I don't think that if there is a judgement day, whenever that happens, that any God will fault me for having doubts.
Just thought I'd mention, as a bit of a trivia: Most of the things mentioned about "Judgement Day" in the Bible have already happened in the past, and the book might actually be referencing them in imaginative terms as "how it might look like" (and Science does say that there will be more extinction events to come in the future, perhaps until 4 billion years or more, but don't know when).
It's not so much about "repenting for sins" as it's about "trying to have the best attributes necessary to survive" (as evolutions in the past have noted). Our current paradigm shift towards universal empathy might just help in some way.
Also, quite the majority of Christians don't know this, but scholars (and even mathematicians) believe that
the Beast 666 was actually Nero Caesar]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkZqFtYtqaI]the Beast 666 was actually Nero Caesar. And it seems to be a fairly logical assumption too!
I know one thing. Christianity can make some really shitty people into good, upstanding citizens.
It can also turn otherwise good people into rabid, frothing heathens that hate just to hate. I believe that, as Christ taught, every person on this planet is an equal. You love your neighbor as you would love yourself, the Second Greatest Commandment.
As much as I'd hate to say it, there's one thing that Gandhi says that really strikes true here: "I like Christ, but I don't like your Christians." It's largely accepted that Christ, along with other "pillars" of philosophies and reason, helped inspire Gandhi to war against sexism and make non-violence fashionable again.
Science is relatively happy with such possibilities, though that does mean that eventually science will probably have to throw its hands up in a very religious-like way and say that some things are the way they are "just because." As far as we are aware, we can only observe, and thus scientifically understand, things within our universe.
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,9588.msg216790.html#msg216790But if the universe were created by a creator being, then we can start applying certain assumptions based on what sort of being that might be. A "mad, blind god" should have produced chaos, an "idiot-god" would have produced something like the Discworld universe, a rational god something more, well, rational. Of course, science already makes the assumption that this is a rational world, but it would be nice is that wasn't just a necessary assumption but one backed up with umph.
Now, here I'd like to ask an important question:
I've always believed that poets and artists often asked the most important questions and held "maybe" as artform, out of curiosity, that would eventually inspire logicians to seek out an answer in the most "technical" means available. This cycle may then be important so that scientists find actual truth to previous questions, replacing poet's versions of contemplation where the artists bring the concepts to the common people in accessible ways. Then the poet would take those resources to ask more questions, keeping the cycle going.
Now, Occam's Razor is one such important "assumption substitute", where the simplest answer would suffice until you get the actual one. Wouldn't it, then, make it sensible for ancient religions to use Occam's Razor (and add details because every author loves to play with surrealism, including me and Masato Kato) by first deeply contemplating on existence itself and sticking to the simplest explainations for the sake of cultural symbology and reference, especially when the Akkadians didn't exactly have a Hubble telescope to verify?
Ancient Religion: "How was the universe created, you say? Judging by how things are created by sculptures, I'd say someone created the universe too! Proof? Er... Look, cookie!"
New Science: "How was the universe created, you say? Judging by the theory that a Black Hole's mass reaches infinity, creating incomprehensible amount of gravity, I'd say the density focuses on a single point called 'singularity', and I believe that's where the universe formed, its own singularity, popping from nothing to something. After all, when you have nothing, only then you crave for something.... right? Proof, you ask? Er... Look through this telescope, it should be right there. Keep looking, while I.. er.. go get coffee... *runs away, doesn't return, because apparently the door is a scientist's event horizon*"