yes but self-centered

I am the opposite. I impose no restrictions upon my life and in that respect i consider myself free. In the past i confined myself to religious services on a weekly basis. Without that It has made my life better as im more balanced. Religion creates barriers between people, it divides communites and threats developed intelligent societies. It is the single greatest threat to the safety of your average Joe, as a fear factor anyway.

I don't believe people's lives should be dictated by something that cannot be proven, im not saying that there is no God but contradictions to other relgions leaves me questioning validity. It worked in the past for example in England when everyone was Christian and all shared the same view point. However, in the modern day and age where in certain areas they are now the majority there is clear tension between people who have "strong" beliefs. It doesn't seem possible for everyone to agree to disagree in terms on Religion.

Interpretations of the holy scriptures is partly to be blamed. Certain lines lead to different lifestyle choices resulting in some people of a variety (all relgions?) of commiting things I would consider to be criminal.

Even if God gave me life, he also gave me free will. As long as im good to others and care for people then i see no reason why I can't be considered good even with the absence of a God. Even the Bible states you don't need to be a Christian to go to heaven. Or maybe im interpreting it differently.

Twes wins this one. it makes more sense to me.

I think that people generally act in a way that they believe produces the best possible outcome, but rarely do they have enough information or an unbiased understanding to actually choose the correct action.

Let's be clear. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." The Bible does teach that Christ is the only way to heaven.

There's a lot of other things in your post that I'd like to respond to, but the bolded part is what I find to be the most interesting. Consider this... If I told you that it takes just as much faith to disbelieve in God as to believe, would you agree?

Well it is more of a form of slanting, but my remakr was more based on if we call brainwashing, then there is a lot of things in life we could call brainwashing.  Hell we could call our current lives brainwashing.  Indeed that problem is the truth, but we are only calling it that for purpose of slanting it in a negative fashion.  And yes, I've read the Communist Manifest, and I know of no such thing.  Of course, Marx wouldn't call it brainwashing, of course he would say that what the capitalist society is doing would be an equivalent. 

Well it doesn't always have to be money.  However, capitalism is about gain.  That is the driving force for taking so much risks on the free market.  They aren't doing it for just personal gratification. 

Well what do you think a society is.  A society is its people.  Indeed it is also of the same word that is social, or intereaction between people. 

I won't lie I agree with jsut about everything he mentioned. I have to admit that it does take faith to say there is no god, and stick by it, just a different from of faith, however it takes a lot less faith to say that it's not your kind of god.

Hell, I find the following more plausible than the Bible, and it doesn't take a lot of faith to think that:

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

I draw the line of brainwashing or not as if your using actual force to accomplish your goal.  So, advertisements, not brainwashing.  Someone FORCING you to watch advertisments... brainwashing.

The brainwashing though is the first stage.  "Dictatorship of the Proletariat"  For example, the USSR and their advanced uses of propganda.

You use a strong forceful and wise government lead by the few people that already believe in communism, or as much as someone can in the current mindset.

You target the young with the communist ideals and harshly punish disobediance, disagreement and counter teaching of parents and the students themselves until you get to the point where the vast majority of the people are reconditioned into believing that everything should be done for the good of society.

That's literally the first step Marx puts foward.

After the strong government had reconditioned everyone then it fades away and you get to "true" communism.  The reconditioning part is vital though.  That's why it had to be a WORLD revolution... because communism was seen even by it's creators as an "unnatural" state. 

Any capitalistic countries still in existiance would mess with the new communist society because communist doctors and scientists would get jealous of their rich foreign neighbors who got more then them... since jealousy and greed were considered natural human traits.

It's in the communist manifesto.  Not that it's relevent.  Quite honestly, if Marx was alive today... he probably wouldn't of even been a communist.  He saw communism as a drastic but needed measure because he thought the poor would never get any real hold in the economy or politics.

Here, I would strongly disagree. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it takes an even greater leap of faith to disbelieve than to believe. How?

One example: Fine-tuning of the universe...

The most fundamental characteristics and constants of our cosmos are perfectly calibrated to support organic life. This is sometimes called the Anthropic Principle (the universe seems designed to produce humanity). The odds against those fundamental regularities and constants happening by sheer chance are smaller than one-in-a-trillion.

But atheists are right in pointing out that this fine-tuning argument does not prove that a Creator exists. For example, maybe at the Big Bang an almost infinite number of parallel universes were created at once and we are in the universe that happens to have everything right...

However, consider the illustration of a poker game in which the dealer deals himself twenty straight hands of four aces. The other players are about to pummel the dealer for cheating when the dealer says, "wait, you can't prove I'm cheating; there are a trillion parallel universes and we just happen to be in the one where the chances of dealing twenty straight hands of four aces has been realized." He is strictly right; it is possible that there are trillions of universes and this is the one universe in which all those aces are dealt. But it's a lot more plausible to believe that he is cheating, so the dealer still gets beaten up. No one lives their life the way the dealer suggests. In the same way, the existence of all those fine-tuned constants is strong evidence that God exists.

You do realize that if you take it at a grand sacle of things, any single event has 0 probability of happening, right? However let's play it your way. Do you know what the chances of Christ being born was? Do you realize that the fact that Jesus being born and doing all he did in the exact way he did has a chance of 0? Do you know that Muhammad going into a cave and seeing the Archangel Gabriel also has a probability of 0? I am not saying that a supernatural being didn't fart one day and accidentally created our universe, or tinkered around with it to make it to its liking, what I am saying is that the supernatural being, Jesus, you believe in is bullshit, impossible, imporbable, and just stupid to believe in.

It's not about faith, but about plausability, and I find that story far more plausible than what happened in the Bible. Faith has nothing to do with it.

Edit:

For your benefit I will compare drugs and religions. Both have mind altering effects. In most cases both are extremely addictive, both can make a person feel a feeling of elation. Both have cause great turmoil in society, both can pass from parents to children easily. Both are used as an escape from reality, both are used as something to comfort someone when one is weak. The only difference is, that drugs are a physical body which can be consumed, meanwhile religion is an idea. Otherwise religions and drugs share far too many commonalities for religions to be considered anything other than a plight.

Religions had their uses back in the tribal days when rulers needed tools to control their people so a tribe couls survive and reproduce. That's why all tribes which believed in the supernatural survived, they could easily be controlled. However these tools are obsolete and antiquties in the modern world. Something not needed, something extremely primitive.

If you read the story I linked, I'd love to hear why that is less plausible than your Jesus Christ.