The most important reason I'm xtian

[Tonus]

My only question... why be a Christian? You sound more like my own younger brother who is an agnostic.

It sounds to me as if he's taking a practical approach, based around his human psychology. His belief in the teachings of Christ helped him overcome certain problems, and maintaining the ruse that he "is a Christian" helps him to manage his behavior. I find it very clever. I believe that we are generally slaves to our subconscious, but the more we understand about how it works and what he happen to have lurking in ours, the better we are able to use it to our advantage.

I still adhere to nearly all of the behavioral precepts of Christianity. Realizing that god wasn't there did not change my feelings about the best ways to behave for my own best results. I simply shed the stuff that wasn't very useful (time wasted in church meetings and door-to-door evangelizing, for example) and kept the stuff that was. To this day I can still rationalize why I avoid certain behaviors even if those rationalizations are suspect (I don't smoke weed and very very rarely drink, for example). It works and helps me to build the life I want to have, so there's no reason to work against it.