Problems with Christian Church

[MTL]

I have a few questions regarding your perspectives on the church and Christianity..

**What are the big problems/issues you see in the Christian church today?

**Is your perspective of the former question from the inside (ie, your background was in church) or that of an outsider looking in? What took you away from church, if your background was church?

**What do you think about the person Jesus Christ? Is he real, historical person? Faked?

**What is the point or purpose in your life? What do you live for?

I'm especially interested in your responses to the first question!!

I only feel I have anything interesting to say about some of these questions:

First question:

Biggest problems in the Christian church is the same as all churches:  Dogma.

I have no problem with the idea of god, but religion/dogma is reprehensible.
If there IS a God, I can't imagine him having anything to do with any world religion,
Abrahamic religions most certainly included.

If there is such a thing as real Heresy,
is the practice of placing parameters onto a God when no one can prove which set of parameters is the right one.

God should be universally agreed-upon to be unknowable, and it should be regarded as blasphemy to hold up any book as "holy" or to preach what you "know" about God, unless you can PROVE it beyond all contest.

I think if there IS a god out there to be found, the very first step must be to REJECT all Religion, all dogma, all Holy Writs, all Prophets, blah blah blah.  Anything that professes itself to be truth but can't prove it.

You cannot pursue the TRUTH with any degree of integrity as long as you allow yourself to be biased by BELIEF.

Second question:  My perspective is that of a former Christian.  I am now Agnostic and Anti-Theist.

What drove me from the church was its corruption, stupidity, hypocrisy, politics and judgment.

What drove me from Religion was logic and honesty.

What conclusively drove me from Jesus Christ was a dream I had wherein Jesus cut open my chest from the inside, and slipped out, looking right at me, and left me, when only the night before I hit rock bottom and confessed my struggles with faith and begged for his peace, mercy and guidance.  I took a leap of faith, in short, and then at dawn the next day had a dream of Jesus leaving me, no explanation given.

which brings me to question 3:

I think Jesus Christ is either fictious, and my dream was my unconscious brain acknowledging that I simply couldn't continue to subscribe to a childish theory of a Deity,

OR, Jesus Christ was very much real, and DID enter my heart when I invited him to, when I was a child, but as an adult, I saw through all the BS and considered several theories...one of which might have struck a nerve; I considered that all gods, throughout history, DO exist, but are beings just like us, not the Creator, but would have us think so,
because they are actually weaker than us and jealous of us, and get all of their energy from mankind's focus, which is why our prayers are so valued by them.  So they use trickery to manipulate our fear and ignorance into believing that they are angels, or the Creator of All Things, when in fact they are weaker than us.

So, if Jesus is real at all, and he is a single entity, I think he is basically what you would call a demon.
And when I figured out his bluff, he knew it was time to get the hell out of Dodge,
and, not being truly Holy, he didn't bother to try to save face
...he just fled, like any petty exorcised demon that has been routed.

It explains the petulant, irrational, bullying behavior of all gods, throughout history, too.

But far more likely is that he just doesn't exist at all,
and my brain was telling me I don't need that fairytale anymore.

As to question 4, I feel that is too personal a question.