Challenging Judeo-Christian beliefs important part of faith

I am enthralled by religion and especially the Judeo-Christian faiths. I am curious how we the people of planet Earth believe in divinity and what we believe about it. I have an intense desire to know if "TRUTH" (with a very large capital "T") lies somewhere out there in the expanse of the universe. I can think of no other thing that would be more pleasing to me than meeting "GOD" face to face and basking in that awesome power.

So I have searched through the Bible to find some answers. I have gone back and forth in my degree of belief. I have talked to many faithful followers, only to find that they disagree with each other as much about the scriptures as I do with them.

I find myself in a constant conundrum. Though we have been taught by our society that the Judeo-Christian God is an eternally benevolent being who wants only the best for us, much of the Bible challenges that belief.

If I didn't know better, I would think that this is a modern speech by Saddam Hussein.

I ask you, where is the justice in this? How can a God who so loves the world, condemn it to the rape of men's wives and the destruction and murder of babies?

If we had a king or president who sat back during a time of civil disobedience and said, "I don't care what you do. I have the power to stop you from raping and destroying each other, but I condemn you to do it anyway," what would you do? Would you sit back and say that he is still a great king? Almost certainly not. We would say that that man is wicked and without justice. Yet the standard is apparently inapplicable to God for many people.

In Exodus, we have the problem of Pharoah. Pharoah is holding the Hebrews captive and refuses to release them when asked by Moses to let them go. Exodus 9:12 states that, "The Lord stiffened the heart of Pharoah . . . "

In essence, because Pharoah would not let the Hebrews go, God makes it impossible for him to do so. Then, because Pharoah won't release the Hebrews, God destroys the first-born sons of an entire nation.

Once again I ask you where is the justice? Doesn't this annihilate the God-given "free will" of the Pharoah? Apparently.

If in the recent Iraqi crisis, we were to harden Saddam's heart via remote control and force him to have no alternative but to go to war with us, would that be good?

And what about the dinosaurs? These awesome and beautiful creatures are never even mentioned. Snakes get plenty of mention, so do lions, lambs, cattle, whales, birds and so on. Never once a beast that even resembles a Brachiosaurus or a Tyrannosuarus rex is noted. You would think that of all of God's creations these would at least get a mention somewhere. Maybe all records of them were destroyed during the flood.

But then why weren't they saved from the flood? Apparently all of the animals of the Earth were represented in Noah's ark. But all of the dinosaurs were destroyed either then or shortly thereafter.

It seems to me that after these findings I must come to the conclusion that one or a combination of the following three things is true.

1. We must come to a new understanding of the ways in which God works.

2. We must realize that God is not the perfect being we imagine him to be.

3. We have simply misunderstood what he has done.

In all of this I don't wish to point the finger at God. I understand the wickedness of men, but the restrictions we have placed on God in the Bible limit God to the likeness of an ill-tempered man who lacks the eternal patience, love and justice we so frequently attribute to him.

The Bible portrays him as a frequently horrifying being who doesn't know how to contain and teach his creations except to eradicate them, condemn them to depravity or revoke their freedom.

This also leads me to believe that many people throughout history have had their view of the universe skewed by an ill-conceived tradition that resides in fear and not in the glorious light of discovery that comes with skepticism.

For all of you who claim to already know God, I hope that you will think about these statements, and I most sincerely hope that all of you will never stop seeking the "TRUTH", wherever it may be.