These are my own interpretations.

I have had some very thought provoking conversations (you know who you are and thank you for your patience despite my attitude) and I have come to several conclusions based off of them. These are revolutionary concepts; they are not what most people discuss.

I have been taught various things, but I feel even the various different interpretations all have the same major flaws. I'm going to have to explain this in steps so please bear with me.

First: Most, if not all interpretations of Christianity say God is
1. Omnipotent - all-powerful, aka he can do all things, not including paradoxes like rocks so big even he cannot lift. This one is to my knowledge fairly easy to interpret. He can create anything, defeat anything, etc.
2. Omniscient - all knowing. This one is a little trickier. From what I can say, this means God knows everything in the past, present and future. He knows every decision you will make from now until the day you die. He knows everything any one of his angels would do. He literally knows everything.

If God is Omniscient and Omnipotent, then it stands to reason that he controls us - Christians often tell me of "God's plan" for me. That's always the excuse when something horrible happens. It was God's plan. More on this later.

So here are my issues. I've recently been taught that all the evil in the world is actually Good gone sour - and it certainly makes sense (to me anyway) and jives extremely well with the biological concept of morality. Wait, what's that you ask?

Biological Morality - all of our morals stem from our basic instincts. Don't kill me, don't take my stuff. This extends to friends and family when humans - a social creature - makes a herd. Herd instincts spread out our individual morality into "don't kill my friends, and don't take their stuff". This levels up to the national level etc, easy to understand.

Anyway, understanding that Good gone sour is clearly our instincts taking over on the selfish level, aka only "don't kill me, and I'll kill you first just in case" instead of caring about your neighbor. Stealing comes from needing things in order to survive. Etc.

Some Christians also maintain the concept that humans have free will. Well obviously I think we have free will because there is no Deity controlling us as far as I know. That's the simplest concept of free will: No God in control.

But wait: God has a plan already made for me. Everything terrible that happens to me is part of his plan. So... that means I was supposed to forget my paper and fail that class? God knew I was going to do it, afterall, didn't he? He's omniscient afterall. Or maybe I join a gang and sell drugs and end up dying in a gun fight that also kills an innocent child. God's plan, all that suffering. So I can't really have free will if I'm just an actor in the play.

There was the thing about evil being part of the Good that God sent down that just went bad. Supposedly, God is gathering warriors to join in the battle against the Good-Gone-Bad. I viewed this as God's arm gone black, the rest of him white and glowing. The warriors are shooting little white zaps at the arm to make it white again. Silly, yes. But accurate.

Anyway, this goes back into that whole Omnipotence thing. If God IS all powerful, then why doesn't he just... fix his arm? Why doesn't he just fix all the Good-gone-bad and make it good again? He CAN, can't he? He's Omnipotent. He can do anything.

People may say "oh, he's just doing to to make us better people". He already knows who the better people are. He already knows who the murderers are, who your uncle accidentally ran over and when you'll die. Right? He controls your entire life because he has a plan for you. So he's not really recruiting warriors because he's already chosen them. He's just watching this whole play that he wrote.

Is he making his chosen individuals "better"? Maybe. But why does he let other people die? Does he really need to have Sally's "plan" in life to become clinically depressed and commit suicide so that her sister can learn the value of life? That seems terribly convoluted. God knew Sally would kill herself.

I hope I haven't confused anyone yet.

If God is Omniscient and Omnipotent he is one HELL of a lazy fruck. He could fix himself and he could make everyone's life wonderful. Instead he purposely makes - not lets, makes - us suffer, just because he can.

I figure none of that makes any lick of sense, not from the way the bible is written and not from the way Christians spread the word - aside from the whole God's Plan part.

So, I say... God is neither Omniscient for Omnipotent. He is very powerful and he does know a lot. He may indeed know us inside and out like a good parent knows their child. He may know how we will probably react in many situations and has plans set out for us... but we can still mess up those plans.

For example, I had someone tell me that if Mary had not accepted God's annunciation, he would have found someone else. Clearly he cannot be omniscient or omnipotent in that case because Mary had free will. God correctly guessed how she'd respond and picked the right lady.

THAT is why our disobedience hurts him as the bible says. He does not control us. There is no play, there is no plan. He does not say "when Jane is 15 she will drive drunk and kill her best friend". I think he probably doesn't write up plans for most of us and instead lets us LIVE. He may come down at certain points and call us to his warriors, but he doesn't micromanage our lives.

Secondly, he is not Omnipotent. Clearly he cannot control Satan. He also cannot fix his arm - alone. He cannot change the Good-gone-sour back into good without the help of his warriors. He needs us.

If you read the bible you already know God's flaws. You already know he is not the omniscient and omnipotent person some people claim him to be. He is a caring, loving deity. He is powerful and very knowing.

All this said, I don't still think I believe in God, unless someone says I'm right. These are just conclusions I've come to.