I want to approach this in such a way as to not offend - though on this subject that may well be impossible.
I'm not a believer - I do not believe in "God," or any "gods." I am an existentialist.
A bit on that from the Wikipedia entry on existentialism:
The early 19th century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard is regarded as the father of existentialism.[5][6] He maintained that the individual is solely responsible for giving his or her own life meaning and for living that life passionately and sincerely,[7][8] in spite of many existential obstacles and distractions including despair, angst, absurdity, alienation, and boredom.[9]
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
I was not born into wealth, and for a long time I resented that; I felt shortchanged by "God," or fate, or whoever was steering the world. I grew up in a neighborhood populated with working-poor people, people whose back-breaking jobs bring little compensation, people who largely depend upon an almost mystical belief in luck. "Good luck," they believe, lifts people up, but the people in my neighborhood had a paralyzing history of "bad luck."
Sons take their fathers' seats at the neighborhood pub once they are old enough and their fathers die an untimely death brought on by hard working and hard living.
If you depend upon "luck," or "God," to do the heavy lifting, you avoid taking responsibility for your own actions, and you can fall victim to that mystical faith in "luck." Put another way, you can succumb to the surprisingly strong hegemonic embrace of the notion that one should not attempt to leave one's socioeconomic caste.
If you embrace those things, you can all-too-easily become stuck in the gravity well of what you were born into.
Despite his manifold failing, the character Rorschach hit the nail on the head when he said the following:
"This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us."
"God" didn't shortchange me. "Fate" didn't shortchange me. I was born into socioeconomic and geographic conditions that would have me only grudgingly complete high school, get a crap job, take my father's seat at the neighborhood tavern, and bemoan my bad luck.
Fuck that. As an existentialist, I own my life. I take responsibility for my own life and my own forward and upward progress and my own accomplishments. I do not keep around a "devil" to blame for making me do bad things, nor a wish-granting, magical being who listens when I put my palms together and whisper to Him in the night.
In short, my life has no room for astonishingly Santa-like beings keeping a list of whether I am naughty or nice. This is my life. These are my circumstances, and they are mine to alter with my own effort. I recognize that that also means that I do not believe that when I eventually die, I will be transported to a place paved with gold (why do I need gold in the afterlife?), where I will drop everything and sing praises forever.
This also means that I am responsible to myself for my own actions. I behave ethically and morally not because of "God"'s naughty-or-nice list, not because "God"'s gonna getcha, but because I am an adult who chooses to do the right thing(s).
Another Angle
According to the various string theories, we exist in a universe that spans anywhere from 11 to 24 dimensions. You and I perceive four - that is, three spatial and one time dimension.
If we allow for even one additional spatial dimension, Many Worlds Theory becomes possible. After that, your guess is as good as mine - and possibly better. Given the enormity of it all, I acknowledge that I am a finite, limited being, and that the Big Picture is beyond my perception. I'll keep trying, but just adding a fourth spatial dimension is about as far as I can get, conceptually.
I other words, I don't know squat about the Big Picture. But I am reasonably certain that a book that forbids the consumption of shellfish on pain of death is not a roadmap to said Big Picture.
Have your faith. I am not surprised that people find solace in faith, as pursuits of ultimate truths are only human nature. But to me, it'd all just so irreconcilable, so preposterous, that I simply cannot.