I'm a christian. I'm admittedly not a very good christian. I was raised as a christian by my parents who taught me who God is and what spirituality is. I thought I had it all figured out. I went to church often growing up and had heard hundreds of sermons on what it is to be a christian and how to act. I thought I was a well informed christian, that is until I actually read the Bible for myself after I turned 20. I reached a turning point in my life where I couldn't believe something based on my parents anymore. If I was going to follow this religion I wanted to know if it was real.
It was then that I realized how little I knew about my faith even though I was a church goer my whole life. I found out that the scriptures that are most used by churches and believers are only a tiny part of the entire story. In almost every church I have been to, the whole focus is on you. This is how you can improve your life, this is how you can be a better person, this is how how you can be successful, this is how you can find fulfillment, this is how you overcome guilt, this is how you get to heaven, etc.
When I actually read the bible though, I found out that the old testament is about us, but not about how great we are as people or how we overcame our human nature. It is about how flawed and terrible man is. The OT is filled with tons of laws, tons of rules and tons of regulations and in every book of the bible, God's chosen people break them over and over and over again. Abraham was a liar, Solomon was a slave trader and womanizer, David was a murderer and adulterer, Paul was a brutal man who persecuted innocents, Moses was stubborn and disobeyed God, etc. What got me was just how realistic it was. Every other religion has religious men that are revered and exalted but Bible heroes were always shown as flawed and corruptible men. I will admit, this of itself does not add any credence to the existence of God, I just thought it was interesting.