What a great post.
I believe in God and that He sent His only Son, Jesus, to die for my sins. But I don't look at my relationship with God as a set of rules that must be followed. But out of love for Him, and going by what I read in the Bible, I choose to change my behavior little by little every day out of love. "Crucify the flesh" as the Bible says - my lust, my anger, my intolerance. Little by little, when I recognize it in me, I try to change it.
I also believe God created the world, the universe and everythying in it and I don't think it contradicts science at all. The big bang...okay, but where did it all start and how did that great mass get there? Evolution? Fine, but how did that living organism get there? Life came from something to start out with. The age of the world? Genesis says the world was without form and void and that His spirit hovered over the waters - pre-Adamic flood? Who really knows and I surely don't so I won't try to debate anything I've written thus far. But the story of Jesus Christ is beautiful to me and one that I truly believe even if out of faith alone.
But my day to day - it's kind of like a marriage. The day I got married, I didn't go down the list of all of those things I couldn't do anymore. I simply try to act in a way that is nonetheless imperfect, but nonetheless loving towards the person I'm in a relationship with. And Jesus said that if we love Him, we will keep his commandments and that the world would know that we are His disciples (believers) by the way we love one another - a point that in another post or two has been proven we Christians have failed time and time again.
I read a response that says we created God. I don't agree with that but respect and understand the person believing that way. The question I am left with is why did we feel the need to create God. What is in human nature that makes one seek something bigger than himself and even makes the atheist declare his disbelief? Every person in the world, I believe, has felt the need at some time to seek something bigger than himself...by that I mean God, or to someone who doesn't or didn't believe the way I do, a God-like power. (My opinion - I'm sure there are those out there that would argue they've never felt that need.)
In the book of Acts, Paul is addressing a crowd and he makes a comment to them (this is all from memory, so I could be wrong in my paraphrasing - feel free to correct) about seeing the statues of all the gods they worshiped leading up to where they were talking. And then he noticed a statue to an "unknown god". Paul said, "it is about this unknown god as you call it that I want to appeal to you". Even the crowd, with all of their other gods felt there was another one they couldn't quite put there finger on. This intrigues me to no end. Again, what a great post.