I believe it is the human understanding of God that makes people argue about what God is. Religion is carnal, and God is supernatural. God did NOT make ANY religion, that is a product of man by its very definition- a religion is a belief or a faith, which is a carnal product.
As much as you may KNOW that YOUR religion is right, I KNOW that it is not. My problem with the idea of relying on clergy to teach and lead the way, is that that is what you have been taught, whats wrong about it is, the very Bible that they claim to teach you, TELLS you to discern and learn for yourself, SEEK God and FIND God. There is so much in the Bible, even in modern translation that tells you that that which you are shown is not always the truth. For instance, Baptists and other denominations believe in salvation through faith, and that you are saved by the grace of God- but the "works" dont matter. It is strange to me that Catholicism teaches us to do the works and be saved, while Protestant denominations claim that you are saved simply by saying that Jesus is your savior.
Almost every scripture in the Bible that tells us that we are not saved by the works, BUT by the grace of God- include that the works are important and necessary. It is very easy to see that it is saying that you must live by the works and if you are saved you do automatically, because being saved magically makes you righteous. Doing the "works" is a product of being saved!
The entire concept that churches focus on completely falls short of the truth. Religion is simply a mechanism for forming societies and rules to live by. God did not create religion, mankind did. I believe that no religion is even close to the ACTUAL truth, but in fact supplemental because mankind is ignorant and NEEDS something to structure their lives by. The Christian religion speaks of "the milk" and "the meat" - describing the growth from baby to adult. The so-called experts, such as pastors, priests, all the way up to the Pope seem to believe that theyu are in "the meat" stage of religious knowledge - and they are, but "religious knowledge" is an oxymoron. They MAY be in the meat stages of RELIGION, but they are still in the MILK stages of reality. To preach that one religion is right and all others is wrong, is relative. It is relative to those who believe and have faith in that religion. All people are the children of God- all races, gender, size, faith, etc. ALL people are the children of God and referring to people as children of God is in itself a simple way for people to understand the relationship.
No religion is of God. Religion is man-made and puts carnal limits on God. God is ABOVE all religion and if Christians would pay attention to the stories of the Pharisees in the Bible, and look in the mirror- that passage where Jesus says he will not know them no matter how good they say they were- might make a little more sense.
I believe very highly in the moral values of the Bible. I just do not limit myself to the ignorance of mans intelligence at the time that the books of the Bible were written. "A man is wise with the wisdom of his time only, and ignorant with its ignorance."