Where do you go with your thought process when you have lived long enough and researched enough to come to the conclusion that Jesus and the bible are a fraud? I wish that is not what I see. But having no vested interest but the search for truth and meaning in this life, and the availability of information in this day thats where I am.
I see and can argue for evidence of intelligent design, but jesus and the bible are the product of a bunch of old fat lazy men who never wanted to work.
I can also accept that some do not want to see or argue for intelligent design. I respect that.
So my ambiguous question is if you have come to the conclusion I have where do you go with your thoughts and your life.
I looked to Intelligent Design for a while too, as it seemed like a good compromise, and I thought it had some good points. However, as I've researched it more, it turns out ID isn't much more than a smoothed over version of Creationism - where they've replaced Creator with Designer. Pretty much the same people are behind it too (of course, there are differences in various people's approach among the ID proponents as well, but this is true for a lot of them). I also learned that ID isn't a scientific approach - it's a group of people who wants to get ID into schools in the science classes, so as to more easily be able to preach about Jesus/God (that's the end goal).
What ID proponents do, is to look at nature and say "That's so complex that I can't fathom how that can have got there by chance!". Not only is the premise wrong however - it is also comparable to a junior high school student looking at advanced calculus and saying "Well, heck - I don't understand even where to start with this! I refuse to believe this can be solved!" Just because we can't understand something, doesn't mean there isn't a solution. Another thing ID proponents do, is to not come up with new scientific material for peer review, but instead attack scientific theories wherever they can find a hole. And they continue to attack those same 'holes' even after scientists have answered them and explained them away.
I could go on and on here, but instead, I'd like to recommend a YouTube video (there are in fact lots of great YouTube videos on the subject).
It's very long I'm afraid, but should be right up your ally, and is totally worth it. Here's the URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg
The professor talking (Ken Miller) is actually a catholic, and I guess this is from a catholic university (?), so there's actually even a prayer at the start, but please look past that and watch the whole thing (goes to show you can combine these thoughts with faith, if you want).
As for life from here, I've started to come to grips with not being special, and that this life is all there is. It's a rather glum and depressing thought at first (so much so that one can understand why religion had to be invented), but if it's true, we're just gonna have to face the facts: there are no cookies in the cabinet even though our father promised we would get them if we behaved. We can scrape that cabinet's inside until our nails bleed, but no cookie. It's depressing, it's "unfair", but it's a fact. However, I must confess I'm not 100% there yet. So I shouldn't sit here pretending to be a high priest of materialistic science(!). However - that's the direction I'm headed in. There are a couple of places you can still put God within the scientific frame if you want though. For instance before the Big Bang, and as the source of the very first forms of life.
And if there is a loving God out there, I figure I haven't done anything to offend him so much that He must feel the need to crush me. And if He does anyway, I don't want to live forever in a place ruled by such a person. It's a matter of principle. A re-write of the old saying: "I wouldn't want to be a member of a paradise that doesn't want me as a member".
