what believers accept without thinking

[Drich]

Actually, I think that believing and thinking are antithetical concepts, but a couple of statements from my dark youth when I tried so hard to believe what really did not make sense come to mind.
1. The statement that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.  Even if you accept the bible as true ( your poor sods) how can you believe this.

because no one race or religion has the only key to Heaven. The key is Christ and all who approach Him are welcomed.

 In all the eons of time during which our eternal souls are supposed to have existed from the beginning,

The bible does not say this.

God let his son be born into a good, respected family on earth,

Poor Hardworking family who's linage would have Joseph be king of Jerusalem if not occupied by Rome.

where he lived for approximately 30 years.  Then he spent 3 years as an itinerant preacher.

Rabbi/not to split hairs.

 His last couple of days were pretty terrible, but in reality not as bad as some of the days visited by his followers on people they thought did not toe the line of their particular dogma adequately or who did things thought to be witchcraft etc.

Not sure what this means.

 Then he ascended into heaven to sit upon the right hand of god.

After personal betrayal, a religious betrayal, and betrayal of the state, He took a savage beating One so severe that if left alone would have caused death. Yet he was made to march outside of down with his implement of destruction on his back. Then Nail to the cross. and between then and the point of resurrection He died or was separated from God. (endured Hell) and under his own power came back from all of that, and rather simply sit at the right hand of God He offers The path back from Death to anyone who will accept it.

In essence is beating and the method of death was a physical representation of the Pain God endured to provide us with salvation. If you can not still imagine that amount of pain take a hammer and smash one of your digits flat. Now imagine having to do that do save someone's life. would you do that? would you consider that a personal sacrifice. Your a fool if you say no. of course it is a sacrifice, so then imagine that trauma being visited all over the body for 6 to 9 hours and then death/Hell from 3 days to 3 thousand years.

 So what the heck did god actually give?  

aside from the pain and the time in Hell?

He loaned his son for a short while then got him back.

did He? The bible shows us Jesus/God the Son died to God the Father. Then It shows we become heirs or adopted sons and daughters, (take the place of God the Son) as the church or as a whole we become the bride of Christ. It would seem that Jesus is having to "marry" back into the House of God. with this specific use of analogies.

2.  In the creed, the prayer says "whose service is perfect freedom"  Just plain nonsense.

Which is maybe why it is not in the bible.

We could find such nonsense ad nauseum.  People accept blindly without thinking.

Some do.. and some have given a lifetime of thought to this subject matter.

 Also, why must we respect others' religious beliefs?

Maybe look to history to see what happens when we don't.

 I do not respect their beliefs even though I respect their right to them, no matter how inane.

Same goes for you sport.