It's not about the insanity of the belief. It's about how many believe in the insanity with you.

Two quick thoughts, in case you haven't actually studied Christianity...1-The existence of Jesus and his immediate followers is not in dispute by the bulk of academia. The only question is if he came back from the dead (as Paul put it, if Christ has not been raised, then our faith is in vain). Most of Jesus' immediate followers were put to death still saying that the resurrection was true. Unless they're crazy, men will live for what they know to be a lie if it benefits them, but they won't die for it. There's literally no point. And these were the guys who would know FOR SURE, and they ALL held on to the same story until the end (Caps for emphasis, not yelling). 2- Check out Daniel 9:24-26 (you can check out the Wikipedia entry if you don't have a Bible handy). In essence, "weeks" literally translates into sevens, and the Jewish calendar was built on seven year cycles. With that being the only assumption, it's known that Artaxerxes gave Nehemiah permission to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem in between 450-445BC (the day after Passover), that it was difficult and perilous to do so, that Jesus was born sometime around 0 AD (give or take a few years), and that almost 483 years later (probably to the day), Jesus was placed on a cross the day after Passover. No one doubts that Daniel was written before Jesus was born, yet you have a prophecy about an annointed one being killed 69 x 7 years after a command to rebuild Jerusalem's walls is issued. What comes after in that final "week" is often described as the Tribulation and is Apocalyptic and up for debate, but there isn't much debate about the incredible "coincidence" of timing. Anyway, there's a lot more out there, but those two things made it much easier for me to accept Christianity when I was in college,

I actually have studied Christianity, when I was a Christian. That is what caused me to stop being Christian. The God of the Bible is a vengeful, murdering, psychopathic megalomaniac.

I read the Bible, and I see thousands of years of forbearance and mercy at every turn, topped with an ultimate sacrifice complete with this offer: It's not about what you do, it's about accepting what's already been done for you. Not a single other religion in the world can boast the same (or has anywhere close to the same track record scrutiny and verified history).

Leviticus 27:28-29,Exodus 22:29-30,Joshua 6:21,Judges 11:30-39 God has a history of demanding human sacrifice. Jesus was just one of many.

Leviticus 27:28-29 (It's all his anyway)...Exodus 22:29-30 (perhaps you didn't read Exodus 13:12-14)...Joshua 6:21 (again, thousands of years of forbearance, and you need to read vs 22 & 23)...Judges 11:30-39 (I was waiting for this one...God never asked him, nor required his daughter! Jephthah made a rash vow, as if we can eve bargain with God, and then followed through on it! God never agreed, God never asked him to go through. This is entirely on Jephthah.)

So God didn't KNOW such a vow would be known? God didn't Know Jep would be victorious? What Pharaoh willing to let the jews go but "God heartened his heart" so he would have an excuse to kill babies? You CANNOT put God's evil and treachery off on ANYONE else and still believe God is all-powerful and all-knowing and all-forgiving. That is the most insane belief of them all. imgflip.com/i/187khw Now before you respond to all the murder and slavery God's commands in the Bible just think, think about yourself.You are going to try to rationalize murder and slavery, aren't you squidward? You want to try to have an intelligent discourse but it's not possible to have such with an irrational person. Believing a married woman had a virgin birth, that a person can walk on water, that a person healed the sick and raised the dead, that he died but didn't die, that he knows everything but is sometimes surprised ( OOhh I didn't know Satan was going to do that). That he is all-powerful and all-loving but unwilling to stop the carnage. ( It's Satans fault) Those are all irrational and illogical beliefs.

There's a difference between capital punishment and murder. There's a difference between biblical slavery (bondservant for debt, of which we have a modified version called loans) and what we think of when we say slavery, which was forced, lifetime servitude like you're property. God wasn't surprised, it never says he was. To the contrary, the ability to choose wrong is what makes love real, and what he sought in the first place. And nowhere does it say Pharoah was willing to let them go.

Wow you are doing some great calisthenics trying to avoid the facts. God created Satan. He must have known what the results would be or he isn't all-knowing. God doesn't stop Satan, so he is either not all-powerful or he not all-caring (or both). As for Pharoah, this comes from a Torah site which correlates and quotes the Biblical version. First, God commands Moses to have the Israelites turn back and encamp by the sea. This would make Pharaoh think that the Israelites have lost their way. God will then harden Pharaoh’s heart and have him chase after the Israelites (verses 1-4, 8-9). Second, when God commands Moses to split the sea and lead the Israelites through it, God again states that he will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that Pharaoh and his army will follow the Israelites into the sea (verses 15-18).

Thus, it is due to God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart that the Egyptians set out in pursuit of the Israelites after having let them go, and then foolishly enter the split sea. All of this was calculated to bring glory to God and to teach the Egyptians that God is the Lord.

Just to make sure that you realize I'm not ignoring what you said, I'll make these two quick posits...First, love can't be real without a choice in the matter, and that goes for Satan as well as us. He had to be given a choice, just as we have to. (Also, don't treat Satan's fall as something that happened in the past...time doesn't exist in the spiritual realm, it's a physical dimension only. We see the fall in Genesis, we see the fight continuing in Job, Daniel, the Gospels, and Revelation references it as a future event.) Second, I think you're confusing hardening (which is a strengthening of an existing resolve) with changing (which would revoke free will...something that we're allowed to have even though it can cause our own self-destruction).

But, I think it's important to remember some things. First, morality is separate from instinct (example-people will run into a burning building to try and save someone. Now, many believe that is a herd-instinct, but that instinct is in conflict with a stronger instinct for self-preservation. Something else other than instinct moved the needle to action-which we call morality). Morality has to come from somewhere, and religions universally examine that. Second, all valid questions must have an answer, whether known or unknown, must have an answer (Four types of questions are Farsical, which don't actually seek information and are therefore invalid, Fantastical, which use words/concepts that may or may not mean something to the asker and are therefore invalid, Wrong, which are based on incorrect observation but do have an answer and are therefore valid, and Right, which are based on correct observation and have an answer and are also valid). Science only answers questions of process and method, it is unequipped to answer questions of meaning (such as why). Philosophy attempts to answer the questions Science cannot, and religion is the branch of philosophy that addresses the meaning behind existence. Ultimately, there are multiple reasons to acknowledge that there is a God, and so you're left with the choice of what to do about that.

Lot's of words...that mean nothing. Is God all-powerful, all-knowing and all-forgiving? His actions and lack of actions show that he is not.

Lack of action does not equate to inability to act. Taking action that you don't understand does not mean that it wasn't the best action to take. All-forgiving is not an attribute of God, and the Bible never claims it. He is willing to forgive, but not all will seek it, and our decision will define us. My earlier words indicate the existence of God, which warrants investigation. Please understand this, too...No one is innocent, and there are no better or worse sins. The ten commandments equate lying with murder. The entire message of human history is that we are not good enough on our own...we are all guilty. That's the bad news. But there's good news...it's never been up to us to make ourselves right. Faith in what you were given (even if you never read a word of the Bible, because the heavens declare the glory of God) will be accounted as righteousness (i.e.-right standing with God). That's the message of Romans 1-4, and it's been applied to everyone in human history, like the Pharoah from the story of Moses on one hand to Abraham on the other.