#2 What you should doubt about your doubt:Belief in God has only messed things up in the world.

Why would you want to be a Christian? 

Christians are racist Republican homophobes who care more about their churches, Bibles and teaching creation in schools than they do about the things that really matter in the world.  In fact, it seems that everything Christianity touches wreaks of havoc . . . those big-haired preachers are all liars and hypocrites, Hitler rose to power using scripture, the church put us in the dark ages, teenage girls were burned at the stake for being 'witches' and of course the crusades . . . Christianity leaves a trail of disaster!

Alright, come on now . . . I hope we are all savvy enough to know how things can be manipulated.  Yes, these things are all true about people that claimed to be Christian and did horrible things.  But consider these facts just from six countries and only from the 20th century:

* 61 million Soviet citizens were killed under the atheistic communist regime of the USSR.

* Over 9 million people were murdered by the atheists under Joseph Stalin.  

* Pol Pots regime in Cambodia was atheistic and slaughtered almost 2 million people underneath him.  

* Some people estimate that almost 76 million have been killed because of their political and religious beliefs by Chinese rulers.

* The 20 year Ethiopian atheistic regime claimed the lives of almost 1.5 million innocent citizens.

* North Korea, an atheistic state, has killed over 3 million of its citizens.

Wouldn't we conclude from this alone that all atheists are murderous and treacherous little beasts?  Of course we conclude that communism is intellectually bankrupt, right?  In fact, we should probably come to the conclusion that atheism doesn't exist because the people who practice it are so morally reprehensible.  If atheism was really credible, there wouldn't be so many evil atheists.

Now of course these stats don't change the depth and inspiration of the Communist Manifesto.   The idea still has wonderful merit (everyone sharing with each other - property redefined as belonging to those who are in need).  It just tends to not work very well with humans.  In principle, it is a beautiful thought.  But I am not going to condemn Marx and Engels because a guy named Brezhnev used the Communist structure to murder innocent people.  

 . . . and neither should we judge the Christian faith because of the ignorant and evil acts of some who called themselves Christian.