- Do you believe in a God?
- Should people believe in a God?
- Do you think there is evidence of God?
- Is religion good?
- Does religion have anything of value to offer to society?
- Has religion ever had anything of value to offer to society?
To answer your questions: Yes, I believe in God, specifically the 'Christian' God. I don't think people should or shouldn't believe in God. I think people should believe in whatever they want, or nothing at all, if that's what they choose. I have not and will never be one to push my beliefs on anyone or demand that anyone believes a specific thing because belief is subjective, as all of us know. If someone doesn't experience something the same way I do, I do not and will not expect them to believe the same thing that I do in regards to that experience. Even if they did experience it the same way as I did, they could still develop their own thoughts and beliefs on that experience. Belief in a higher power or deity or God works the same way for me.
As for the next three questions, I'm not sure how to answer them. I think whether or not religion is good/bad, and whether or not religion offers anything valuable to society depends entirely upon the people who follow it.
To get a little deeper on the subject of my personal beliefs, I grew up in a Christian home. I went through a period in time where I believed that there was a higher power that created everything, but 'stepped away' after that if you will. After having a few personal experiences during that period in time that I felt like was God revealing his existence to me in a sense, I have gone back to believing in some of the basics of Christianity. But, I also believe in reincarnation because there are scriptures that I believe refer to reincarnation (I have a couple of links to an interesting forum post and an article on that if anyone's interested), and a few other things that are generally not accepted by most Christian denominations and sects.
So I don't know if I could call myself a Christian at this point or not. I mean, some things just don't make sense to me. For example, why would people be born with what we consider 'psychic' abilities (and if you don't believe people are born with such abilities, or don't believe in God/a god, look at this question hypothetically) if God didn't want people dabbling in the 'occult'? Why wouldn't that be considered a spiritual gift instead of occult practice? This may be on the edge of conspiracy--but my personal answer to this question is because those who put the 'canon' Bible together wanted people to stay ignorant and didn't want people to expand on their God given (or natural if you do not believe in God/a god) abilities.
Another thing that I often think about is, how do we know all books that were included in the canon Bible are God-inspired as Christians say, but those that are not included are not? Especially considering that MAN put the canon Bible together. But anyway, the way that I read the Bible because of these thoughts that I have is, I read and then pray about it. I also take a good bit of the Bible as metaphorical rather than literal, and I also see it as guidance for a Christian life, not necessarily the end all be all. I also think that when reading certain books of the Bible, the context, time it was written (if there is an estimated time available for that specific book), and who it was addressed to needs to be taken into consideration a lot more than it actually is. I am well aware that none of this really lines up with 'normal' Christian beliefs but I guess that's the beauty of individuality and all of us having our own minds, thoughts and experiences. Maybe I'm more spiritual than anything else at this point.
So anyway, I just wanted to give some more input. I'm open for discussion and insight.