Religion as explained by Gran!

I spent a day out with my grandmother recently and our topic of conversation swiftly changed to that of religion when I questioned how she perceives 'God'. Now my gran is a devout Christian.... goes to church every Sunday, helps and organises the church bazaars etc. I was interested to know how she could base her lifestyle on a religion that has so many flaws in the story.

First of all I challenged her to the question, if this God blokey made the whole world in seven days... around the same time he impregnated Mary to have the immaculate conception then how did he create the dinosaurs? This was before Jesus I'm sure? I also thought while I was at it I would point out that there are many different Gods from different countries thought to have created the earth... they couldn't all be right?

Then I asked if she actually viewed God as a person or a force because as a non-religious person it has always been unclear to me. There are plenty of illustrations of Jesus on the crucifix but rarely do you see a painting of God. My gran said a bit of both... now there is an answer from somebody who knows exactly what she believes in aye?!

I then made a suggestion that could have gotten me into deep water and pushed down a couple of steps on the favourite grandchild ladder... lol. I said that I thought maybe some people that follow Christianity and go to church every Sunday practising their 'beliefs' don't at all believe in all the unplausible bible stories but base their lives on the church as it is a clean and honest way of living. They do it to give themselves a guide of what is acceptable for them to do.

I was shocked that she admitted that in her case this is partly true. While she did go on about how many of the things in the bible that people used to brand as complete rubbish can now be proved, she also said that some of it probably was made up to give people that couldn't get their head around how we got here an answer. For people to believe that we are here from a force so powerful that we don't understand it... in a way made sense to them.

It seems silly that a thing that may have been partially made up to keep people in line is one of the main causes of war in this world. Could it be that countries are fighting and killing each other over something actually quite false?