I believe Christianity is a symbolic religion. I do not take the Biblical ideas of a son of god or salvation or atonement or any of it literally. To me, Christianity is just a refinement of earlier religions. As humans have evolved spiritually throughout time, they have come up with more complex ways of explaining the unexplainable.

If you explore some of the beliefs of civilizations such as the Egyptians, they were polytheistic and worshipped gods such as Ra, the sun god, the god of light, the supreme god. In other words, the sun *was* god. Without the sun there is no life. Egyptians merged their sun god Ra with Amun, the creator god.

Christians believe that Jesus is the son of God. Without the son there is no (eternal) life. God the supreme creator god, is a god of light (see Genesis) and he is merged with the son (sun). Many Christians end prayers with the word "Amen" which originates from the Egyptian god Amun.

Many Christians are aware of the pagan traditions that still permeate their religion, but many of them downplay them. My take on Christianity is that it is basically a pagan religion, with a bit of mysticism thrown in for interest. The ideas of salvation through faith in Jesus and his atonement for our sins may have been a way to differentiate it from other existing "mystery cults" of the time, which also touted ideas of salvation through faith in a god. I do not believe that salvation through faith is possible, or even necessary. I do not believe in atonement because I don't believe in a god that keeps score, so there is no such thing as sin. I think the idea of sin was invented to provide a way of controlling people by fear of retribution or an eternity in agony if they sinned. Most religions were invented for largely political reasons, and I believe that Christianity is one of them.

I consider Jesus to be one of many spiritual leaders of the time. He may have been more "enlightened" than most, which is why he may have become so popular. I think he had a deeper understanding of the universe than most people did at that time, but I do not think he was divine, or the son of god. I do not think he intended to start a religion, either. I think some of his followers started Christianity after Jesus was killed, and they wrote stuff down in that really big book called the Bible.

Historical evidence seems to indicate that the New Testament portion of the Bible was written about 100 years after Jesus died. In my opinion, it is an historically based mythology, that is not of divine origin. That doesn't mean it doesn't contain truth though. I think one can learn a lot from the Bible, especially the New Testament. It contains a lot of useful philosophical ideas. But I do not think it is meant to be taken literally.