So let me get this straight then Night... believing as you do, yet knowing as much as you do, you still believe in God?
That is correct.
I know that man corrodes, manipulates, and corrupts for personal and political gains, though I also know that these corruptions are at most times based on source that is pure and factual.
Thats not to say that I am suggesting that a Jesus figure is real or not. Thats suggesting that what has come of religion today could have been on account of a genuine historical person or event, not necessarily what today portrays.
A jesus figure could have simply been a man that felt he was in tune with God, and never suggested he was actual son of God. He could have simply just been a man that said "love thy neighbor", and pointed out the corruption of the Jewish temples by the Romans.
Judea was rather a swing state at the time. Some folks were content to serve Romans, yet others would have longed for a time of return to independance. This populoust debate would have spanned all the way back hundreds of years, as they had been subject to the Ptolemaics and Seleucids.
Then could come along a guy that preached with an open heart to not be violent, and points out the corruption of the temple at the hands of the Romans (whiched pushed for the worship of their gods), and of course this wouldn't sit well with the Romans, and their loyalists, so they could have killed the guy, and viola - now they have a good passionate martyr tale to tell about. Of course with the spreading of this man's teachings, it would have grabbed a foothold on influence in the region, and the Romans would in time learn not to fuck with them after a series of revolts.
Then enter the splitting the of the Roman Empire in 2 halves, and the Greeks retaining power at Byzantium. The Greeks being notoriously lax on religion would have essentially said "fuck it", and allowed them to retain their religions, since they wanted the region stable. It's even said that the image we have of Jesus today, is modelled from the visage of the statue of Zeus, which had resided in said temple.
As for going back specifically to topic, yes I believe after all of it. We had to start from something, the universe that is. Since the Big Bang had a starting point.
The funniest thing is that many aetheists cite the Big Bang to refute theologans and christians against such notions as the young earth idea, and other religion related stances, yet they don't realize that citing the Big Bang, they are citing and affirming the work and studies of a Catholic priest - Lemaitre.
It took a priest, with an affirmed stance of creationism, along with a few others who later moved to support him, to bring us the accepted model of universal creation that we have today. He even presented his model to Einstein, which said "your math is correct, but your physics are flawed" or along such lines IIRC. Einstein supported a perpetual universe which was ironic since Lemaitre used Einstein's relativity model to come to the conclusion of Big Bang.
So.. Thats the accepted model today. And since the model suggests that 1. the bang came from a finite point, and that 2. it is still expanding, and that 3. the universe does have defined shape then:
A. The universe is an Isolated system. Scientifically the only Isolated system we know.
This is accepted science, and this suggests that there is nothing outside of our universe or else the notion that it is truely and isolated system is false.
And
B. The universe was formally at a finite point as is suggested by the Big Bang model. The notion that the universe created itself is obviously stupid, just as suggesting to someone that a vehicle just magically appeared in your driveway. So then what started the process of the Big Bang?
Now. With that question in mind you must come to question two things: Is time relevant to the creation of the universe?
If it is, then that is suggesting that this machine the universe, had to have started by a process or perhaps a being to which time and space do not apply.
If it is not, then that is suggesting that the finite point, which was the origin point of the Big Bang, existed as a finite point for some time.
This would mean, that taking into fact that since the universe is an isolated system, and the finite point of the BB existed on a timescale, this would then make that point formally a perpetual motion machine.
Since law of conservation of energy states that the total amount of energy in a closed system (or isolated system in case of universe) remains constant, then the isolated finite point that was the big bang could not have started the process on it's own without outside influence.
Laymens terms - If you put a ball in a cup, and leave it there without outside influences (time, gravity, wind etc.), theres no way in hell the ball can leave the cup.
This would then mean that a motion influenced the creation of the universe. This can be the case for a creator.
The alternative is that the universe is in fact not an isolated system, but rather a separate or contained system within another system. This means to suggest a notion such as a universe within a universe.
However that science being, this would mean that the fundamental properties which apply to this system or universe, should then apply to its host universe... time, space, matter etc.
This means that no matter how far you trace back the universe within a universe theory, all systems are homogenous, and time/space considering, would lead to an eventual point.
God.