true believers

According to statistics, 2.1 billion people adhere to Christianity, effectively claiming belief in the beliefs thereof, or the "core beliefs" at the very least. Well, aside from the obvious fact that many of not most of these people are not actually serious in their beliefs, do they actually believe at all?

From the time I became a Christian (~2.5 years old) to the time I renounced it (~18.5 years old) I would have to say that, even though I was an active believer, went to church every week, and youth group, and on top of that participated in choirs, plays, and for ~2.5 years excelled in Christian schools- gaining a large amount of Bible knowledge all the way. In fact, the mission statement of Los Gatos Christian church was a paraphrase of the one I wrote. ("was", because due to a merge with South Valley Christian Church to become Venture church, all of core values/etc were rewritten to accommodate both church; to think that churches would "merge", as if they were businesses- guess that a capitalistic church is only natural in a capitalistic U.S., lol.) But even with all that, did I actually believe?

To better clarify the question, I'll inform you that despite as shown by the above statements, I was a strong and active Christian. There was one crucial factor missing. And that fact is a question, "Why?". I stayed a Christian, because I never asked the question, instead assuming I knew. But finally, after settling from the constant chaos of my mind, I gained the peace I needed to determine the answer to that question. And gradually, the answer became clear, and led to my current belief system, which ironically leaves God out of the picture.

However, this problem, the problem with neglecting to ask the question "why?" extends far beyond religions, and extends into all of the core elements of life, probably more most people. Here are a few of the elements in which neglecting answering the question leads to trouble:

Why do I love you?
Why am I dissatisfied with the state of the government?
Why do I think Bush is awesome? (Big trouble, at least with me, lol)
Why do I have certain habits? (fill in blank)
Why do I determine within three seconds whether I'm interested in someone?
(you know who you are)
Why have I chosen my current career?
Why do I adhere to certain beliefs?
Why would I be rejected?
Why not trust people?
Why not be honest?
Why does it matter what people think about me?

The list goes on forever, so I guess I'll spare you. All the above questions cause trouble for many people if not answered, and for many people, the answer to all of them is simple: No reason. A lot of life is about thinking about the "why?'s, because otherwise you'll find yourself living a lifestyle that won't even make sense from your own perspective. The ability to reason is one of the few qualities that separates humans from animals. Forget about the why?'s and...you'll be little more than an animal, frankly.