don't believe
2) aren't even anywhere in the Bible that I can see
If you disagree, then show me where I said I believe them, or show me where they are in the Bible.
To just assume I believe something because you've heard baptist pastors or whatever say it is off, friend. I ain't a baptist. I'm a Christian. There's a huge difference. I'm not saying no baptists are Christian, and I'm not trying to be a cock. But just be careful before you stereotype people. At least ask someone what they believe before blasting them for their "beliefs". You might actually have presumed something that isn't true.
Atheist leaders (or leaders heavily influenced by athesitic thinkers) have led the worlds largest genocides or caused as much if not more suffering as religious leaders. But for me to say Atheisim is then some root cause of evil is a total fallacy. Yet that is exactly what you are doing to "religion". This whole "guilt by association" thing just doesn't work, and to be honest, it looks more like your own personal excuse to why you do not have to investigate religion more deeply. You just cast it away so you don't have to think about it any more, but you are hypocritical in that you don't cast off other belief systems that have cause just as much if not more pain.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5400568.ece
As to Christ, the problem with your "Roman Rape" theory is that, sure, Christ might've "fooled" his disciples into thinking he was God... but the disciples had no reason to lie about his being resurrected. He certainly couldn't have fooled them about dying and coming back to life... they buried the guy. So either they're all liars and in on the biggest hoax in human history, or they're all more schizo then I was, or they're telling the truth.
I've read a lot of history and a lot of the origins of various religions. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I've never known any other group of men (who by all accounts were not gathering up women or money) to then give up their lives and die horrible, painful deaths for what they knew to be "fairy tales" or outright lies. Many skeptics claim the first Christians were just power hungry deceivers. That just makes no sense, historically.
Sure, other religious founders in history have died for their faith.... For instance, Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism) died for his faith. He had placed his faith in the vision he supposedly had from God (with no witnesses, just himself). Or Muhammad (founder of Islam) died practicing his faith. He had placed his faith in the vision he supposedly had from God (with no witness, just himself). But then again, both those men had other likely motivations. For instance, both men (by all accounts) used their religion to justify taking multiple wives (some very young), and both men profited by taking land and fighting others for land.
History shows the 12 disciples did not take multiple wives, they did not take land, they did not make a lot of money. These men had a passion for preaching the good news that Christ rose from the dead and that we can all have peace with God and eternal life. Period. That's it. They died for their faith, destitute (by earthly standards). And it wasn't just one of them witnessing the supposed "vision" (like Smith or Muhammad). It was all of them.
I've never known 12 men willing to die such horrible deaths for a known lie, especially when they had no sexual or financial motive. They weren't the only ones though. Hundreds were recorded as having witnessed the resurrection, and hundreds were martyred. From there Christianity took off in the 1st century, not by the sword or for pussy or riches... no, it took off despite its followers regularly being stoned, cut in half, or burnt at the stake.
Christ is real. If you need to write him off because "all religion is leads to evil", or because you didn't like getting up on Sunday, or whatever your reasoning is... then do that. But those aren't good enough reasons for me to deny what happened to me, and to deny the history surrounding the man.
You can accuse people of being crazy all day long. But when you sterotype people and then blast them for their alleged beliefs, you are the one that comes off as a bit off kilter.