>Why didn't God create
>ready-made saints
>instead of putting us through
>this vale of
>tears?

Would you want to be a ready-made saint? With your earlier assertions about Nirvana, it would seem to follow that being a ready-made saint would be an almost non-existence. You can never have rewards without risk or excitement without danger. If you take away the tears, you take away the smiles. If you take away the bruises, you take away the kisses.

Also, why would God want to create ready-made saints? He would be like a little boy playing with his little robot toys in a world where everything is under his control. But little boys get tired of their own little worlds. They trade those lonely worlds for a world in which they can feel companionship. They sacrifice some of their omnipotence in order to live in a world of free will. The world they choose is one in which other people are free to love them of their own accord rather than a world where G.I. Joe salutes because he must do everything a little boy commands. It's so much more gratifying to live in a world where a little red-haired girl can decide to kiss you. But part of that world is the possibility that she might not. One can't pursue companionship without risk of rejection.

Religion, discipline, and hypocrisy are all separate issues that have more to do with the nature or people than the nature of God. Churches and religious laws are social institutions that try to give people a reason not to give in to the desire to destroy each other. As I mentioned in another post, religion isn't the only social institution that does this.

I've been a Christian all my life and I'm going to be a minister but I'll rant and rail about hating church more than most atheists. I could go blue in the face with all my complaints about church and the role it serves in our society. My personal spiritual belief is that we ought to move beyond needing a social structure to keep our destructive tendencies in check by moving into a more intimate relationship with the living God. As a Christian, I believe the only way to come into a closer relationship with God is through Jesus. The whole church thing, that's just a bunch of details. And I think the Christian church has gotten many of those details wrong.