As much as I tried to hold on to my belief that the Jesus story, or for that matter the whole Bible, was true, the more I read the Scriptures without anyone coloring them for me, the more I realized that it was not what is presented in today’s American version of Christianity.
First, it is clear to me that Jesus and his followers expected "all things" to occur within their lifetimes. According to the story, these were times of urgency in getting the message out that the Kingdom of God was at hand. Even Peter had to remind those of his day that Jesus was not slow in keeping his promise as some consider slowness, but was waiting so as many as possible could be saved.
If that delay was a few weeks, years, or decades, it is clear from the Bible that they were not referring to centuries much less millennia. But as human nature has clearly shown throughout history, people resist change. Leaving ones cultural or born-into religion is not practiced by the majority and once a religion is established the adherents usually hang on to it.
About a century after Jesus died, Christianity began shifting from a religion with an urgent message about a soon-to-be return, to one that was looking at a long future ahead of it. As a result it slowly became intermeshed with the political element of the day (Rome) and eventually became indistinguishable from it.
As a result, like most government agencies, it became full of greed and corruption leading to some of the most offensive atrocities ever assigned to mankind.
What I found interesting is that for about 75% of the history of “the church”, only a relatively few schisms and breaks occurred after it became part of the government machine. The Bible was not readily accessible during this time.
But once the Bible became easier to access, the divisions of the church multiplied greatly and continues to do so today leading to 40,000+ different ideas of what a Christian is.
I could start my own church today and with just a little bit of flamboyancy and clever “reasoning” it may even grown into one of the larger ones and go on for centuries.
I no longer believe any of it anymore and assign it to just another one of the many stories about beings of divine origin that have developed over the history of man.